Holy turnover, Batman

4hourrush · Guru

Holy turnover, Batman

krogerman77 · Guru

Same thing at my store. In the deli we've lost 3 people in the last 2 weeks. Of the 3, 2 left because they found better paying jobs (seem to be happening a lot lately), and another left because they are moving out west. On the front end I can't even keep up with how many they've lost in the last month.

It's going to be really fun in a couple of weeks when we have 2 people on vacation at the same time.

BagBoy · Guru

I've seen a few quit after their first day but the majority that I've seen quit somewhere between 2months and a year.

Date: May 14, 2015

BagBoy wrote:
I've seen a few quit after their first day but the majority that I've seen quit somewhere between 2months and a year.

THIS.

I heard somewhere turnover is close to 70%. If you're new, seeing it in action is pretty shocking. Supposedly the company wants to fix this but insists pay has nothing to do with it.

Date: May 14, 2015

The abysmal pay is part of it. I would be fine with the terrible pay IF Kroger would reduce the workload. Obviously the work needs to get done, but if they would schedule an extra person per shift per department, the workload would be much more manageable.

Date: May 14, 2015

well, pay and benefits suck, and suck even more if you are new.. which brings me to the heart of the problem.. why work at a place you know it will take yrs to get better pay with no change of merit raises, have to work crap shifts, little chance of getting ft cause you have to wait and wait and wait for someone to leave, die or retire. no matter how good of a worker you are it won't matter... you have to get 'seniority' to get anywhere. bingo bongo. i am an older person, and i sure as hell ain't got decades to wait, the min i can find better less stressful having to put up with lazy asses you can't be rid of job, i am gone.

krogerman77 · Guru

In my zone, all hiring is done by the zone office. All applications are done on-line outside of the store, processed through the zone office and then they tell our HR lady who to call in for interviews. Since this process began, over half the people sent in can't pass the background check. If they make it past that, then the zone office and only the zone office approves or disapproves the hiring.

Even though our HR lady has no say so at all over the hiring process, she had to print out and learn the new Hiring Guide which is over 360 pages. Don't know what a hiring process entails that would take that big of a guide? So now it takes well over a month to get someone in the system.

Lord_Uboat · Guru

krogerman77 wrote:
In my zone, all hiring is done by the zone office. All applications are done on-line outside of the store, processed through the zone office and then they tell our HR lady who to call in for interviews. Since this process began, over half the people sent in can't pass the background check. If they make it past that, then the zone office and only the zone office approves or disapproves the hiring.
Even though our HR lady has no say so at all over the hiring process, she had to print out and learn the new Hiring Guide which is over 360 pages. Don't know what a hiring process entails that would take that big of a guide? So now it takes well over a month to get someone in the system.

Must be different by division maybe? At my store the HR manager immediately receives the applications and a score on the personality test, along with availability and such. The HR manager will interview, then do background check, then do drug testing, and then they send a letter to the district office basically saying, "Store xxx has hired John Doe." Then the person is sent to training.

BagBoy · Guru

krogerman77 wrote:
In my zone, all hiring is done by the zone office. All applications are done on-line outside of the store, processed through the zone office and then they tell our HR lady who to call in for interviews. Since this process began, over half the people sent in can't pass the background check. If they make it past that, then the zone office and only the zone office approves or disapproves the hiring.
Even though our HR lady has no say so at all over the hiring process, she had to print out and learn the new Hiring Guide which is over 360 pages. Don't know what a hiring process entails that would take that big of a guide? So now it takes well over a month to get someone in the system.

It's the same here but that's probably because we are in the same area so.... yeah. The same thing happens here. I can't even give a good recommendation for someone to hire because of the system.

It's pretty bullocks.

thestruggleisreal · Guru

Been here 9 months, I've seen...

5 hired in after me.

2 quit within a month (one left for a better job, the other went MIA)
1 transferred to front end, because they didn't allocate enough hours in our department and she was on the bottom of the list and getting no hours

Just in the past MONTH...

1 just walked out
1 quit for an internship at college
2 (not including myself) have expressed thoughts of leaving--one of which is just waiting for a call from an internship.

I was #10 on the schedule list.

I am now #8.

If the two leave before me, there will be a grand total of 8 people in the deli department, 4 of which are full-timers who refuse to ever do night shifts.

I'm simply waiting for absolute word about my scheduling at my other job and I'm going to be out of here, because they don't pay me enough (or even give me enough hours) to deal with this ****.

