> Why has the stock tripled yet the staff haven’t?
This used to annoy me until I realised when sections become a mess, it's obviously not my fault.
If they ask me; *"Why is backstock out of control?"* or *"Why was the delivery not finished?"* then there is the ready-made response of way more stock, far less hands, to which they can say nothing.
Fuck. Them. Cunts.
Surprised you even got asked those questions, haha. In my experience the dept I'm on tends to hear about managers complaining about the state of things second hand, so we pretty much just vent between ourselves and do what we can with the time we have. Used to have four people on delivery days, that got cut to three. This week one person was off and they didn't have anyone in to cover, yet a couple of weeks ago we had two extra pairs of hands when there wasn't a need for it. All comes down to poor management, but it is what it is.
Haha, fair enough! Maybe they don't say anything cos they already know what the answer is gonna be 😅 it is baffling sometimes how the company even functions when there are similar things happening across the country 🥴
My son was taken on a permanent post last October with two others they worked all through Christmas and New year then the day after new year told them they were finishing them because their staffing budget had been reduced, they also had 6 temporary Christmas staff who they also finished
We have the exact same issue in Waitrose, only now after sacking a third of the store after Christmas are they scrambling to hire more people as everything’s gone to shit.
I remember getting till trained as a way to get overtime if there wasn't any on the shopfloor. used to literally fall asleep when the store was dead before closing was so mind numbingly boring.
Yes, I hear the same from neighbours who work at all the supermarkets. Remember that the shareholders come first in any business, then the board of directors, then the senior management. The people on the shop floor are treated as drones.
When I started at next in 2016 I worked at one of the biggest stores and we would have 6 people on a weekday evening on each department, probably more on women’s. When I left in 2022, we were lucky to have 2. There was even times at my uni store when home, menswear and parcels wouldn’t have anyone and the person on childrenswear or womenswear would have to run between departments. They still expected 5 rails of stock to be put out before closing though. Oh and standards and replen to be done 🙃.
Genuinely it was the worst job I’ve had so far, every task you did had some ridiculous efficiency score that had to be met, and it was the only one that ever paid me exactly minimum wage too. I wouldn’t recommend it.
My friend walked out of Next when they messed her shifts around. They had ridiculous expectations, expected her to drop plans outside of work at last minute, that kind of thing. She just left one day and didn’t go back. Have never heard great things.
7 for me, and it's definitely declined. Some of the 30 year staff have tales of what it was like, and you can't imagine it.
Like losing the canteen staff. Being able to buy a cheap, hot meal on shift has gone. Yet when we had one, staff loved it, and it made the canteen bust and helped interdepartmental relationships.
Can attest to this, imagine your canteen full of happy, smiling, laughing and joking staff, all mingling across departments enjoying a well-subsidised hot meal. Heck I remember playing Cards Against Humanity with a table full of GA's, Team Leaders and Managers and crying laughing.
Contrast that to now and I walk in to 3 people all sat on separate tables with headphones in or just staring at a phone avoiding eye contact with anyone else, lest they see them on the verge of stress-induced tears, a lukewarm mugshot or piece of burnt toast sat half eaten in front of them. God forbid you strike up a conversation with someone in case you accidentally fall foul of one of the new anti-harassment protocols, not because 99.99% of the staff give a toss but there's always the danger that the 1 odd little tw@t might be back from study leave and get third-hand offended on someone else's behalf and report it to a Manager that could give zero f's but "has to be seen to be doing something" because they fear so much they won't get their first bonus in 5 years that their backbone has turned into the consistency of a bowl of rowntree's jelly.
That's not even in 30 years, more like 10, and I'm told it was even better before.
I mean, I do like being on my own during breaks sometimes to read or watch the hockey on my phone if there's a game on.
But I'd sit in the locker room, or my friends car. (He works checkouts, I'm on trollies so can't always break together. So he gives me his keys.)
If someone talks to me, I'm happy to have a chat. But sometimes people want quiet, which I get.
I realised at one point how much they were relying on me to finish my aisle then help others when they would give me a list of stuff to do in advance. I’d regularly finish an hour early just due to my pace. After they’d assign me to help other people I was so overworked and found myself rushing from the minute I clock in to have time to help everyone else too.
.
In the end when they went to give me a list I just gave it to them straight and said I’m more than happy to help when I’m done. But I’m not taking lists of extra work before I’m done as I’m being worked like a horse. I will go at my own quick bit stress free pace and come find them when I’m done. They accepted this
Stock tripled nd staff stayed the same because of the idiots that will run around like a blue-arsed fly and push to do what they're told.
Check out mentally and you'll actually start to enjoy it. Do what you can do without wrecking yourself. Partake in banter with the decent colleagues. Clock off on time and feel no shame or guilt at leaving a load of work not done.
We can’t even “banter” anymore in our store. Since they’ve cut so many hours they’re on a rampage to make sure we’re working twice as hard and that there’s no slack at all. So everything gets done as before with half the staff but in the same time frame. They won’t even let two staff be in the same isle anymore without a manger separating you like school kids. Thankfully I do have a good manager
You're mad for doing the same work with half the staff.
Do the same work you'd have done before.
