During the years I was working for Kroger, the company always seemed to spend money on something when contract time came up to justify low ball pay raise offers. Well earlier today I had to take my mother to the Kroger I use to work at and there were men what I thought where new wheels on all the shopping carts. Found out when I had to return to the same store later in the evening I found out what was going on.
They installed some kind of anti theft system that locks the wheels when moved too far from the store. Theft of shopping carts has been a problem for years at this store but i think it's funny that they wait until a few days before the contract is up that they spend all the money on this. So is your store spending money on anything unusual?
They are installing Gatekeeper for keeping carts on the lot and also product theft. If the cart passes over the line in the parking lot they stop, if the cart pass over the exit without going into the checkouts area they STOP.
Doesn't that stuff go into the stores upkeep budget? Contracts normally go out around the same times as the fiscal budgets are about to run out, don't they?
Is there a different budget for division-wide improvements?
-- Edited by BagBoy on Friday 6th of October 2017 03:34:04 AM
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Would you like fries with th... I mean, your milk in a bag?
Contract time isn't normally any different in my area of stores. Unfortunately I do not see anyone winning with the next contacts, specially with the current job market. Only think I think is certain, Pay Brackets will be smaller......everyone will start at $10.00 and can make $16.00 after 7 years of Full-Time hours. Associates might have a productivity requirement and possible a new policy on attendance.
The new "anti theft wheels" deal came to our store about 3 or 4 months ago. I think it is helping cut shoplifting, at least a little. If the cart is not wheeled THROUGH an actual check lane, the wheels will lock up and a loud siren will go off. We use a lot of bascarts for various work reasons (filling with cardboard or RPCs, scanning out Fresh kitchen and other outdates, doing markdowns, etc) and so if we want to return a cart to its proper place at the front of the building, we have to be careful to go "the right way" or the siren/beeping goes off.
I think, in practice, a lot more false alarms are happening rather than cases of actual attempts at shoplifting. But I think they are a definite help on shrink caused by shoplifters.
