courtesy clerk at Ralphs here in SoCal, but this is for everyone working in Kroger. If you are a courtesy clerk, hours have gone down so bad it's not even enough to retain health insurance now. I remember getting 30 hours a week minimum now it's down to 20. Do they hate me or something? Or is this some mass hiring that's causing this. Anyhow it's not just the front end, I want to know if everyone is seeing the same trend. Comment below...
What I have seen happen is people can't live on 12 or 20 hours so they quit. Anyone that hangs in for a while will see their hours increase due to quitting employees.
Definitely let your managers know they can call you in if you want to pick up extra hours.
Losing insurance doesn't kick in right away here in MI division. The hour average is checked every quarter to check insurance availability.
My department is sort of overstaffed currently. They hired 6 people after the holidays! I needed them before the holidays. But, a few are going to be switched to
sub departments. The store manager has not asked me to cut hours yet but he did let me know he is aware of me going over budget.
Definately noticed that in my store. We never have more than 3 baggers around except on weekends, and they arent scheduling them for many hours either. Then customers just complain that there isnt any help endlessly and tell you to complain to the managers and think that will actually do something. They dont get it literally does nothing. They just arent giving many hours and scheduling many Courtesy Clerks a day.
Wow it seems like it's at a lot of stores all over the USA. I wonder if it truly is a winter slowdown and when spring and summer comes around, it'll rebound to better hours? Only time can tell.
FYI, January/February is the time of year they normally look at associate productivity. Hours drop because the ELM formula is altered and then by the time people get used to the level of staffing the spring/summer holidays occur that raise the hours. If you look at ELMS year over year, ELMS always decreases, but yet SALES increase. Even with inflation, the hours wouldn't have fallen unless less staffing is what is being sought.
courtesy clerk at Ralphs here in SoCal, but this is for everyone working in Kroger. If you are a courtesy clerk, hours have gone down so bad it's not even enough to retain health insurance now. I remember getting 30 hours a week minimum now it's down to 20. Do they hate me or something? Or is this some mass hiring that's causing this. Anyhow it's not just the front end, I want to know if everyone is seeing the same trend. Comment below...
I am retired from Ralphs. Your contract guarantees enough hours for insurance.
Does it? Since the store doesn't care and neither does the union, it doesn't matter. Previous years, employees have had to burn vacation and such just to stay eligible.
We've reached an interesting inflection point with our scheduling.
Since hours are cut so severely (not that it's any less busy), employees (especially courtesy clerks) are just starting not to come in. It's bad enough to be underscheduled, except callouts and no-call/no-shows drop help on the front end into crisis levels. I'm talking three managers and produce and grocery all on the registers, and ridiculous lines anyways because there's no package help. Who ever shows up as scheduled ends up pulling their hair out, and might not come in the next day because it's not even worth it.
Our contract gives cc's 16 hours minimum. Lately our cc's have been scheduled 12-15 hours. So what they've been doing is helping themselves to the extra hours just to get the 16 hours required. Yes, its unauthorized and No, the cc's do not care one iota about it. Management is getting p issed off at what they are doing but this drastically cutting hours NEEDS to STOP. It is ridiculous.
Entire store hours have been cut for a few months now. Customer service suffering. Large store with large traffic and we are still meeting or going over our weekly sales projections even with the skeleton crew we have now but not without causing our customers frustration. Not sure how long they will continue to put up with it. Also it is taking its toll on the staff especially the people that actually do most of the work.