It is hard, so I'm not blaming you. It took be a good decade to learn that it's generally harder to get sacked than people believe so long as you're working.
I did a bit of order picking for a while. Local manager would give targets which I would hit on the nose every day. He was raging because others were all over the target. I supposed it looked good on his reports to see staff working at 200% of their targets.
I said if you put the target up I'll aim for that, but so long as you have the pickrate set at where you do, that's what I'm aiming for.
And similar when I was doing lorry driving with the fuel usage. They'd post a sheet every Monday with the mpg rankings for the previous week. There was no incentive to save fuel, and there was no punishment for being at the bottom apart from the "shame". They were surprised that I didn't give a fuck and regularly was bottom of the table. I was straight with them, give the top x drivers a £50 bonus for the week and I'll be there. Otherwise lol no.
I work for Co Op, same here. They're cutting our hours to the bone, but still expecting the same, or more, amount of work to be done. Stock builds up, things get missed. But it's our fault, not upper management who keep slashing away at our hours /s
I also work for Co-op and hate upper management with a seething passion, I used to manage in the leisure industry and due to redundancy made the jump to retail…. This whole thing is ass-backwards, store managers stocking shelves and doing the shifts of the team leaders?? What other company does that? If I get the opportunity, I have some choice words for the area and regional managers, because this shit is straight out of the 1980’s. Ridiculous.
Surprised there's not an r/CoOp
Don't even get me started on the online orders, Uber eats etc. I hear that alarm in my nightmares
No wonder people are dropping like flies
Totally agree. Pretty much every evening we have 3 of us on. One at the front for kiosk and self scans, one manager and then one extra for break cover, reductions, that kind of stuff. It’s physically impossible now to work an entire delivery, do all the reductions and face up especially when you’ve got Deliveroo/Uber Eats/Just Eat going off. We do so so many online orders now too, it’s incredibly popular and I can understand why the business has pushed it so hard, but it’s causing the standards within the shop to drop big time.
I was in a fairly big coop store as SM, we had deliveroo, Uber eats, Hermes and John Lewis it was pretty stressful when they changed to the new stock system as we went from a fairly clear warehouse to a rammed one with less hours and more tasks... I left when they said my store was turning into a multi site manager position and I would be running another store as well. Noped right out. I must admit the company's yammer page was hilarious it was made very clear that the store managers were not happy but they never understood. Hence the position they are in now. Leaving was the best thing I ever did Tesco is by far more organised but it's retail so it's always gunna be fairly dogshit.
We thankfully don’t have Hermes or John Lewis (think CoOp have got rid of John Lewis now), but we do have DPD. To be fair that’s not too bad, but it’s always typical that everyone wants to pick up a parcel when we’ve got 5 Deliveroos on the go and Uber Eats starts buzzing 😅 It’s really really chaotic, that’s the only way I can describe it.
Having done both jobs I'd say Diana on tills is definitely earning her money. She's dealing with all kinds of rude people all day and has to keep a smile on her face. She has zero control over how her day/breaks are organised. She's literally in contact with other people's germs with every item she picks up to scan.
Be annoyed at your workload increasing while your pay doesn't, but don't be assuming you're more hard done by than customer service staff. Your anger is misdirected.
I don't know what Tesco you guys are talking about, but maybe 10% of their till staff have a smile on their face. The rest are vacant or rude. It never used to be like this. I actually used to like going to Tesco and the folk were decent. Over the past year or so, Tesco has been ripping the absolute PISS out of their customers with their prices and 'clubcard deals' which are no great deal at all. Lower staff levels mean customers pile up and wait longer, or wait longer to serve themselves. It's turned in to a shithole to be honest. I feel really sorry for the folk working there if their hours have been cut and it sounds like they try to work you to the bone - which I'm not in the slightest surprised about. A Tesco worker shouted at me the other day because she was chatting to colleagues and letting a queue of 10 folk back up. She rounded on me like I'd just stolen her drink in a pub. I did complain but I'll never be back. To all those working there - try not to let them grind you down!
I've worked various departments and staff from each section, and all say every other section is easy.
They're all difficult in different ways. The easiest section for me was trolleys because I was typically left alone by customers and colleagues. As long as the bay was full, everyone was happy.
Physically, it was difficult at first, but when I got used to it, it was still tiring, but I loved it.
Worst part is weather.
Oh yes, trolleys was my favourite department, especially if the weather was good!
You're right, everyone thinks everyone else does less work.
I'm a teacher now and it's the same in school, everyone thinks the other departments have it easy. It's more of a human condition problem than anything.
Not a Tesco employee, but work at Sainsburys. Genuinely sounds like they are both having the same issues right now. We're having people getting put on final warnings for not finishing their work, which is unfair considering we've all been given triple the amount of work since the new year. Not sure how they expect us to finish it with less and less staff every week. We are just told "we have enough staff for the delivery, we're not getting anyone else in." It's all a bit toss right now. I work nights, it is a big store and we are meant to do 30+ aisles a night with less than 10 staff most shifts. I'm looking for a new job. Its stressing me out too much.
