Wal-Mart has born the brunt of social advocates for years, but Kroger hasn't. Why??? I really, REALLY thought that Kroger would be the better company before I joined... and was sorely disappointed.
If you are looking to get out of Kroger but fear the big yellow smiley, or have just applied at Kroger and haven't sold your soul to Satan just yet... here is a short summary of how Wal-Mart is a better company to work for.
1. NO UNION DUES. Wal-Mart's 'rabid obsession' with stomping out the union is really just the elimination of an absolutely useless fee that comes out of your check. UFCW is a worthless POS union that just takes your money and offers nothing in return. Wal-Mart's treatment of employees, from what I have observed, is no worse than Kroger - provided you show up to work and give your best efforts.
2. PAY STARTS AT $9, GOES TO $10 NEXT YEAR, AND IS EXPLAINED IN WRITING UPFRONT. Kroger doesn't tell you right off the bat that you're getting next to minimum wage. Why would they? It's shameful. Those pitiful wages that made headlines for Wal-Mart are actually way better now. It would take years to achieve this pay at Kroger despite your best efforts. It speeds up a little if you are able to hit full-time, but...
3. FULL TIME DOESN'T REQUIRE OPEN AVAILABILITY AT WAL-MART. There are quite a few full-timers that have availability exceptions there. Most have set schedules with the same hours of the day every working day of the week. In order to keep full-time status at Kroger (that is IF you can get it by working 40 without fail for the mandatory # of weeks), you MUST have open availability. That's days, closing, nights, weekends, holidays... WITHOUT FAIL every scheduled workweek. Speaking of which...
4. HOURS TEND TO BE MORE REGULAR AT WAL-MART, 8 HOURS A DAY IS COMMON, AND SCHEDULING IS GIVEN 3 WEEKS IN ADVANCE. This is where Kroger should really suck it. You might be working 4 hours one morning, 5.25 hours closing the next evening, etc. Wal-Mart tends to schedule 8 hour shifts during the same time of day and are fairly consistent with the days worked. Having 3 weeks advanced notice on your schedule helps you plan your life. Kroger doesn't want you to have a life outside of Kroger. Wal-Mart also has a be-all, end-all, electronic schedule that does NOT get changed at last minute by a schedule writer. Kroger might stop you mid-week and tell you SORRY, your hours that you tried to plan around this week have changed. Kroger has no flexibility.
5. NO CUSTOMER SURVEY (TATTLING). You are supposed to talk to customers ("Hi, how are you" is fine) if they are within 10 feet of you, but it is given a common sense approach. Management doesn't jump your case if you miss one. Kroger doesn't care if 12 people are flying by you on a Sunday, you have to spout out "Hello" like a robot to each one, or face punishment. The Kroger customer survey gives customers yet another opportunity to call you out if you do something to piss them off. Wal-Mart = less pressure.
6. PROMOTIONS ARE QUICKER IF YOU'RE GOOD AT YOUR JOB. Wal-Mart readily offers full-time if you are a good worker, and promotions if you are a great one. At Kroger, to get promoted, you may as well be waiting for someone to die - those department managers tend to be kept in their positions forever, killing both their and your chance of promotion.
7. NO KEY RETAILING. Things go where they belong. Follow the rules and you'll be fine.
8. BACKSTOCK IS BINNED! You don't waste your efforts dragging U-boats full of crap to the floor the check for backstock - all backstock is binned into a location in the backroom and stockers get a pick list (items and their locations) for merchandise that can be stocked. Methinks Kroger is just too cheap to get organized.
9. TEAMWORK IS PLANNED AND ENCOURAGED. At Kroger, I had to sort and work trucks alone most of the time. Wal-Mart utilizes a crew that sorts trucks and stocks shelves. Another example of Kroger's cheapness - putting added pressure on employees.
