We had 4 people to stock and condition the entire store, one of those is the grocery manager who can only stock like half of what everyone else can because they obviously have other things that have to be done. I work in a small to medium store, so each person has to do three aisles, with the new system, that means we have to stock, run backstock, do all the extra scanning crap, and condition 3+ aisles. Since hours have been cut and full timers still have to have 2 days a week off, one of the nights we only have two people to run 12 aisles. I've figured it up and each person only has about 4 hours of time now to just straight up stock. All week we've been getting 1200+ piece trucks except on Sunday where we get both a Peyton and grocery. The manager was going to call another person in but the store manager said we couldn't add anymore hours. Naturally, this meant each person ate about 3-4 hours worth of overtime. How it makes any sense to pay overtime but no straight time is beyond me. We have two part timers but they've been cut to 12 hours because we have to have two replenishes during the day taking 24 hours, which we never had before and echedule doesn't budget hours for. It's supposed to make things more efficient, but it actually just adds more overhead and work to everyone. Since we are now forced to place anything showing up as a slow mover over top the rafters, regardless of whether or not it's something we'll need in a few days or a distribution of next week's add item, we either have to waste time pulling it down and sorting through an entire pallet to find one or two items or just let it be a hole until we can get to it. Unfortunately, corporate keeps coming by randomly to scan all of our backstock to make sure no slow movers are on the carts, so we can't just use our judgment to decide if it really does need to be placed overhead. Our lives are basically run by cao now, which is about as accurate as a 15 day weather forecast.
It's fine though. I'll just keep raking in the time and a half so management can make everything look good on paper, it's not my responsibility to explain to corporate why our store constantly exceeds our OT budget, and we're told that we have to stay until the truck is run and under no circumstances can we just neglect to scan everything, separate out the backstock, or fail to find products in shippers, displays, or slow movers to fill the shelf that is a low or hole, so what are we going to do?
-- Edited by Master Bates on Tuesday 21st of March 2017 05:57:42 PM
It is cheaper to pay OT because the store does not pay benefits to any hours over 40. Kroger saves. Hiring new people means that Kroger has to pay for extra Workers comp and asst payroll taxes.
Once CAO learns your store and has been followed to the letter, it WILL reduce your backstock and truck size in half, while minimizing out of stocks. We've had it for 6 months now
Expectations are not realistic, and it sucks. Kroger is becoming another Walmart. I'm a freight guy that can throw 120 cases per hour, and loads like that are incredibly overwhelming. I'd suggesting heading to another company. Trust me, the other 2 companies I've worked for are A LOT more realistic with their freight expectations. And the best part is, no scanning in backstock at most other places! At least not from the load.
__________________
You had an employee bbq yesterday? Thanks for telling the night crew...