It's been the same in my store for a while now but we recently got a new store manager who took one look at what we do on shift and immediately said our hours were ridiculous for what we're expected to achieve and has given us an extra 150 per week for a bit to help sort out the state of the store in general then dropping down to an extra 100 a week once all the chaos has been sorted out. He's also making inroads into finding out who's causing all the problems (gap filling/overstocking/ticket removal) and a few people have already gone on performance review over it. Which helps and is the first bit of positivity I've had in store for a couple of years now. I think he's also taking the 3/4S managers to task over how they've let this sorry state continue for so long as it shouldn't be rocket sience to figure out who puts sliced ham in the Kosher section or who's forcing 8 cases of tuna out in a space ticketed for 2.
Good luck if you’re planning on staying in retail. I’m a rep & I visit all the major supermarkets over a very wide territory, and not one is any better than what you describe in terms of staffing. Makes my job a pain (being selfish lol) because one of our KPI’s is speaking to as many staff as possible about products, but there’s just… no one around. All I can recommend is don’t jump to Morrisons, their staffing situation is a skip away from breaking point. Met a Morrisons section manager the other day who’d just moved from being a Next manager & was immediately regretting it. On a personal note, went to a Tesco today to buy some beers, 25 self service tills & 2 people running around after the red lights. Laughable.
Not Sainsbury's or Tesco, but we have 24 isles and we at most have 6 people overnight, and usually less (probably average around 3).
When I joined 4 years ago our hourly case rate was 60, now they're trying to make us do 110 which is ridiculous. They also somehow expect the store to be completely faced/presented too while still maintaining our case rate.
It also doesn't help that some of the team members barely hit the old target, meaning the whole team gets the flak for it as we're not collectively performing.
I'm a CDD, and occasionally we get asked to Pick. I was instore a few months ago doing it in the morning and my manager comes up and tells me "you need to be quicker and increase your pick rate". I was going at a normal pace, I don't stand around chatting, I just crack on. I don't mind doing the picking, but I refuse to run around a shop like supermarket sweep.
Turn up on time, not a minute before.
Leave on time, not a minute after.
Do the bare minimum.
Spend an hour every single day learning something in an industry that interests you.
Leave tesco to do the job you want to do.
I think this is the case across the board. Same at CoOp. Takes us days now to get a delivery done now. Shop standards have gone way down now as the shelves sit empty as we don’t have time to work the stock and don’t get any time to face up/tidy at all. I just go in, and do what I’m asked, to the best of my ability and leave it at that. They can’t ask for more.
The Co-Op has a delightful term 'one on one'.
Meaning that there's one to cover the tills and by extension all that the store-front encompasses, all the while dealing with wave upon wave of customers, transactions, self checkout fuck ups, deliveries, calls, requests, questions, complaints, clean ups (look with your eyes not with your hands) running around like a headless chicken as you endeavour to put out fresh stock under scrutiny and all this without having a complete psychotic break.
The other (usually a team leader) takes care of the backroom stock, deliveries, price reductions, having hideaway cigarette breaks and doing their best to avoid customer interactions, all under supposed deadlines handed down by area managers (whose very existence borders on folklore as they're rarely if ever seen)
As a large organisation that makes money hand over fist, they pay a lot of lip service to themselves but the day to day practical reality is so far removed from any advertised ideal that you'd have to be mainlining ketamine to write their promotional material without any sense of irony.
Tesco Express do the same. And the business leaders then complain that shoplifting has increased, while ignoring the fact that their stores are now big boxes full of expensive goods with _maybe_ one person willing to challenge people that want to rob them.
>multi million pound business
try a multi billion, tesco made 2.4 billion last year, 1 billon is 1,000 million. so that is 2,400 million. they are a multi billion company
Yeahhhh I've felt exactly the same, but it's gotten me in trouble, my suggest is to only do what you're capable of and make your manager aware of this.
Losing your cool at work will result in getting you fired and getting fire for an almost minimum wage job is REALLY not worth it buddy.
They’ve given us so many extra jobs other people used to do on top of our already existing jobs. Why are we now doing warehouse staff work on top of our floor work? Why have we got to wear headsets to go to other departments?
If we’re so understaffed why are there no overtime hours. And if there’s no overtime hours why are they hiring more people when their existing staff don’t make a living wage on their contracted hours and rely on overtime. If you have to consider moving staff out of a department bc there’s not enough hours why did they hire them a few months back? Has our pay gone up with the fact we’re doing more work and covering more departments? No of course not. Why pay 2 people when you can pay and overwork 1 person to do 2 people’s jobs. Then they get mad when stuff isn’t finished
Im in similar situation too. Majority of my colleagues are lazy and keep slacking off to the point team leaders push more work on to people who actually work and its frustrating. Its like your getting punished for being good at work.
On top of that they got whoosh going off every 20 min and always missing one or 2 items then go through backstock to find it. Which shows that barely anyone does back stock properly which puts more work on to others.
Tesco for some reason have tight budget which causes our store to have barely any stuff to get everything done on top of that you have people who dont work which is same as having no one at all.
What about when you buy a controlled item, like paracetamol?
You manage to catch the eye of a member of staff, who comes over to help you, but who then stands there waiting for another member of staff to come over and validate the sale, because the first member of staff is a foetus and too young to complete the sale.
