I work Frozen Lead at 448. I received no help for almost a week even though I asked. The management got angry at me for having 50 hours last week due to only being me in the department. This week the management said," Cut your hours or else," yet my back-up wasn't there for almost a week and a half! Do I go to my union with this issue? I'm missing 8 hours of work that they didn't put in ( which I wrote down on the sheet at the front desk ).
Where you scheduled for this shift? Where you called in for this shift? You should definitely get paid for any hours you worked, just make sure someone over you is approving your hours(before working). If your unable to schedule to your forecast and are not given help, do what you can do and walk out the door. It does sound like you might need to call the Union, just to let your Rep. know the situation. Also, contacting the District/KMA HR department will assist with resolving. The book/sheet is there for associates to document issues when they could not clock, not to allow MGMT to determine what they will and will not pay (they will of course question information written down depending on the situation). Just be careful to not work hours/shifts not approved, which might cause discipline action.
I work Frozen Lead at 448. I received no help for almost a week even though I asked. The management got angry at me for having 50 hours last week due to only being me in the department. This week the management said," Cut your hours or else," yet my back-up wasn't there for almost a week and a half! Do I go to my union with this issue? I'm missing 8 hours of work that they didn't put in ( which I wrote down on the sheet at the front desk ).
YES. This is a classic example of why your union is there. They've got you stuck in a no-win situation where, you're punished for using the resources you need to do a job you're unequipped for, that you cannot complete because of that, and you face getting written up/fired because of it. That's f*king sick.
Order smaller trucks (even manually ordering them) and don't worry about conditioning until you get the truck up. And your Grocery Manager should be getting involved to help you, and I say this as a Grocery Manager. You would be surprised how many stores have NO BACKUP for Frozen and I used to do frozen with no help and I got it done. It starts with better orders, clearing out your freezer, and remembering (even though Corporate says otherwise) that getting the product to the shelf is more important than how the store looks. You can sell a dirty car, but you can't sell a clean parking space.
Order smaller trucks (even manually ordering them) and don't worry about conditioning until you get the truck up. And your Grocery Manager should be getting involved to help you, and I say this as a Grocery Manager. You would be surprised how many stores have NO BACKUP for Frozen and I used to do frozen with no help and I got it done. It starts with better orders, clearing out your freezer, and remembering (even though Corporate says otherwise) that getting the product to the shelf is more important than how the store looks. You can sell a dirty car, but you can't sell a clean parking space.
Our store is kind of big. We use to have 3 people in frozen. Than it went down to two, than my hours were cut from 70 ( my guy got 30 hours a week and we got everything done enough for me to condition & have time for markdowns, which I hardly do now ) to 55. Now it's impossible to get stuff up without my second guy here and they're pushing me to condition everyday. We have 3 aisles and it ain't easy doing it by yourself along with conditioning at the same time.
Is it just me or is Frozen really going to 1 facing of most items and then bringing in a lot more variety? I guess they justified everything with case ready packaging and OE.
Order smaller trucks (even manually ordering them) and don't worry about conditioning until you get the truck up. And your Grocery Manager should be getting involved to help you, and I say this as a Grocery Manager. You would be surprised how many stores have NO BACKUP for Frozen and I used to do frozen with no help and I got it done. It starts with better orders, clearing out your freezer, and remembering (even though Corporate says otherwise) that getting the product to the shelf is more important than how the store looks. You can sell a dirty car, but you can't sell a clean parking space.
Our store is kind of big. We use to have 3 people in frozen. Than it went down to two, than my hours were cut from 70 ( my guy got 30 hours a week and we got everything done enough for me to condition & have time for markdowns, which I hardly do now ) to 55. Now it's impossible to get stuff up without my second guy here and they're pushing me to condition everyday. We have 3 aisles and it ain't easy doing it by yourself along with conditioning at the same time.
I'm familiar with your store. Have been there before. Smaller orders, even with the higher foot traffic. Check minimums. Order a truck that you and/or help can put up and nothing more. Talk to your Department Head about your challenges because Frozen is part of his/her domain too.
If work in your department goes undone then that's a staffing issue. Don't over do your self and to a AAA+ job. It's exhausting and I see people fall ill because of it. Just do your 8 hours and leave. You do a union job as long as you show up for your shifts and do a half a** job then you'll be fine.
This is a common thing for Kroger now. When the lead for my own department went on vacation, I was stuck doing all of the work myself. Normally our department has both of us working 40 hours. That's enough for us to get our work done right if we work hard at it.
I had to almost beg management to give me some help so we wouldn't be behind...even then I only got about four hours worth out of them because my helper got pulled to help another department instead. On top of that I didn't even get relief pay for doing my department head's job.
Our frozen department never gets any help either, and they're supposed to be getting at least 60-70 hours a week according to ELMS or whatever. The lead there is one of the best workers in the store but he can't do it all on only 40 hours. He will be retiring soon too so that department will be really screwed up after that...our freezer is tiny and sometimes trucks don't fit in and have to be stored in dairy or meat's coolers...imagine what will happen when we don't even have anyone in there at all to work it.
No, they can't do that, but they will try, one week I was asked to stay late and ended up with 2 hrs worth of OT. MGMT tried to make me go home early, saying I had to, I read my union book and it said that if I was asked to stay late, then I could either leave early or take the OT so I decided to take the OT, boy were they pissed LOL and they never asked me to stay late again.
this is also why when my shift is done, no matter if what i was doing was done or not, I leave.