We have a serious problem where I work of information never getting where it needs to be. None of these issues have been addressed, let alone fixed, for months.
1. The store is a newer one, but was designed a little over a decade ago, and the next nearest competitor closed only a few months ago. We have way more customers than the place was designed for. The weekend rush is four days long now. And yet it took them forever to let us hire new people, then once we did, they started splitting our existing hours rather than giving us more.
2. The door stops for both the men's and women's restrooms are gone (The first was hit by a man trying to take an electric cart into the bathroom. The second was pulled out of the wall by hand while the cleaner ran to get toilet paper. Someone clearly didn't understand how door hooks work.)
3. There are several disgusting grease build-ups near deli that no one is will to take responsibility for and clean. This makes sweeping certain parts of the store very difficult.
4. The wood paneling is coming off part of the wall near the restrooms.
5. I don't think they ever fixed the tampon dispenser in the unisex bathroom after it was pried open by a customer.
6. There are three trashcans that nobody knows whose responsibility they are.
7. We have west facing windows and no blinds or tree cover. (This one Kroger does know about... they put a 10-15% tint on our windows and have ignored us ever since.)
8. Our store manager personally makes the automated announcements meant for employees for reasons that nobody seems to know. (Not really something to fix, but something I would like to know the answer to. I'm partially afraid to ask.)
9. They cut the size of our reclamations area by around 75% even as our customer base grows.
10. We have a side door customers used to be able to leave but not enter. Thefts were high, so they changed the door policy. Now you can Leave or Enter between certain hours, but we can no longer use it to leave after the main doors are locked at closing. We have to have night crew, who are arguably the most overworked people here, let us out and lock the door behind us.
11. I quit night crew after nearly getting hit in the head with a solitary box of vinegar stacked on-top of a seven foot pallet of toilet paper, paper towels, and animal food. We had several pallets collapse in the trucks, in the back, and even on the floor. Others we had to play Jinga with to prevent them from falling over. No one cares about this. We joked about who would be injured or killed first, and what Kroger's response would be.
12. We have no protocol for dealing with products that we don't carry, that were bought at other locations, and are returned to us. We also have no protocol for what to do with seasonal items that ended up in go-back purgatory.
13. We are so understaffed that CRMs are often forced to pull double or even triple duty watching the front end, service counter, self-checkout, cashiering, and bagging.
We had someone from higher up the chain come through on a visit not that long ago. Of all the problems the front end has, the only thing he did was make us to move our hand sanitizer bottles under the check stands and out of reach of the customers.
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Anyone else have similar issues? I honestly do not understand how they can keep a store running with communication this bad.
Sounds like a typical Kroger store. Corporate just continues to wear their rose-colored glasses. But the truth is going to get out there sooner or later.
Cultural Councils only work when Upper Management allows freedom to be different and have fun! I think theirs a lot of tail chasing going on now! Lets advertise Digital Coupons, but have a way customers can actually download them if they are elderly or don't have a computer! So then "Shrink" happens when we "Make it Right".... Eliminate Price Adjustments and Handrings...but get "coached" if you have too many "Price Adjustments" which is "Making it right" when nothing really is wrong.
11. I quit night crew after nearly getting hit in the head with a solitary box of vinegar stacked on-top of a seven foot pallet of toilet paper, paper towels, and animal food. We had several pallets collapse in the trucks, in the back, and even on the floor. Others we had to play Jinga with to prevent them from falling over. No one cares about this. We joked about who would be injured or killed first, and what Kroger's response would be
I have to said with Kroger on this one. They know, and doing what they can to fix that problem. Kroger has had issues with their warehouses for YEARS. It wasn't until the late 00's that they got a handle on trucks coming to stores with the entire delivery turned upside down. This is some serious $$$ loss, so you bet they do what they can about it. And bad stacking habits, that'll take a long time...
Driving power jacks on the sales floor was "outlawed" in the south. Pallets of water are no longer allowed to be double stacked(this is because 1 fell on an employee and killed them).
And the backroom, the way things are stacked, are on the grocery manager - that's the guy that needs to care. It's also a team effort, you're gonna have lazy dumbasses that want to stack willy nilly because all they wanna do is go home. Sorry to say, not everything is Kroger's fault.
This is going to blow your MIND!!! List in order the corporate structure? Which AREA is the most important?
One VP said it like this in the past (Now Gone): (Listed as Most Important to Least)
1. Store
2.District
3.KMA - Presidents/Vps
4.GO - Corporate
The mindset now is Corporate can solve all issues sitting in "Meeting Rooms" and that Stores only should implement the processes. If a process does not work, its because the stores are not implementing it correctly!
So if Stores are having issues implementing a process correctly.... was the process completely thought out? Was the "Great Idea" just something thought up at GO? While I know there are SME - Subject Manor Expert, how much expertise might these people have if they are never in stores? Why don't we empower store associates and have round table with senior department heads/leaders? (Some actually know whats going on)
They seem to take the customer surveys pretty seriously. I've thought about "borrowing" survey receipts to complain about problems, but now I think it's funnier to ignore the problems or even push them along if I think I can get away with it.
12. We have no protocol for dealing with products that we don't carry, that were bought at other locations, and are returned to us. We also have no protocol for what to do with seasonal items that ended up in go-back purgatory.
At our store, items we don't carry get put into go-backs. Courtesy clerks struggle to find where they go for a few days and then they hide the item in the store. Then, night crew brings them back up. This happens until we decide that we probably don't carry that item. So, we place the item into damaged, maybe with a note. A note makes no difference, so we usually skip the note. If we are very very lucky, it might be marked down and thrown in clearance.
Otherwise, the item gets placed back into go-backs to baffle courtesy clerks until the the item is "accidentally" damaged so we don't have to deal with it anymore.
Seasonal go-backs are hilarious. We usually have swimming goggles and Christmas tree stands that just sit for a whole year until they are a reasonable purchase again.
company is going to ****. I agree with most of the things OP said. Like someone else said, it's not important anymore. Nobody cares if the door stop is broken or missing. As for the trashcans, a dept head needs to whip their workers into shape and make one of the clerks empty them. A lot of what you mention is actually petty stuff that should be handled by a competent dept head or store manager, but those are few and far between these days.
The safety issues are most often on the dept head. Not really sure how you'd get that taken care of. #12, products we don't carry or seasonal stuff should be marked down by the DSD clerk. Higher ups know we are understaffed, they don't care. I'm really surprised the customer comments aren't worse than they are. Our store never gets conditioned anymore. It's awful. Nobody cares. Sadly