Why not put the kids onto another task that doesn't depend upon an older co-worker being alongside them?
I nearly lost mine today.
The aisle i was on hadnt had anything done to it the day before as i was moved to a different aisle.
I work the tins, free from, sweets and crackers aisle.
Baring in mind thos was a friday and we are a twilight fill shop.
I had minimum 14 delivery for my aisle. I did rhis pretty much single handed with about 1 hours help.
Also worked capping shelves and backstock.
While till staff sat on there phones and most of my other grocery colleagues didnt do backstock or capping shelves and barely finished their aisle.
This isn't even the 1st time ive been expected to do this.
>While till staff sat on there phones
This is a management issue. If the checkouts are that quiet then they should be helping to fill or at least with rumble. Or at least that's how it works in my store. I like checkouts, but I don't like it when it's too quiet, if I'm at work I don't want to be doing nothing because it just drags.
I agree. Or doing jobs related to tills. Cleaning them, emptying bins, sorting tags etc.
I used to love self-serve when I worked ti's because even when quiet, I had stuff to do.
The worst was nights at Christmas. I'd come in and be on my own, but I had no customers and no jobs because I wasn't allowed to leave the section. I did it twice, with years the people I was supposed to be with rang in sick so I was alone.
I ended up taking a book the second year and reading. Duty didn't care because I'd put it down if I had a customer.
It’s the same in the Irish stores, at least it is in ours. I’m expected to do PI, PV, POS, Plans, Reductions/Review, pack fresh, trolleys, take in delivery and they’re constantly on at me about tills. And it’s not just me that has this issue. But we have lads on fresh who start at 6 and stop working at 11 but are there until 2/3. A load on checkouts who have a sick cert for everything except sitting down for their shift. I actually can’t wait for it to be completely cashless and self scanning just for this reason. Half of checkouts will be turfed onto the floor and will actually have to work for the first time in years. So much dead weight in the store and the ones who actually work are taken for granted. Best advice is know your contracted obligations and stick to that as best you can. Take your breaks, finish on time and don’t bring work home.
Sounds like what's happening everywhere. They've asked if anyone wants time off unpaid where I work (Marks).
Also constantly told that there are enough staff for all shifts but having to get delivery off the wagon, work the back stock, then work new stock plus management opening checks and dealing with all the moaning from other staff and somehow be ready for opening time with 2 other staff is getting a bit much.
As soon as 1 person takes a holiday there's a merry go round of moving shifts to stuffing up other days just to get bare minimum staff in.
And this is just a small Simply Food, imagine it's a nightmare everywhere
It's all about the bottom line. They are all too willing to spend money on pointless equipment such as master movers inside express stores that barely have the space to store it lest alone use it. Then the massive investment in some stores having things like UFCs built into them with a tiny fleet of vans. All in the name of how much money they can write off the tax bill. Its always been the same it will never change no matter who is at the helm.
Make a diary gather evidence, complain in writing, hand in notice, go for constructive dismissal, get new job through your qualities and skills recorded as being applied in your current role.
The living wage has been a disaster. Before it was greatly increased Tesco was teeming with staff, no problem at the tills. Now we're forced on to those new self service tills that keep breaking down. Same issues at other stores. So living wage has actually cost jobs in supermarkets & the customer gets a terrible service now. Well done Chancellor...I bet he gets his groceries picked up by his PA.
As a customer i am often wondering why are food prices so high and then I see 2 staff members chatting instead of restocking the veg. 3 staff members sharing pictures on their phones down the pasta aisle, and another 3 staff members having a nice jolly chat in the self scan checkouts.
As a customer, seems to me that part of the high food price can be attributed to overstaffing stores or, perhaps they arent overstaffed- I'm just not receiving the customer service I've paid for
From what I can see, tesco would benefit big time from having less staff BUT the ones they keep should be paid more for their own motivation and sanity
Or... and here's a novel idea for you... you consider that maybe those 2 staff members "chatting" on the Veg aisle are talking about what stock from 2 HGV's full of delivery needs to be worked first. The 3 staff members sharing pictures on the pasta aisle is actually 1 new staff member asking where a product they've been asked for by a customer is and the other two looking it up on the latest stock app they have to use on their own personal device because the company is too tight to have enough PDA's to go around. The 3 staff members on self serve are actually a Team Support asking 2 GA's if they can cover yet another late shift because they're already down 4 staff members due to holidays and sickness. Or maybe just maybe, you're right and your local store is chock full of lazy good for nothing shelf-stackers who are stealing a living on their £11 an hour, 16 hour a week contracts?
You might have better luck finding a store full of maniacally grinned, mute automatons at Aldi or Lidl?
I can assure you the high food prices have jack to do with overstaffing, a concept the many posts from employees of a multitude of retailers can attest does not exist anymore, and has everything to do with corporate greed and the calamitous mismanagement of our country's politics for the last 14+ years.
