the supervisor called for 4 associates today. FOUR at one time! There's barely that many associates that could come (if they wanted to). Hours are bad enough that we don't have time to be doing our job and theirs! Is this how we put our customers first? by half assing one job to make the other look better? "sorry we were out of everything, but hey I bagged your stuff!"
the supervisor called for 4 associates today. FOUR at one time! There's barely that many associates that could come (if they wanted to). Hours are bad enough that we don't have time to be doing our job and theirs! Is this how we put our customers first? by half assing one job to make the other look better? "sorry we were out of everything, but hey I bagged your stuff!"
No, this is how they put profits first.
More money in corporate's pockets for now? Perhaps. Years down the road? The consequences of corporate greed will eventually eat away at the profits as disgruntled customers turn to other options in town (and online) to satisfy their grocery shopping needs.
the supervisor called for 4 associates today. FOUR at one time! There's barely that many associates that could come (if they wanted to). Hours are bad enough that we don't have time to be doing our job and theirs! Is this how we put our customers first? by half assing one job to make the other look better? "sorry we were out of everything, but hey I bagged your stuff!"
No, this is how they put profits first.
More money in corporate's pockets for now? Perhaps. Years down the road? The consequences of corporate greed will eventually eat away at the profits as disgruntled customers turn to other options in town (and online) to satisfy their grocery shopping needs.
I always laugh when I hear the commercial saying how we put customers first. What a blatant lie, profits are always first. Everybody who has ever worked knows this
Pretty much every department at my store that ISN'T a service department (hence can't be called by the front end) absolute hates the front end. Departments can literally lose hours out of the day because of the front end calling for help. It's utterly pathetic. Take today, for example, for much of the morning into mid afternoon, the front end had two frigging cashiers. TWO. One on a big lane, one on express. Time and time again, the intercom is filled with the CSM practically screaming for surge help and managers to the floor. Keep in mind, with fuel + pharmacy, we're a million dollar store. A million dollar store with two frigging lanes open - one big, one express. It's not like the front end doesn't have the manpower... one customer service person told me most of the cashiers are only getting like ten to twenty hours a week. Disgraceful how this hypocritical company claims to be customer first when it's clearly isn't. One can only wonder what the long lines of customers were thinking standing in line while a big sign hangs above them that proudly proclaims "Faster Check-Out at Kroger!" What utter BS.
Thanks front end and Kroger. It's no wonder why the store looks like a real dump.
Pretty much every department at my store that ISN'T a service department (hence can't be called by the front end) absolute hates the front end. Departments can literally lose hours out of the day because of the front end calling for help. It's utterly pathetic. Take today, for example, for much of the morning into mid afternoon, the front end had two frigging cashiers. TWO. One on a big lane, one on express. Time and time again, the intercom is filled with the CSM practically screaming for surge help and managers to the floor. Keep in mind, with fuel + pharmacy, we're a million dollar store. A million dollar store with two frigging lanes open - one big, one express. It's not like the front end doesn't have the manpower... one customer service person told me most of the cashiers are only getting like ten to twenty hours a week. Disgraceful how this hypocritical company claims to be customer first when it's clearly isn't. One can only wonder what the long lines of customers were thinking standing in line while a big sign hangs above them that proudly proclaims "Faster Check-Out at Kroger!" What utter BS.
Thanks front end and Kroger. It's no wonder why the store looks like a real dump.
The store manager receives a budget on how many labor hours the store the whole store gets for the week and he decides how those hours are allocated. So either the store isn't getting enough total hours or your manager is giving too many of those hours to other departments. I know for a fact that the deli department where I work is short 120 hours. Yet they still won't allow any overtime. ELMS should be able to tell them how many checkers they need at a time to cover the entire week. If they follow it, there should be no need for surge help except in extreme cases like bad weather.
I'm a "utility clerk" (though we've been listed as a courtesy clerks cause they don't want to pay the 5-10cents extra) I regularly spend 5 of my 6.5 hour shifts stuck up front bagging, cashiering, doing carts, doing u-scans breaks, and occasionally doing the fez's job so they can go to break.
I've been yelled at by management two or three times for my job not being done (most of them are usually understanding) "you need to be telling them you have other responsibilities" like I haven't tried, the more hell I raise to the front end about it the more **** I get from them and the less I raise the more **** I get from management.
I understand when they need help they need help but when I'm consistently having to do 4-5 hours of work in 1 hour I stop caring about trying to find something to do to keep busy when my job is set and they don't need me up front. I'm just going to be doing three people's jobs at any moment anyway.
^ Is surge help rarely called at your store and only during extreme circumstances? If so, I want to work at your store! I've worked at/helped out at/shopped at multiple Kroger stores over the past six years and calls from the front end for surge help have always been a regular, frequent thing, more so since QueVision was installed.
I'm aware the store manager has a budget to work with and departments are only allotted so many hours a week. However, there is something truly wrong with the formula used to calculate the budget and/or the people that determine the budget. There just isn't sufficient hours given to departments to meet Kroger's various standards and expectations. Good luck passing a Standards Walk without adding hours/overtime and maintaining those exceptional standards on a daily basis. Even if sufficient hours were given, store level management would need to be on top of their game to make sure everything is running smoothly, and Kroger doesn't exactly have great managers working in every single store. Plus, the workforce is demoralized and miserable. More hours would help this problem, to an extent, because people wouldn't be so stressed out/overworked/frustrated, but at this point, there is so many things wrong inside your average Kroger store that fixing what's wrong would be a major undertaking and require reinvestment from the company and that is a big no-no on Kroger's list of things the company wants to spend money on (like more and more new stores, bigger and better bonuses/salaries for the execs on top).
In the meantime, though, the excessive calls for surge help is only worsening a lot of the problems that currently exist in the stores.
Sorry, for my above post, I meant to quote and reply to this one:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Pretty much every department at my store that ISN'T a service department (hence can't be called by the front end) absolute hates the front end. Departments can literally lose hours out of the day because of the front end calling for help. It's utterly pathetic. Take today, for example, for much of the morning into mid afternoon, the front end had two frigging cashiers. TWO. One on a big lane, one on express. Time and time again, the intercom is filled with the CSM practically screaming for surge help and managers to the floor. Keep in mind, with fuel + pharmacy, we're a million dollar store. A million dollar store with two frigging lanes open - one big, one express. It's not like the front end doesn't have the manpower... one customer service person told me most of the cashiers are only getting like ten to twenty hours a week. Disgraceful how this hypocritical company claims to be customer first when it's clearly isn't. One can only wonder what the long lines of customers were thinking standing in line while a big sign hangs above them that proudly proclaims "Faster Check-Out at Kroger!" What utter BS.
Thanks front end and Kroger. It's no wonder why the store looks like a real dump.
The store manager receives a budget on how many labor hours the store the whole store gets for the week and he decides how those hours are allocated. So either the store isn't getting enough total hours or your manager is giving too many of those hours to other departments. I know for a fact that the deli department where I work is short 120 hours. Yet they still won't allow any overtime. ELMS should be able to tell them how many checkers they need at a time to cover the entire week. If they follow it, there should be no need for surge help except in extreme cases like bad weather.
funny my store's deli has tons of help. They'll have more people in the dept working by 7 am than my dept has all day long.
As for customer first calls, Grocery and GM are called 90% of the time. Call produce, floral, deli. We all service the customer. Nobody's job is more important than anyone elses!
