I would light to bring to the light how bad it is to work for kroger. If you need a get your foot in the job market job this would be it but I would not consider it for a career. I stayed much longer than I should of in this line of work. It's frankly gotten worse in the past couple of years. From over micromanagement, to severely reducing employee hours to unlivable paychecks, to repeated union rights violations.... The list goes on and is too long for this post and unique for every individual. Kroger plays hour games with you to keep you at the lower rate of pay and will pull sh---it on you and hope you don't notice or speak up to keep you at lower rates of pay. Kroger is winning by generating terrible toxic store environments to get higher waged individuals to quit then replaced by minimum waged nobodies pulled off the street with zilch experience. Kroger keeps pushing unrealistic expectations on it's employees and haras--ses them if they don't comply. When new policies get activated and employees go wtf I'm not doing that. They write people up for not complying.
We've lost repeated union rights over the years and new hires are pretty much screwed. You get few if at all rights and a fraction of what we use to get. The union does not stand up for its employees like it should who are having issues at the store level. The union needs to digitize and get out of old technology and into the new. It takes for ever to file grievance and even longer to get an arbitrary response. I've seen many people get taken advantage of for their union rights and the employer hopes you don't speak up.
Since the creation of utility clerks and any one can work any where minus meat/seafood. Scheduling has gotten terrible. Those scheduled in a main base area have had their hours reduced severely because of this practice. Training has gotten horrid and fresh start is a bad joke of a training system. No one learns anything and no one can hear the damn audio on out of date computers with no sound. New hires take for ever to learn the ropes around the store and how to do the basics of their tasks. It's normal to get almost no training and thrown into the fire.
My department is a clutter f* mess and it's been understaffed the past 3 years. With high turn over and I can see why. You get into it and get harassed about how sh* ain't getting done when in reality a lot of the variables are outside of your control.
I'm throwing in the towel next year and job hunting for something else. My store goes through so much damn management we get a new one every 4-6 mo and that's putting it lightly. Not everyone pulls their fair weight at this company. Laziness is highly encouraged and hard workers get punished, held back and denied promotional opportunities. I was told many times by hard working that I was making bad lazy staff look terrible and to back off on it. Good lord kroger that's not what you stand for. We show up to work to work not goof off.
Many staff get into the job then their true colors show after day 91 and union protection kicks in. I see this all the damn time and have learned not to judge a book by its cover or inside flap. It baffles me how this company promotes laziness and could care less about the workers that make profit happen at their store.
This company could care less about you and doesn't. Even though you are required to hold a certain level of professionalism a lot of people forget that and try to ride the system as long as they can until management steps in and intervenes. Many times they don't. I've worked other lines of work and let me tell you most people that pull this s* would not survive in the real world.
This is a dead end pay check to paycheck job with few if at all promotional opportunities. Expect your hope to die after about the 2-5 yrs of grinding in this line of work.
They can't keep new hires due to toxic work environments and low rates of pay. Then hour games to give unlivable paychecks. We loose a lot of staff this way and kroger could care less.
Company expects you to not stand up for your union rights and relies on that fact. Do not be afraid to speak up that's what the union is for.
Just use this company for skills and a reference then move on. Unless you're financially desperate do not work for kroger. you'll be poor half your life, 3 pay checks away from disaster and become more bitter the longer you work here.