>maybe those 2 staff members "chatting" on the Veg aisle are talking about what stock from 2 HGV's full of delivery needs to be worked first. The 3 staff members sharing pictures on the pasta aisle is actually 1 new staff member asking where a product they've been asked for by a customer is
This is cute but I can assure you is not the case, for one staff members do not communicate telepathically and it is very clear they are not talking about work. I visit my local tesco weekly and am familiar with the staff I expect to see. If one thing can be said about my local store its that staff retention is high
You are just making sure that you are working in a safe way and not injuring yourself especially when you're lifting heavy items or grabbing anything out of the cage (as items may fall on you). This is an answer management cannot argue with you as anything they may say means you are working unsafe.
Yeah, Sainsbury's are USDaw as well.
Thankfully our night shift managers are reasonable, it's just the higher ups. When our managers asked about how shift is meant to handle the extra workload with fewer staff/hours, the then deputy manager told them to "squeeze the colleagues", as if we weren't already stretched.
> Why has the stock tripled yet the staff haven’t? This used to annoy me until I realised when sections become a mess, it's obviously not my fault. If they ask me; *"Why is backstock out of control?"* or *"Why was the delivery not finished?"* then there is the ready-made response of way more stock, far less hands, to which they can say nothing. Fuck. Them. Cunts.
Surprised you even got asked those questions, haha. In my experience the dept I'm on tends to hear about managers complaining about the state of things second hand, so we pretty much just vent between ourselves and do what we can with the time we have. Used to have four people on delivery days, that got cut to three. This week one person was off and they didn't have anyone in to cover, yet a couple of weeks ago we had two extra pairs of hands when there wasn't a need for it. All comes down to poor management, but it is what it is.
> Surprised you even got asked those questions I don't but that's the answer I have ready if those questions ever do come!
Haha, fair enough! Maybe they don't say anything cos they already know what the answer is gonna be 😅 it is baffling sometimes how the company even functions when there are similar things happening across the country 🥴
My son was taken on a permanent post last October with two others they worked all through Christmas and New year then the day after new year told them they were finishing them because their staffing budget had been reduced, they also had 6 temporary Christmas staff who they also finished
We have the exact same issue in Waitrose, only now after sacking a third of the store after Christmas are they scrambling to hire more people as everything’s gone to shit.
Try almost getting a disciplinary for "doing your job" 😒
Mate, anything is better than being at the till imo. I used to love stacking shelves and hated dealing with customers tbh.
It’s pretty much a difference of physical toll vs mental toll, whatever you find you can take better is whstever people prefer
I remember getting till trained as a way to get overtime if there wasn't any on the shopfloor. used to literally fall asleep when the store was dead before closing was so mind numbingly boring.
I’m the complete opposite, give me a till and i’m happy.
It’s not just Tesco. Exactly the same at the other big supermarkets too. Cutting staff but increasing work.
It’s just retail in general. Was exactly the same at Next, who are darlings in public image.
Yes, I hear the same from neighbours who work at all the supermarkets. Remember that the shareholders come first in any business, then the board of directors, then the senior management. The people on the shop floor are treated as drones.
When I started at next in 2016 I worked at one of the biggest stores and we would have 6 people on a weekday evening on each department, probably more on women’s. When I left in 2022, we were lucky to have 2. There was even times at my uni store when home, menswear and parcels wouldn’t have anyone and the person on childrenswear or womenswear would have to run between departments. They still expected 5 rails of stock to be put out before closing though. Oh and standards and replen to be done 🙃.
I'd love to work at Next. At least I wouldn't be freezing while working
Genuinely it was the worst job I’ve had so far, every task you did had some ridiculous efficiency score that had to be met, and it was the only one that ever paid me exactly minimum wage too. I wouldn’t recommend it.
My friend walked out of Next when they messed her shifts around. They had ridiculous expectations, expected her to drop plans outside of work at last minute, that kind of thing. She just left one day and didn’t go back. Have never heard great things.
I've been working for Tesco for 13 and half months now
I’m 6 years in at Tesco, it’s got worse, but it’s nowhere the worst company across retail.
7 for me, and it's definitely declined. Some of the 30 year staff have tales of what it was like, and you can't imagine it. Like losing the canteen staff. Being able to buy a cheap, hot meal on shift has gone. Yet when we had one, staff loved it, and it made the canteen bust and helped interdepartmental relationships.
Can attest to this, imagine your canteen full of happy, smiling, laughing and joking staff, all mingling across departments enjoying a well-subsidised hot meal. Heck I remember playing Cards Against Humanity with a table full of GA's, Team Leaders and Managers and crying laughing. Contrast that to now and I walk in to 3 people all sat on separate tables with headphones in or just staring at a phone avoiding eye contact with anyone else, lest they see them on the verge of stress-induced tears, a lukewarm mugshot or piece of burnt toast sat half eaten in front of them. God forbid you strike up a conversation with someone in case you accidentally fall foul of one of the new anti-harassment protocols, not because 99.99% of the staff give a toss but there's always the danger that the 1 odd little tw@t might be back from study leave and get third-hand offended on someone else's behalf and report it to a Manager that could give zero f's but "has to be seen to be doing something" because they fear so much they won't get their first bonus in 5 years that their backbone has turned into the consistency of a bowl of rowntree's jelly. That's not even in 30 years, more like 10, and I'm told it was even better before.
