Can someone give a brief description on how Elms works?
I work in Night Grocery. I know Dairy, Grocery and Frozen share hours.
I am trying to figure out how I am supposed to get the work done without going past the hours scheduled. For instance, the biggest truck is Monday morning. Recently a 27.5 hour run time for stocking only. We had 5 people scheduled for total of 30 hours. Less breaks and that leaves 27.5 hours of working time if everyone is working at 100%. Where am I supposed to find time(10 hours) for conditioning, fast alerts, and receiving?
The store manager has been patient about me letting people work 8 hours instead of their scheduled 4 and some overtime. But, now he wants me to get more work done in less hours. Even if everyone works at 100%, we are still short 10-15 hours each night. I can't leave the work for the next night because it will put us behind like a snowball effect. My crew does ok for the most part but there is no urgency to get done. I can show the manager on paper that there is not enough time even if everyone is working at 100%.
There are 9 of us on nights and 11 people on days. The 11 people are the grocery manager, frozen lead, dairy manager, receiving clerk, bread clerk and 1 full time and 5 part timers to work Frozen and dairy. I wish Elms would separate hours by sub department:Dairy, Frozen, Night Grocery, Grocery. I often wonder if the hours we need are being funneled to the day crew and wasted with people slacking.
Um, ELMS does separate the hours for each sub department(minus night grocery since grocery is grocery). Unless you're running some weird version.
You should not be scheduled 30 hours for a 27.5hour truck. Either somebody is trying to put their workload on you, hours are not properly scheduled(too many one some days, not enough others), or there simply aren't enough hours period and that's managements fault. Sometimes the DDP has to be fudged since the system is rather retarded. For example it gives something like 7.5 hours of "administrative work" just for frozen food here, yet only 3 hours for backstock the entire week, and something like 19 hours for conditioning when only 8 is needed. So the numbers are moved around, but the overall hours given is enough(unless something goes wrong) to get the job done.
I don't think it is a weird version. I do not know if I have access to Elms or where to find it. Where do I look?
When the day grocery manager writes the eschedule for all the departments, 2 full timers are given 27 hours and 3 part timers are given 4 hours. He has to manually correct it. And, I still do not have enough time to get everything done on nights.
The above example is my normal Monday truck schedule for the last 3 months.
I have 3 grocery trucks and 3 kmp trucks. I think I have too many people scheduled on Kmp nights but still barely get the work done. Sometimes I wonder if the schedule is off by a day. We use the 7th day to run all backstock. Some of my crew are not fast and everyone else has to pick up their slack is another problem I don't know how to deal with. If I say something, they will slow down even more. If I don't say anything, we continue to use extra hours.
My store manager wants me to write the schedule which I am ok with but am trying to figure out how the hours are decided.
I focus on running the live load and conditioning the store. Are we supposed to be doing more on nights? Besides running backstock daily.
I will receive if no one is there and I sometimes will fill backstock Kroger gallons and pallets of water. I don't have an extra 1.5 hours to fill the water. Sometimes, it absolutely must be done. Within the last month, someone on days has been filling the water but they usually skip it on the day I have way too much work to do.
" Some of my crew are not fast and everyone else has to pick up their slack is another problem I don't know how to deal with. If I say something, they will slow down even more. If I don't say anything, we continue to use extra hours."
" Some of my crew are not fast and everyone else has to pick up their slack is another problem I don't know how to deal with. If I say something, they will slow down even more. If I don't say anything, we continue to use extra hours."
Only a small part of problem. I am getting scheduled only 30 hours to do 45 hours of work. Even if everyone worked at 100%, there is not enough time. Give me enough hours, I can put the slow people out of the way and get the job done with the workers that hussle.
Find a Kroger with a union that doesn't have new and long time employee slackers on payroll. I have 2 older slow part timers and 3 full timers that have been there for more than 18 years. 2 of them do a half assed job sometimes and the other is too key retailing(rotate all, check dates all, remove improperly stocked products. I can't believe he doesn't have a spray bottle and towels to clean the shelves too. ) Some people just don't care to be in a hurry because they dislike the job(low pay, low hours, less benefits) but they have no skills to work anywhere else. Other people are just lazy.
They should never expect anyone to give 100% 100 percent of the time. Ask your manager if he runs his car's engine at 100% of its maximum RPMs 100% of the time.
If you go into Citrix -> IE -> Applications -> DDP, select Weekly, and select your department. Am I correct in understanding the only dry grocery day time person is your grocery manager? What does he do during the day? Just deal with shippers/displays? Honestly that shouldn't take an entire shift unless it's on changeout day. Here we have the person that runs the drink aisle do the water every day. It's just part of the aisle.
Do you have access to myeschedule? If not, go into ELMS on Citrix and go to store forecast for a given week. That will show you how many hours ELMS actually allots per department for the week. Keep in mind grocery counts DSD receiver too.
Honestly your backstock review day you shouldn't have many people there. We only have 3. Grocery manager and 2 8 hour shifters. That gets the store conditioned, and all of the backstock reviews done.
As a quick way to calculate hours, 300 cases per 8 hour shift. If you have slackers, adjust slightly. This should account for time necessary to cleanup/condition/make bales, etc. So if your grocery truck is 1500 cases, 40 hours that night should be able to handle the work load as long as you're not doing extras that your grocery manager should be doing. Obviously this is a rough way to calculate, but it gives you an idea. Also, for peyton nights, change that to 250 per shift. The extra time to break down the truck and stock those annoying cases does take more time.
My grocery dept, dry alone, does about 50k a day. I'm generally the only one during the day. There aren't even enough hours most weeks to schedule someone on my days off lol. You got it good son....
