I'm a new hire myself, I used to work the same department at walmart a long time ago. Walmart was much easier, especially to get things done, and I miss it very much. I'll tell you, I spend a quarter of the time stock and 2 thirds of the time dealing with Kroger's corporate bureaucratic antics. For example, the cleaning expectations are insane. Even if you keep a spotless meatroom, the inspectors will still find ways to mark you down. Or the fact I have to work every case everyday on the lunchmeat wall even though most of it is full, instead of just writing down the empty spots and pulling those boxes onto a smaller cart from the bigger cart (really shelves should be there.) I can see the point that it keeps it refilled but much of my morning is spent fooling around with mostly full cases of lunch meat, and getting around customers crowding the way. it always seems when im ready to stock something some fat lady in a scooter goes right in that spot. Not to mention the assistant managers sit on their asses in the office at night and will come around and scream at you when everything's not perfect instead of mentoring you. the management style at kroger seems to be tyranny over leadership. my department manager seems to be the same way, though i forgive him more because he indeed does have lots of sh*t to do and they dont give him anyway to really mentor me outside of the work. Then again he could show me when hes working, hes a pretty disagreeable grumpy man to begin with, it's really annoying and i've had it with this place and i've been here less than a month. I agree sometimes I do slow down a bit because im not used to working after a long period of unemployment, but the bullsh*t with working for this place doesn't encourage me to work any harder, that's for sure. Sometimes I laugh at how hard i am working and the fact im getting paid what some lady working the drive thru at mcdonalds is making. Kroger does everything wrong, and walmart is killing them for it. Walmart's net margins are over double what kroger's are, and they have like 5% cheaper grocceries. With that math im surprised they've survived. 

I also sort of resent how the front end people standing around get paid what i do even though I have 5 times more responsibility than them not to mention the labor i do. It's always fat queen type ghetto women or just general divas and they always are kissy kissy with the management because the office is right there. I know i sound negative, but this is me venting at stuff I see that makes me irritated to work there. 

And to add i never call in sick or show up late, although sometimes i have a hard time getting out on time. I can tell they really ration the hours, I seen an email when i was peeping through the the papers that the manager told him to cut down the hours hes using too much. I also give it my best and do the best I can. 

Whatever I see how they roll, after a few months if im not fired before then im going to put in my two weeks and apply somewhere else, I guess I will be a turnover stat. 

Disgruntled Meat associate wrote:

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fooling around with mostly full cases of lunch meat, and getting around customers crowding the way. it always seems when im ready to stock something some fat lady in a scooter goes right in that spot. Not to mention the assistant managers sit on their

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 I think customers see what we have on our carts and purposely get in the way.  It never fails.  Or, they get the idea off a website like a flash mob.  My back up plan is to work something that they are not near until they move.

May be a bit of a counter intuitive question to ask. But when was Kroger's associate morale ever on an upward spiral? I mean the more I hear/read about how things are going across the country. It would seem like Kroger has never really grasped the concept of what it means to build morale in their business in the first place. Just let a bunch of things slide, up the expectations, decrease the hours, and expect things to be honky dory. Not to mention how often I've been hearing lately at my store how you can just make a wonderful career out of working there. But dude, I don't think I'd want to with the way things are going half the time.

So before CORE hiring all applications were reviewed be ARM (Hiring Manger) and then they decided who to interview.  I would say most ARMS would interview most GREEN applicants and most Yellow applicants (Color was given to applicants depending on their personality assessment) and they would also go over what positions where open ...etc

CORE hiring is Corporate reviewing all applicants, then calling them to do a pre-screen phone interview and then scheduling an in person interview with ARM/Store Management.  So there are days/weeks where stores would get no interviews or have applicants that do not meet anything that was in the job requisition.  Its so bad that "HIRING FAIRS" are now a weekly/monthly thing, where you basically bypass CORE and hiring without seeing an application (They fill out an application after being HIRED to complete the hiring process).  

CORE + Escheduler= NO Control 

(Escheduler allows Associates to be in control of too much.  If they don't want to work Weekends, they just change their availability or request off anything they want)

I believe everyone should just be hired to work a "Set Schedule" that beneficial for both staffing levels and the associate.  Figure out your ELMS hours, your staffing needs and then what the associates needs and make it work!!   

Kind words from management and corporate would help morale a lot. Not the usual everyone is bad, your department is bad, get faster, labor hours is fine (ELMS!). Obviously monetary gains would be best (not that carrot on a stick quarterly bonus), or even just some free food/water in the break room daily would go along ways to show they actually care about their employee base.

If there's no free soda/food from time-to-time in the break room I'd quit.  That's a perk and the money you spend on yourself otherwise does add up and it is noticeable.

Home Depot does that regularly.

Its getting worse. People are quitting because of low morale and mgmt has no solutions.

Its managements fault for low morale. Their all lazy cry like little babies and only think and look out for them selves.

I am a retired Kroger employee. I retired two years ago with 32 years and I do not miss anything About work. About a year or two I started to notice and feel like something was going to change from my Kroger I started out with and I decided to retired when I hit 65. I am so glad I got out. I have been told by coworkers it is worse than ever since I left just two years ago. Kroger needs to go back to the old ways when I started. Quit micro managing employees and let us do our jobs. We know what we are doing. They need to do the schedules like in the old days where you could get your full time so much faster than now. Corporate needs to work with customers for awhile and see what stupid things they can pull. We used to have a good time working at Kroger but then it changed about 2004 when corporate got new people in their that did not know anything about the grocery business. And it would help if the unions would get out of Krogers pocket and be for us workers. I have noticed for a long time before I retired that my union seemed to be more for Kroger than workers. I have heard since I retired a lot of employees than can retired has and some has quit for other jobs. Kroger was always a good place to work but I feel like we need a new CEO!!!