Date: May 14, 2015

Lord_Uboat wrote:
Must be different by division maybe? At my store the HR manager immediately receives the applications and a score on the personality test, along with availability and such. The HR manager will interview, then do background check, then do drug testing, and then they send a letter to the district office basically saying, "Store xxx has hired John Doe." Then the person is sent to training.

Sounds like he's describing the "CORE" hiring process that is rolling out now in Atlanta, Ralphs and maybe somewhere but has been in other divisions already.

NutritionWhore · Guru

I found out that had I stayed in the store I worked in, I would be number 3 in seniority. That's an improvement from being like number 12 the year before.

nocturnia · Guru

In the time I've worked retail, I absolutely no longer support recommending it to those without other options. It is only good for two groups: students and retirees. God help you if you're trying to support yourself on today's retail pay.

In re of above comments, two particular problems have been meeting head on: employers simply NOT coming up off of decent starting wages, raises or flexible hours..........and a LOT of newer employees with flat-out Í don't give a $hit' attitudes. These things in tandem make it really $hitty for those of us having to cover their load.

Wish there were some answers.

Date: May 16, 2015

Hello, there! I posted another thread, I want to get off of the night crew!

Well, I've been with Kroger going on 29 years, and I've seen the turnover for sure!!! Before I was on night crew I was on daytime checking. There is a cashier that I used to work with and she now works the early morning shift and gets weekends off. I have seniority over her, should I use that seniority and get my job back on the front end and bump her schedule? I used to hate working front end but now it looks very good to me with a schedule like that, but she will be very pissed if I do take her schedule. I also feel like management will try to lie and tell me that I can't do it, so I will talk to the union steward first.

Plus, it is for my health working midnights has taken a toll on me, and I need a normal schedule.

emeiro · Member

i have only been here for about two months in the deli but since i've been there, there has already been one girl hired and quit after a few weeks. apparently my store deli has high turnover....everyone is surprised i've stayed this long Lol. but i do see new people there like every other day hahah

GenesisOne · Guru

nocturnia wrote:
In the time I've worked retail, I absolutely no longer support recommending it to those without other options. It is only good for two groups: students and retirees. God help you if you're trying to support yourself on today's retail pay.

In re of above comments, two particular problems have been meeting head on: employers simply NOT coming up off of decent starting wages, raises or flexible hours..........and a LOT of newer employees with flat-out Í don't give a $hit' attitudes. These things in tandem make it really $hitty for those of us having to cover their load.

Wish there were some answers.

Costco has all the answers.

Pay well and be selective of your employees. Outline what you expect of them and what won't be tolerated, and the employees ignore that, show them the door. Costco has no turnover problem and Costco has employees that give 100% because they don't want to lose their jobs.

Costco's CEO also isn't a greedy, dishonest, scum-sucker like Kroger's CEO is, so that helps too, and explains a lot as well.

NutritionWhore · Guru

If anything, Costco is competitive as ****. It's the only "retail" job I know that's like that.

And you can tell that they're giving their 100% so that they'll be able to stay in Costco.

Lucky bastards.

Lord_Uboat · Guru

GenesisOne wrote:
nocturnia wrote:
In the time I've worked retail, I absolutely no longer support recommending it to those without other options. It is only good for two groups: students and retirees. God help you if you're trying to support yourself on today's retail pay.

In re of above comments, two particular problems have been meeting head on: employers simply NOT coming up off of decent starting wages, raises or flexible hours..........and a LOT of newer employees with flat-out Í don't give a $hit' attitudes. These things in tandem make it really $hitty for those of us having to cover their load.

Wish there were some answers.
Costco has all the answers.
Pay well and be selective of your employees. Outline what you expect of them and what won't be tolerated, and the employees ignore that, show them the door. Costco has no turnover problem and Costco has employees that give 100% because they don't want to lose their jobs.
Costco's CEO also isn't a greedy, dishonest, scum-sucker like Kroger's CEO is, so that helps too, and explains a lot as well.

Costco and Kroger are very different though. You hear about people getting paid $15 an hour to drive a forklift for Costco. Well, that's what a typical forklift driver makes. Cashiering is interesting though, because a Costco cashier makes more than $10/hr to start while at Kroger it is close to minimum wage. Maybe they actually enforce a standard speed? I dunno. But if I was Kroger's CEO and the union didn't exist I would offer a retention bonus of your hourly pay multiplied by the average number of hours you work per week. I'd give it to you after 1 month, then 3 months, then every 6 months. After all those "bonuses" you'd feel fairly compensated. Say for simplicity it'd be $8 times 20 hours. That's a $160 bonus. If I gave you a real raise every year, say $2/hr, it'd cost me about $2000 a year (20*52*2). Whereas this bonus would be $480 the first year and $320 every year after if pay and hours didn't change.