If you go into Citrix -> IE -> Applications -> DDP, select Weekly, and select your department. Am I correct in understanding the only dry grocery day time person is your grocery manager? What does he do during the day? Just deal with shippers/displays? Honestly that shouldn't take an entire shift unless it's on changeout day. Here we have the person that runs the drink aisle do the water every day. It's just part of the aisle.
No one is really sure what the grocery manager does on days. On days, there is the gr manager, DSD receiver, and a FT clerk to do bread, chips, cookies, crackers and kmp blue totes. Then, some of the daytime pt get grocery hours but they don't do anything to help out night grocery except running backstock water occasionally. I think they do Monday markdowns in the dairy and help in the dairy and frozen. Grocery hours are being scheduled for daycrew but they don't run any of the stock or even backstock. They might help the day manager change ends.
Do you have access to myeschedule? If not, go into ELMS on Citrix and go to store forecast for a given week. That will show you how many hours ELMS actually allots per department for the week. Keep in mind grocery counts DSD receiver too.
I will have to check that out.
Honestly your backstock review day you shouldn't have many people there. We only have 3. Grocery manager and 2 8 hour shifters. That gets the store conditioned, and all of the backstock reviews done.
We had 2 ft call in on backstock night. I had one pt that wasn't scheduled but was given hours so I could clean misc out of backroom and run shippers to shelf. So, instead of getting extra done, we were able to get all Uboats ran and scanned with 4 people and store conditioned. The 2 pt didn't work the full 8 hour shift either. (I think 6 hours and 7.5 hours). I know it can be done but not when those 2 FT people are there. I think everyone was hustling because the 2 FT called in and wanted to show we can get it done without them.
As a quick way to calculate hours, 300 cases per 8 hour shift. If you have slackers, adjust slightly. This should account for time necessary to cleanup/condition/make bales, etc. So if your grocery truck is 1500 cases, 40 hours that night should be able to handle the work load as long as you're not doing extras that your grocery manager should be doing. Obviously this is a rough way to calculate, but it gives you an idea. Also, for peyton nights, change that to 250 per shift. The extra time to break down the truck and stock those annoying cases does take more time.
I use about the same rough guestimate to see if we have enough people. Yeah, we can hit 300 cases an hour with everything being done. So far, the two slower pt are being scheduled on separate days. The kmp run times are disappointing. We can make good time on Grocery night if we have enough hours.
My plan is to check out the weekly DDP. Then start asking for so many hours each day based on this weeks workload. I have been asking for so many people for each day. But, half the crew are getting scheduled 4 hour shifts. That was working when I was allowed to keep the people over their scheduled shift.
So, I printed out the Weekly DDP for Grocery, Frozen and Dairy.
When I compared the DDP to the Schedule, all departments are short hours.
Dairy is short 17.5
Frozen is short 8.75
Grocery is short 13.75
Three old timers get Overtime on Sunday if they want it. I imagine that counts towards the DDP.
One pt day person has 12 hours on Grocery but might run water for 6 hours. Other 6 twiddling thumbs or in frozen or dairy.
Another pt day person has 16 hours in Grocery but won't do anything for the department. Probably go to frozen or Dairy.
One ft person is using 3 ph days. Does that count towards the DDP? That would explain some of the missing 40 hours.
Does Eschedule purposely schedule low. Or, does the manager schedule low hours so if we go over, we don't really go over budget?
Forgot to mention. Another ft is working 24 hours in Grocery to make up for the ph days the other ft is taking off. Normally, that 24 hours is spent in Dairy or Frozen and doesn't benefit the Grocery department. Plus 16 hours for the other person.
So, that is 40 hours that would help keep the department on budget if it was actually used for the grocery department.
So, I printed out the Weekly DDP for Grocery, Frozen and Dairy.
When I compared the DDP to the Schedule, all departments are short hours.
Dairy is short 17.5
Frozen is short 8.75
Grocery is short 13.75
Three old timers get Overtime on Sunday if they want it. I imagine that counts towards the DDP.
One pt day person has 12 hours on Grocery but might run water for 6 hours. Other 6 twiddling thumbs or in frozen or dairy.
Another pt day person has 16 hours in Grocery but won't do anything for the department. Probably go to frozen or Dairy.
One ft person is using 3 ph days. Does that count towards the DDP? That would explain some of the missing 40 hours.
Does Eschedule purposely schedule low. Or, does the manager schedule low hours so if we go over, we don't really go over budget?
Forgot to mention. Another ft is working 24 hours in Grocery to make up for the ph days the other ft is taking off. Normally, that 24 hours is spent in Dairy or Frozen and doesn't benefit the Grocery department. Plus 16 hours for the other person.
So, that is 40 hours that would help keep the department on budget if it was actually used for the grocery department.
Nevermind. Since the 2 week schedule is up, I analyzed it. We are over by 50 hours the next week.
The Day crew uses 160 hours the first week and 200 hours the second week.
They are the Day manager(changes ends, orders kmp and "sets up"shippers), the DSD receiver, and the person that does the bread, chips, cookies, crackers, and kmp blue totes(and backstock for both). Another FT and 2 pt might be helping with bread, liquor, cookies, chips and crackers. I think they work in Dairy or frozen or do markdowns. They use 44 hours first week and 54 the second.
The night crew conditions the store, runs the main stock for both trucks and runs all backstock. The deliveries are supposed to come during the daytime but I seem to unload 80% of Grocery trucks, receive 5 overnight vendors and an occasional meat truck. 9 people share 237 hours the first week and 250 the second. If I had 40 hours of work from the day crew or they atleast tried to run backstock other than water, We would be able to get everything done without overtime or extra hours.