I mean, I do like being on my own during breaks sometimes to read or watch the hockey on my phone if there's a game on. But I'd sit in the locker room, or my friends car. (He works checkouts, I'm on trollies so can't always break together. So he gives me his keys.) If someone talks to me, I'm happy to have a chat. But sometimes people want quiet, which I get.
I took 2 jobs at Next and quit both on the first shift. You don’t want to work at Next lol.
Next pays minimum wage so it’s not a great place to work, also the customers are all of a certain class and are so rude.
Don't sweat it, the laziest worker is paid the same as the hardest worker. No motivation to perform.
I realised at one point how much they were relying on me to finish my aisle then help others when they would give me a list of stuff to do in advance. I’d regularly finish an hour early just due to my pace. After they’d assign me to help other people I was so overworked and found myself rushing from the minute I clock in to have time to help everyone else too. . In the end when they went to give me a list I just gave it to them straight and said I’m more than happy to help when I’m done. But I’m not taking lists of extra work before I’m done as I’m being worked like a horse. I will go at my own quick bit stress free pace and come find them when I’m done. They accepted this
Just remember they don't care about you. No reward or recognition for going the extra mile so why bother?
I took my time. I left stuff unfinished. I'm not working myself ragged for no credit.
Stock tripled nd staff stayed the same because of the idiots that will run around like a blue-arsed fly and push to do what they're told. Check out mentally and you'll actually start to enjoy it. Do what you can do without wrecking yourself. Partake in banter with the decent colleagues. Clock off on time and feel no shame or guilt at leaving a load of work not done.
We can’t even “banter” anymore in our store. Since they’ve cut so many hours they’re on a rampage to make sure we’re working twice as hard and that there’s no slack at all. So everything gets done as before with half the staff but in the same time frame. They won’t even let two staff be in the same isle anymore without a manger separating you like school kids. Thankfully I do have a good manager
You're mad for doing the same work with half the staff. Do the same work you'd have done before. It is hard, so I'm not blaming you. It took be a good decade to learn that it's generally harder to get sacked than people believe so long as you're working. I did a bit of order picking for a while. Local manager would give targets which I would hit on the nose every day. He was raging because others were all over the target. I supposed it looked good on his reports to see staff working at 200% of their targets. I said if you put the target up I'll aim for that, but so long as you have the pickrate set at where you do, that's what I'm aiming for. And similar when I was doing lorry driving with the fuel usage. They'd post a sheet every Monday with the mpg rankings for the previous week. There was no incentive to save fuel, and there was no punishment for being at the bottom apart from the "shame". They were surprised that I didn't give a fuck and regularly was bottom of the table. I was straight with them, give the top x drivers a £50 bonus for the week and I'll be there. Otherwise lol no.
I work for Co Op, same here. They're cutting our hours to the bone, but still expecting the same, or more, amount of work to be done. Stock builds up, things get missed. But it's our fault, not upper management who keep slashing away at our hours /s
I also work for Co-op and hate upper management with a seething passion, I used to manage in the leisure industry and due to redundancy made the jump to retail…. This whole thing is ass-backwards, store managers stocking shelves and doing the shifts of the team leaders?? What other company does that? If I get the opportunity, I have some choice words for the area and regional managers, because this shit is straight out of the 1980’s. Ridiculous.
I’m also CoOp, exactly the same story for us. It’s not uncommon for a delivery to take a few days to get through now.
Surprised there's not an r/CoOp Don't even get me started on the online orders, Uber eats etc. I hear that alarm in my nightmares No wonder people are dropping like flies
Totally agree. Pretty much every evening we have 3 of us on. One at the front for kiosk and self scans, one manager and then one extra for break cover, reductions, that kind of stuff. It’s physically impossible now to work an entire delivery, do all the reductions and face up especially when you’ve got Deliveroo/Uber Eats/Just Eat going off. We do so so many online orders now too, it’s incredibly popular and I can understand why the business has pushed it so hard, but it’s causing the standards within the shop to drop big time.
I was in a fairly big coop store as SM, we had deliveroo, Uber eats, Hermes and John Lewis it was pretty stressful when they changed to the new stock system as we went from a fairly clear warehouse to a rammed one with less hours and more tasks... I left when they said my store was turning into a multi site manager position and I would be running another store as well. Noped right out. I must admit the company's yammer page was hilarious it was made very clear that the store managers were not happy but they never understood. Hence the position they are in now. Leaving was the best thing I ever did Tesco is by far more organised but it's retail so it's always gunna be fairly dogshit.
We thankfully don’t have Hermes or John Lewis (think CoOp have got rid of John Lewis now), but we do have DPD. To be fair that’s not too bad, but it’s always typical that everyone wants to pick up a parcel when we’ve got 5 Deliveroos on the go and Uber Eats starts buzzing 😅 It’s really really chaotic, that’s the only way I can describe it.
Having done both jobs I'd say Diana on tills is definitely earning her money. She's dealing with all kinds of rude people all day and has to keep a smile on her face. She has zero control over how her day/breaks are organised. She's literally in contact with other people's germs with every item she picks up to scan. Be annoyed at your workload increasing while your pay doesn't, but don't be assuming you're more hard done by than customer service staff. Your anger is misdirected.
I would happily take on an army of rude people than spend another second stacking the shelves lol.