GenesisOne · Guru

Lord_Uboat wrote:
GenesisOne wrote:
nocturnia wrote:
In the time I've worked retail, I absolutely no longer support recommending it to those without other options. It is only good for two groups: students and retirees. God help you if you're trying to support yourself on today's retail pay.

In re of above comments, two particular problems have been meeting head on: employers simply NOT coming up off of decent starting wages, raises or flexible hours..........and a LOT of newer employees with flat-out Í don't give a $hit' attitudes. These things in tandem make it really $hitty for those of us having to cover their load.

Wish there were some answers.
Costco has all the answers.
Pay well and be selective of your employees. Outline what you expect of them and what won't be tolerated, and the employees ignore that, show them the door. Costco has no turnover problem and Costco has employees that give 100% because they don't want to lose their jobs.
Costco's CEO also isn't a greedy, dishonest, scum-sucker like Kroger's CEO is, so that helps too, and explains a lot as well.
Costco and Kroger are very different though. You hear about people getting paid $15 an hour to drive a forklift for Costco. Well, that's what a typical forklift driver makes. Cashiering is interesting though, because a Costco cashier makes more than $10/hr to start while at Kroger it is close to minimum wage. Maybe they actually enforce a standard speed? I dunno. But if I was Kroger's CEO and the union didn't exist I would offer a retention bonus of your hourly pay multiplied by the average number of hours you work per week. I'd give it to you after 1 month, then 3 months, then every 6 months. After all those "bonuses" you'd feel fairly compensated. Say for simplicity it'd be $8 times 20 hours. That's a $160 bonus. If I gave you a real raise every year, say $2/hr, it'd cost me about $2000 a year (20*52*2). Whereas this bonus would be $480 the first year and $320 every year after if pay and hours didn't change.

Costco and Kroger are different, yes, but not different enough for Kroger to not consider Costco a direct competitor. Where I live, Aldi, Costco and WinCo are considered to be the most "serious" threats my division is worried about. H-E-B too, if that powerhouse ever expands further out beyond the southern/central regions of my state (which there has been talk of for the past few years, at least). Costco is a warehouse that charges a membership fee, unlike Kroger, but in return for that membership fee, the value you get in return for your purchases is pretty gosh darn impressive, not to mention the quality of produce/meat puts Kroger's product to shame.

Costco wants to attract the best in retail, so the company pays among the best in retail. In return, the company expects nothing but the best from its employees. Costco understands if you want quality, dependable, productive... and yes, happy employees, that are willing to get the job done and treat the customers (its "members") with world class service, the employees need to be compensated well. Costco treats its employees as an asset whereas Kroger looks at its employees as a controllable cost... keep that controllable cost down so that the "savings" that come from pitifully low wages can be passed on to the customers/boost the stock price/have more left over for big bonuses for those high up in the company). The problem with that is, and you can see this problem worsening, this results in stores that have high out of stocks due to labor shortages/employees not really working as hard as they could cause they hate their job, employees that will seldom deliver the kind of customer service that the higher ups continue to drone on and on about because of how dissatisfied they are with how the company treats them and overall sense of moderate to low productivity/excellence in stores when it comes to ring tender/store cleanliness and appearance/customer service/stocking. Being cheap only gets you so far, and it shows.

You have a lot of good ideas when it comes to compensating quality employees, but sadly, I doubt that will ever happen with this company.

-- Edited by GenesisOne on Sunday 17th of May 2015 10:55:50 AM

Date: May 17, 2015

there used to be better compensation packages. look at the old contracts but that's long gone especially in the ATL division where it feels like there's nothing left to take away.

Date: May 18, 2015

My store moved to a new division at the end of 2013, beginning of 2014 - it took a long time to get everything sorted so they stopped hiring new people. The justification was that if someone through the old division and we switched to the new, things would get backed up and delayed. Then when we were sorted and could hire new people, there was a bottleneck since all the stores in the area use the same company for background checks and the like!

My store, though, seems to be the worst in the area for employee satisfaction. I'm on a leave for 4 months and when I left I was about ready to blow up the place. Then snow panic hit bad and 2 people (relatively long time!) quit over management behavior. For one, the manager showed up at his house unannounced when he called in, essentially saying, I'm willing to risk my neck for Kroger, so should you. (There are at least 5 crazy hills between his place and the big road and it's the south, they're not prepared.) Funny thing about that guy - he didn't quit because of Kroger - it was all management. He tried another retail job (assistant manager at a gas station) and it sucked. He graduated with his Business degree then went back to another Kroger as a new hire, making 30 cents more than he was before.

