Does anyone else out there find it difficult if not impossible to run a "good" dairy department? Even when I have a person that can work more than 120-150 cases in an 8 hour shift, the task seems insurmountable. Shelves stocked, milk freshness, product rotation, cleaning, sales planning, lack of support from management, lack of labor due to calamity (ex. call-offs), etc.
Dairy needs an overnight replenishment person, in my opinion. Fill up the shelves while cleaning and upholding freshness guidelines. This way, when the morning dairy person comes in, he/she can focus on maintaining product and working trucks, rather than start off his/her shift with a dairy truck and little or no milk/eggs on shelves. Like other departments though, dairy suffers from Kroger being stingy on the hours and a combination of closing co-managers failing to make sure departments get a good close and employees that don't really care to work that hard for a dime or two over minimum wage.
You understand TOTALLY. I believe night stocking is the proper course. The only problem is maintaining coverage as dairy is a service department, I don't care what anybody says to the contrary. I believe any medium and small store, >60k sq Ft, $500k or less weekly shares in this dilemma. Any more I get a little over 90 hours a week and between 12-16 hours total daily department labor. Keeping in mind, dry grocery and frozen foods ELMS are spread thin as well. Rob Peter to pay Paul, somebody will end up behind. Situation compounds during government benefits influx, or first if the month as we like to call it. Btw, my store manager will not approve night stocking in dairy.
Of course your store manager isn't going to approve overnight dairy replenishment. That would mean having to allot more hours to the department, and we all know the company isn't going to sign off on that, despite it being to the benefit of the customers. How nice would it be coming in at the start of the day and seeing plenty of milk, eggs, cheese and whatnot on the shelves, leaving you with giving the morning truck top priority, followed by filling any holes that could be filled as a result of working that truck? It's so much easier to clean overnight, too, when there are no customers around. Our dairy lead loses even more time during the week due to him and others in his department getting stuck with having to go up and down the aisles performing scans on any holes that they come across... thus further limiting their time that they have to work in their department. It's a mess and customers often can't find what they want in the department due to there being holes for products that are sitting in the dairy cooler. Well, that's Kroger's fault - not the employee's. When you keep piling stuff on a person's plate and don't give that person any additional help to compensate, yeah, problems are going to come up and not as much is going to get done. If you (Kroger) want to take care of the customer, stop being so damn cheap. It will come back to bite you time and time again.
Well that's the thing, isn't it? Hours become less and less with each passing month. Expect more and more from near minimum wage employees. Their not having it, they will move on. You can't really train people. When the job isn't getting done, all you get from GO and zone management is "you're not doing it right!" And department managers get shell shock, stressed, sleepless nights and whatnot. In the end we are expendable and will be replaced by someone who will incur the same misery. Store management is being micromanaged more and more and speak of this openly. We dont have the ability to run our own stores because Kroger has become too centralized. We lose touch with our customers because what works on the west coast works in the Midwest and south, right? Excellent point is who suffers in the end? The customer. Sad state of affairs to be sure.
Now what I need is ideas. I went on my little rant. We already proven night stocking is not an option. Has anybody in a similar situation been able to find a solution?
I agree completely! I am a dairy manager at a decent sized store. ELMS simply doesnt give you enough time to run a good dept. Stuff either doesnt get stocked, cleaned or date checked and rotated. Then co managers are like why is there so many holes, why do we have so much backstock? Because you order every hole in the dept even though its in the cooler, i just dont have the time or people to throw it. So you get even more backed up because you have all this product you dont need.
Another thing, District people coming in and all managers freaking out and telling you to make everything LOOK good instead of actually filling the dept. Its all a show. Sad state of affairs in kroger indeed.
The way you've described the problem, you've kinda answered your own question. This is a basic math issue, and without senior management giving you the bodies/hours/other materials you need, it's gonna be like kicking water up hill. Worse, a blame game where you're the scapegoat.
I find another big issue is that they always stick the kids over there. I never see an adult other than the department head. These kids don't care about anything because they are making minimum wage and only working for lunch & gas money. So when you ask them to put in an effort, it's not worth it for them. They will be going to school or college to not have to work in this job, so they view it as pointless to do do well, or even keep this job. Our entire dairy department including the lead is under 21 years old. Not to mention they are constantly called up front to bag, like the closer is never in his department for more than 2 hours out of the last 4 hours of his shift.
-- Edited by DeltaGrocery on Wednesday 12th of August 2015 03:05:36 PM
Ok, Mr Rodney McMullen, sur, I hope you were reading. Those of us who are in the trenches, so to speak, are suffering greatly. We continue to struggle in finding the balance between company agenda and customer focus. In my experience, the company agenda cannot carry us into the ages. Company agenda seems to be erratic. Are we as an organization really short sighted? Mr McMullen, is this your vision? I believe your corps of inter department management and store management has little confidence in company direction. We still show up everyday and give 100%, like any great team. So please, lead us! Keep in mind executives, we are not insects or vermin but REAL people who are completely committed to excellence in customer service!
Ok, Mr Rodney McMullen, sur, I hope you were reading. Those of us who are in the trenches, so to speak, are suffering greatly. We continue to struggle in finding the balance between company agenda and customer focus. In my experience, the company agenda cannot carry us into the ages. Company agenda seems to be erratic. Are we as an organization really short sighted? Mr McMullen, is this your vision? I believe your corps of inter department management and store management has little confidence in company direction. We still show up everyday and give 100%, like any great team. So please, lead us! Keep in mind executives, we are not insects or vermin but REAL people who are completely committed to excellence in customer service!
Rather than an acronym of the year, Kroger should just be focused on providing quality service every time like you say. Did any of you wake up and completely change your attitude towards customers because you were plopped in front of a TV to watch "Friendly and Fresh", "Refresh", "I. You. We", etc.? You need to bring in people with a positive attitude from the start, rather than throw out your minimum wage bait and expect to reel in legendary customer service employees.