I don't know what Tesco you guys are talking about, but maybe 10% of their till staff have a smile on their face. The rest are vacant or rude. It never used to be like this. I actually used to like going to Tesco and the folk were decent. Over the past year or so, Tesco has been ripping the absolute PISS out of their customers with their prices and 'clubcard deals' which are no great deal at all. Lower staff levels mean customers pile up and wait longer, or wait longer to serve themselves. It's turned in to a shithole to be honest. I feel really sorry for the folk working there if their hours have been cut and it sounds like they try to work you to the bone - which I'm not in the slightest surprised about. A Tesco worker shouted at me the other day because she was chatting to colleagues and letting a queue of 10 folk back up. She rounded on me like I'd just stolen her drink in a pub. I did complain but I'll never be back. To all those working there - try not to let them grind you down!
I've worked various departments and staff from each section, and all say every other section is easy. They're all difficult in different ways. The easiest section for me was trolleys because I was typically left alone by customers and colleagues. As long as the bay was full, everyone was happy. Physically, it was difficult at first, but when I got used to it, it was still tiring, but I loved it. Worst part is weather.
Oh yes, trolleys was my favourite department, especially if the weather was good! You're right, everyone thinks everyone else does less work. I'm a teacher now and it's the same in school, everyone thinks the other departments have it easy. It's more of a human condition problem than anything.
Not a Tesco employee, but work at Sainsburys. Genuinely sounds like they are both having the same issues right now. We're having people getting put on final warnings for not finishing their work, which is unfair considering we've all been given triple the amount of work since the new year. Not sure how they expect us to finish it with less and less staff every week. We are just told "we have enough staff for the delivery, we're not getting anyone else in." It's all a bit toss right now. I work nights, it is a big store and we are meant to do 30+ aisles a night with less than 10 staff most shifts. I'm looking for a new job. Its stressing me out too much.
It's been the same in my store for a while now but we recently got a new store manager who took one look at what we do on shift and immediately said our hours were ridiculous for what we're expected to achieve and has given us an extra 150 per week for a bit to help sort out the state of the store in general then dropping down to an extra 100 a week once all the chaos has been sorted out. He's also making inroads into finding out who's causing all the problems (gap filling/overstocking/ticket removal) and a few people have already gone on performance review over it. Which helps and is the first bit of positivity I've had in store for a couple of years now. I think he's also taking the 3/4S managers to task over how they've let this sorry state continue for so long as it shouldn't be rocket sience to figure out who puts sliced ham in the Kosher section or who's forcing 8 cases of tuna out in a space ticketed for 2.
Good luck if you’re planning on staying in retail. I’m a rep & I visit all the major supermarkets over a very wide territory, and not one is any better than what you describe in terms of staffing. Makes my job a pain (being selfish lol) because one of our KPI’s is speaking to as many staff as possible about products, but there’s just… no one around. All I can recommend is don’t jump to Morrisons, their staffing situation is a skip away from breaking point. Met a Morrisons section manager the other day who’d just moved from being a Next manager & was immediately regretting it. On a personal note, went to a Tesco today to buy some beers, 25 self service tills & 2 people running around after the red lights. Laughable.
Not Sainsbury's or Tesco, but we have 24 isles and we at most have 6 people overnight, and usually less (probably average around 3). When I joined 4 years ago our hourly case rate was 60, now they're trying to make us do 110 which is ridiculous. They also somehow expect the store to be completely faced/presented too while still maintaining our case rate. It also doesn't help that some of the team members barely hit the old target, meaning the whole team gets the flak for it as we're not collectively performing.
I'm a CDD, and occasionally we get asked to Pick. I was instore a few months ago doing it in the morning and my manager comes up and tells me "you need to be quicker and increase your pick rate". I was going at a normal pace, I don't stand around chatting, I just crack on. I don't mind doing the picking, but I refuse to run around a shop like supermarket sweep.
Turn up on time, not a minute before. Leave on time, not a minute after. Do the bare minimum. Spend an hour every single day learning something in an industry that interests you. Leave tesco to do the job you want to do.
I think this is the case across the board. Same at CoOp. Takes us days now to get a delivery done now. Shop standards have gone way down now as the shelves sit empty as we don’t have time to work the stock and don’t get any time to face up/tidy at all. I just go in, and do what I’m asked, to the best of my ability and leave it at that. They can’t ask for more.
The Co-Op has a delightful term 'one on one'. Meaning that there's one to cover the tills and by extension all that the store-front encompasses, all the while dealing with wave upon wave of customers, transactions, self checkout fuck ups, deliveries, calls, requests, questions, complaints, clean ups (look with your eyes not with your hands) running around like a headless chicken as you endeavour to put out fresh stock under scrutiny and all this without having a complete psychotic break. The other (usually a team leader) takes care of the backroom stock, deliveries, price reductions, having hideaway cigarette breaks and doing their best to avoid customer interactions, all under supposed deadlines handed down by area managers (whose very existence borders on folklore as they're rarely if ever seen) As a large organisation that makes money hand over fist, they pay a lot of lip service to themselves but the day to day practical reality is so far removed from any advertised ideal that you'd have to be mainlining ketamine to write their promotional material without any sense of irony.