10. YOU ARE PAID BY THE MINUTE. Kroger has a 7-minute rule that rounds your pay in .25hr increments. What this means is that as you're ready to clock out, management will undoubted stop you will some little 'quick task' that holds you a few minutes over unpaid. Wal-Mart pays every single minute you are on the clock.
I could go on, and probably will bring more points up, but you should be able to tell who is the monster in this business. I'll give you a hint: it's not Wal-Mart. There are a couple of downers at WM - namely more expensive health insurance, and a somewhat rough attendance policy (some will say). As always, I would encourage you seek the best job opportunities, most of which are outside of the retail field. But if you're drawn into retail for whatever reason, do yourself a favor and steer clear of Kroger.
^I'm in a non union store chief. I've worked for the union and as a union shop steward before in Union kroger stores. Their pay and contracts are a joke and the union I'd relatively worthless in the grand scheme of things.
I had a comanager who would send customers to my line after I cleaned up and turned my light out. I was always walking to the time clock and she would call me back and say I had a customer waiting. I finally grew tired of it so every day she did it and I had to clock out 5 or 6 minutes late, the next day I would wait outside and smoke a cig and then clock in 5 or 6 minutes late. Every single time.
my personal idea of why wm is better.. no union. why do i dislike it you may ask? here's a example.. well where i work many examples.. employees who have been with the company for yrs seems to think newbies should pull their weight, do yours and their job too type deal. people literally sit in back and not work, take extra breaks, say they are going to get their gloves, throw out cardboard, take an items back to it's home dept and then you don't see them for 30, 40, few hrs, then the come back work a few mins and gone again. refuse to do certain parts of their jobs cause they don't like it.. and on and on.. that **** would not fly in wm, your ass would be fired. so yes, wm is better on that alone. i do my job, that's why you are paid, least way i was raised.
Walmart won a lawsuit against Kroger in my city. Kroger employees are allowed to shop at Walmart but are not allowed to say anything about the union. I guess the union kept harassing Walmart employees to join a union and Walmart sued Kroger lol!
1. The only reason why Walmart raised its payrate was in response to UFCW putting so much pressure on them to increase the wages and discourage workers to join the union. Do you honestly think Walmart is going to just give you money? The power of the union is its people and quite frankly there are those who will complain and yet do nothing! I've been working for my local to provide the best contract possible for the meat department.
2. In response to Walmart raising its pay my union president says that Kroger is going to have to react as they can't keep up with the current workforce and current turnover and that is true. The economy has improved and unemployment is at 4.7% in the state of texas, which means the pool of workers is shrinking!
3. There are stores that are heavily shorted. If you work hard, you can achieve full time!
4. Not much can be there, but you can believe that Walmart will likely someday have such a system in place as well such as Eschedule. Its only a matter of time before a big wheel gets the idea and implements to cut hours and pocket the money thats being saved in labor.
5. I'm pretty sure they have mystery shops, but its only a matter of time before Walmart addresses long lines and customer satisfaction. This is the direction most companies are going these days.
6. Kroger in my division are building plenty of stores therefore there is a huge opportunity for a promotion.
7. Key Retailing is almost non-existent in my division and is going away. We haven't had a key retailing check in 3 years. We do some basics of retailing for the most part, but eliminated alot of the junk.
8. I have a system that I do where I edit the orders and make backstock non-existent. I've gotten my backstock down to 1 uboat most weeks.
9. Despite the cuts in hours we work as a team to get our job done. It might just be a bad team.
[QUOTE]I didn't know store managers were hourly.[/QUOTE]
Market managers making $20 / hour.
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My Views and Opinions do not reflect that of the Kroger company. I'm an indivdual expressing my 1st amendment right.
Yeah those texas meat contracts are nice..no one bothers you to check or do carts and I watch your department people take 5 breaks a day, checking markdowns and talking to people near the bathroom.
Walmart won a lawsuit against Kroger in my city. Kroger employees are allowed to shop at Walmart but are not allowed to say anything about the union. I guess the union kept harassing Walmart employees to join a union and Walmart sued Kroger lol!