I'll be going back May 31st and I can't wait to see what a mess it is. I moved while I was away and now no longer live near that store, so here's hoping I can transfer to one of the ones closer.

anyway, our store's high turnover is caused by low hiring rates - our customer load is as high as it's always been, if not higher (despite publix coming to town 3 miles away), but they wouldn't compensate so we'd have 3 courtesy clerks all evening or just 1 from 8 to 11pm, it was lots of fun.

BagBoy · Guru

Anonymous wrote:
My store moved to a new division at the end of 2013, beginning of 2014 - it took a long time to get everything sorted so they stopped hiring new people. The justification was that if someone through the old division and we switched to the new, things would get backed up and delayed. Then when we were sorted and could hire new people, there was a bottleneck since all the stores in the area use the same company for background checks and the like!
My store, though, seems to be the worst in the area for employee satisfaction. I'm on a leave for 4 months and when I left I was about ready to blow up the place. Then snow panic hit bad and 2 people (relatively long time!) quit over management behavior. For one, the manager showed up at his house unannounced when he called in, essentially saying, I'm willing to risk my neck for Kroger, so should you. (There are at least 5 crazy hills between his place and the big road and it's the south, they're not prepared.) Funny thing about that guy - he didn't quit because of Kroger - it was all management. He tried another retail job (assistant manager at a gas station) and it sucked. He graduated with his Business degree then went back to another Kroger as a new hire, making 30 cents more than he was before.
I'll be going back May 31st and I can't wait to see what a mess it is. I moved while I was away and now no longer live near that store, so here's hoping I can transfer to one of the ones closer.
anyway, our store's high turnover is caused by low hiring rates - our customer load is as high as it's always been, if not higher (despite publix coming to town 3 miles away), but they wouldn't compensate so we'd have 3 courtesy clerks all evening or just 1 from 8 to 11pm, it was lots of fun.

Totally unacceptable. If my manager showed up at my house in a snowstorm I'd probably say something like "I'm not leaving this house. You're free to do whatever you want but I already told you that I do not feel that it's safe to be on the road. I don't think you should be driving either. However, It's your choice to drive if you want to, but I will not follow or be riding with you. I do not trust the road and I do not trust your driving on that road. See you when it clears up."

thestruggleisreal · Guru

I probably would've called the cops. That's trespassing.

Date: May 18, 2015

I would have waved my shotgun and said "Get off my lawn"! If I had a shotgun.

SCO · Senior Member

Kroger must allocate a lot of money for them to be able to turn over employees so often. When i did hiring (about a year ago) there was a figure of around $3000-$5000 (can't remember exactly where) per employee just for getting them started. This includes paying the service director, paying the trainers for NHO and computer training, paying for background checks etc, and wages for the people who train the new person, and also loss of productivity etc for when they don't work very fast in the beginning.

I suppose they can afford to pay out around 5 grand for a new employee who only stays for a few days because they don't pay the employees that stay very much money?

-- Edited by SCO on Monday 18th of May 2015 02:01:24 PM

4hourrush · Guru

We've already got another person threatening to quit because she's pissed she only got 17 hours. Then she complains about working 8 hour shifts too (health issues). If you only want 4-5 hour shifts, logic says you're the max you could get is 20-25 hours anyway.....

thestruggleisreal · Guru

4hourrush wrote:
We've already got another person threatening to quit because she's pissed she only got 17 hours. Then she complains about working 8 hour shifts too (health issues). If you only want 4-5 hour shifts, logic says you're the max you could get is 20-25 hours anyway.....

That was actually my thing--it's hard to do anything with a check that's less than 20 hours. Hell, even a 20-hour check is skimp for supporting more than yourself. She probably wouldn't mind 20-25 hours, but 17 might be too little, especially if she has bills to pay. Considering that I'm working for 14 hours some days (not anymore after this week though!) 8 hours is a treat. I haven't seen many 8-hour shifts while working at Kroger though. 6 was my norm (not even long enough for a lunch >.>)

Date: May 22, 2015

krogerman77 wrote:
In my zone, all hiring is done by the zone office. All applications are done on-line outside of the store, processed through the zone office and then they tell our HR lady who to call in for interviews. Since this process began, over half the people sent in can't pass the background check. If they make it past that, then the zone office and only the zone office approves or disapproves the hiring.
Even though our HR lady has no say so at all over the hiring process, she had to print out and learn the new Hiring Guide which is over 360 pages. Don't know what a hiring process entails that would take that big of a guide? So now it takes well over a month to get someone in the system.