Walmart won a lawsuit against Kroger in my city. Kroger employees are allowed to shop at Walmart but are not allowed to say anything about the union. I guess the union kept harassing Walmart employees to join a union and Walmart sued Kroger lol!
Pretty sure this never happened.
Well you can just search the internet for it then, because it did happen. I would post a link to it but since you called me a liar I'm not helping you.
Walmart won a lawsuit against Kroger in my city. Kroger employees are allowed to shop at Walmart but are not allowed to say anything about the union. I guess the union kept harassing Walmart employees to join a union and Walmart sued Kroger lol!
Pretty sure this never happened.
Well you can just search the internet for it then, because it did happen. I would post a link to it but since you called me a liar I'm not helping you.
Walmart won a lawsuit against Kroger in my city. Kroger employees are allowed to shop at Walmart but are not allowed to say anything about the union. I guess the union kept harassing Walmart employees to join a union and Walmart sued Kroger lol!
Pretty sure this never happened.
Lot's of pictures online about it. Actually there were five states involved, but I'm only speaking of my state. Hint: OUR Walmart. Come on, back up your statement!
I worked at Walmart and it was 40 cents/yr not 6 mos.
8. BACKSTOCK IS BINNED! You don't waste your efforts dragging U-boats full of crap to the floor the check for backstock - all backstock is binned into a location in the backroom and stockers get a pick list (items and their locations) for merchandise that can be stocked. Methinks Kroger is just too cheap to get organized.
9. TEAMWORK IS PLANNED AND ENCOURAGED. At Kroger, I had to sort and work trucks alone most of the time. Wal-Mart utilizes a crew that sorts trucks and stocks shelves. Another example of Kroger's cheapness - putting added pressure on employees.
When I worked for them these were not true.
1. The store I worked at had so few Telxons that by the time I left the only people who could reliably do any sort of inventory control were the managers since they had personally-issued ones, when I was in inventory control we had to scour all the store's Telxon hiding spots to see if we could nab a working one.
2. Finding the picks in the bins was sometimes a nightmare, especially for the general merchandise. And our inventory was so messed up. I was taught tricks that made the system worse just so our store numbers were better. Namely to manually pick cases by entering in the UPC code if you couldn't find the case since unpicked items on the picklist count against the store's performance, even though the case was physically lost or not found. And the IMS (inventory team) is broken when the stores are so understaffed that no one can stock the picks. IMS was so understaffed they only picked and threw the truck can't stock with so few people in IMS and then the floor people had to do it, but most of us were cashiering most of the time. So around Christmas season we had pallets and pallets of picks sitting for days in the backroom.
I left Walmart after they cut my hours to 4-8 hrs/wk as a New Year's present.
1. The only reason why Walmart raised its payrate was in response to UFCW putting so much pressure on them to increase the wages and discourage workers to join the union. Do you honestly think Walmart is going to just give you money? The power of the union is its people and quite frankly there are those who will complain and yet do nothing! I've been working for my local to provide the best contract possible for the meat department.
Sadly, most unions are populated by negotiators and execs who don't care as long as they get their six-figure pay. My area's been under the bare minimum wage for years with only a nickel raise. And I can tell you that while I may not have been a member, I had great coworkers who are stuck with them. Sure, they can vote against drafted contracts that don't meet their needs, but when the union's governing body starts pressuring workers into approving it already or face a strike, that's sickening.
That said.
Walmart may sound like paradise, but don't get your hopes up. They're cutting back in other areas to make up for those wage increases. They've already decided to keep more products (mainly electronics, furniture, and other home goods items) in warehouses so they don't have to spend money moving them. The shelves throughout the entire store are getting bare because they're cutting back on the number of stockers. Just to get the grocery done, the stockers start bring pallets out on the sales floor here after 6:30 PM just so they can finish.