Back when I was hired nearly 30 years ago, I filled out an application one afternoon, went to orientation that night, and started to work the next day. They didn't do drug testing and if there was a background check, it was done after I had already started.

Date: May 26, 2015

The turn over rate at my store is 90%. Kroger has gotten ****ty over the last 3 or 4 years! It started getting that way when they started doing the meeting thing twice a day. I've been at Kroger for almost 8 years now.

GenesisOne · Guru

We lost around a combined total of fifteen people spread across all the departments over the course of a week and a half. A few transferred to other Kroger stores, but most quit because they found better paying jobs.

One finally got to leave after waiting weeks and weeks for Walmart to get back to her (HR apologized, she said, because apparently Walmart's orientation groups are full and there's a waiting list to get in now, according to what HR told her). She originally worked at Walmart, but quit because of "bad pay, bad managers", and she liked it at Kroger, but a combination of high turnover (which put strain on her department), and poor pay, she has gone back to Walmart, due to the increase in pay. She said she would put up with the bad managers because it was going to be around $3.00 a more per hour than what Kroger was paying her.

Another guy quit and got a job at fast food chain. Went from $7.70 an hour at Kroger to $10 something an hour.

Kroger's solution? Another city wide hiring event with walk-in interviews Monday, promoting the same poor benefits and "reasons" to work at Kroger. I'm sure it will be just as successful as the dozens upon dozens of previous hiring events...

-- Edited by GenesisOne on Saturday 30th of May 2015 06:29:47 PM

Date: May 30, 2015

Kroger's problem is they'd rather invest in programs rather than people. They spend money on things like Key Retailing, CAO (computer assisted ordering), CAP (computer assisted production), ELMS (don't ask me what that one means), Quevision, etc. thinking they can just bring someone in off the street and have them be able to do things based on what a computer program tells them to do. It won't work because none of those programs are foolproof. Some of them are completely useless. In 20 years or so, Kroger is going to wish they had invested more in people willing to make a career out of Kroger rather than it just being a job because when all they full timers and old timers leave, there won't be anybody around who knows how to run things.

4hourrush · Guru

Well, we had another person quit. The reason why? They found a job that pays $3 an hour more than Kroger plus gets weekends off.

It's funny, they're now playing a radio announcement in my store talking about how you can work for a company that's moving forward, and how they have both part time and full time positions available. Where are these magical full time positions at?

They are so desperate to get people to apply, it's actually getting funny.

Date: May 31, 2015

4hourrush wrote:
Well, we had another person quit. The reason why? They found a job that pays $3 an hour more than Kroger plus gets weekends off.

It's funny, they're now playing a radio announcement in my store talking about how you can work for a company that's moving forward, and how they have both part time and full time positions available. Where are these magical full time positions at?

They are so desperate to get people to apply, it's actually getting funny.

funny hearing it all day they want to hire thousands of people they need help. mean time half the people working with me in the store have 14 hours and are asking for more and not getting them lol

GenesisOne · Guru

Anonymous wrote:
4hourrush wrote:
Well, we had another person quit. The reason why? They found a job that pays $3 an hour more than Kroger plus gets weekends off.

It's funny, they're now playing a radio announcement in my store talking about how you can work for a company that's moving forward, and how they have both part time and full time positions available. Where are these magical full time positions at?

They are so desperate to get people to apply, it's actually getting funny.
funny hearing it all day they want to hire thousands of people they need help. mean time half the people working with me in the store have 14 hours and are asking for more and not getting them lol

You have NO idea how much this bugs me! I hear about how we have over "40" open job postings on KnowMe and how were short so many forecasted hours in this department for this job classification here and there, yet they aren't even maxing out the people we do have. And I know for a fact, too, that there are people that aren't being worked full eight hour shifts on a daily basis that could be because it's a "common topic" of discussion around the store how people are dissatisfied with their hours and aren't be worked as much as their availability allows.

Then, management and dept. heads (the ones that write the schedule in the FIRST place) turn around and push people to work that much harder because "we're short staffed". Well when you fail to make use of the people that are there and only give them four or six hour shifts on any given day, it makes me less productive knowing that they (management + dept. heads) aren't investing the time to write schedules that fully utilize the manpower that we do have, and instead throw the extra work on those of us that are there for eight hours every day.

Stop pocketing the hours that are going to waste that COULD be given to employees and maybe people won't be in as big of a hurry to quit and the rest of us would be willing to work harder.

SharpStuff · Member

We just lost 4 cashiers, 2 customer care people, and 2 courtesy clerks. The next day what do they do? Hey, would you mind getting off 30 minutes sooner? To one of my lazier coworkers that said yes. This left me with 3 registers running as the only bagger.