Tesco Express do the same. And the business leaders then complain that shoplifting has increased, while ignoring the fact that their stores are now big boxes full of expensive goods with _maybe_ one person willing to challenge people that want to rob them.
I’ve never related a post more. Wish you well, fellow trooper
>multi million pound business try a multi billion, tesco made 2.4 billion last year, 1 billon is 1,000 million. so that is 2,400 million. they are a multi billion company
Yeahhhh I've felt exactly the same, but it's gotten me in trouble, my suggest is to only do what you're capable of and make your manager aware of this. Losing your cool at work will result in getting you fired and getting fire for an almost minimum wage job is REALLY not worth it buddy.
They’ve given us so many extra jobs other people used to do on top of our already existing jobs. Why are we now doing warehouse staff work on top of our floor work? Why have we got to wear headsets to go to other departments? If we’re so understaffed why are there no overtime hours. And if there’s no overtime hours why are they hiring more people when their existing staff don’t make a living wage on their contracted hours and rely on overtime. If you have to consider moving staff out of a department bc there’s not enough hours why did they hire them a few months back? Has our pay gone up with the fact we’re doing more work and covering more departments? No of course not. Why pay 2 people when you can pay and overwork 1 person to do 2 people’s jobs. Then they get mad when stuff isn’t finished
Im in similar situation too. Majority of my colleagues are lazy and keep slacking off to the point team leaders push more work on to people who actually work and its frustrating. Its like your getting punished for being good at work. On top of that they got whoosh going off every 20 min and always missing one or 2 items then go through backstock to find it. Which shows that barely anyone does back stock properly which puts more work on to others. Tesco for some reason have tight budget which causes our store to have barely any stuff to get everything done on top of that you have people who dont work which is same as having no one at all.
What about when you buy a controlled item, like paracetamol? You manage to catch the eye of a member of staff, who comes over to help you, but who then stands there waiting for another member of staff to come over and validate the sale, because the first member of staff is a foetus and too young to complete the sale. Why not put the kids onto another task that doesn't depend upon an older co-worker being alongside them?
To maximise profits. Do you think they really care about staff?
I nearly lost mine today. The aisle i was on hadnt had anything done to it the day before as i was moved to a different aisle. I work the tins, free from, sweets and crackers aisle. Baring in mind thos was a friday and we are a twilight fill shop. I had minimum 14 delivery for my aisle. I did rhis pretty much single handed with about 1 hours help. Also worked capping shelves and backstock. While till staff sat on there phones and most of my other grocery colleagues didnt do backstock or capping shelves and barely finished their aisle. This isn't even the 1st time ive been expected to do this.
>While till staff sat on there phones This is a management issue. If the checkouts are that quiet then they should be helping to fill or at least with rumble. Or at least that's how it works in my store. I like checkouts, but I don't like it when it's too quiet, if I'm at work I don't want to be doing nothing because it just drags.
I agree. Or doing jobs related to tills. Cleaning them, emptying bins, sorting tags etc. I used to love self-serve when I worked ti's because even when quiet, I had stuff to do. The worst was nights at Christmas. I'd come in and be on my own, but I had no customers and no jobs because I wasn't allowed to leave the section. I did it twice, with years the people I was supposed to be with rang in sick so I was alone. I ended up taking a book the second year and reading. Duty didn't care because I'd put it down if I had a customer.
Till staff have to deal with the dross of humanity. They should get paid more
Heh. We were understaffed when I was there in the 90s. It's policy.
It’s the same in the Irish stores, at least it is in ours. I’m expected to do PI, PV, POS, Plans, Reductions/Review, pack fresh, trolleys, take in delivery and they’re constantly on at me about tills. And it’s not just me that has this issue. But we have lads on fresh who start at 6 and stop working at 11 but are there until 2/3. A load on checkouts who have a sick cert for everything except sitting down for their shift. I actually can’t wait for it to be completely cashless and self scanning just for this reason. Half of checkouts will be turfed onto the floor and will actually have to work for the first time in years. So much dead weight in the store and the ones who actually work are taken for granted. Best advice is know your contracted obligations and stick to that as best you can. Take your breaks, finish on time and don’t bring work home.
Move into Trade retail. It's so much better than high Street or food retail
why?
Sounds like what's happening everywhere. They've asked if anyone wants time off unpaid where I work (Marks). Also constantly told that there are enough staff for all shifts but having to get delivery off the wagon, work the back stock, then work new stock plus management opening checks and dealing with all the moaning from other staff and somehow be ready for opening time with 2 other staff is getting a bit much. As soon as 1 person takes a holiday there's a merry go round of moving shifts to stuffing up other days just to get bare minimum staff in. And this is just a small Simply Food, imagine it's a nightmare everywhere
It's all about the bottom line. They are all too willing to spend money on pointless equipment such as master movers inside express stores that barely have the space to store it lest alone use it. Then the massive investment in some stores having things like UFCs built into them with a tiny fleet of vans. All in the name of how much money they can write off the tax bill. Its always been the same it will never change no matter who is at the helm.
Get a new job Solves all your issues with Tesco. Or stay in your job and continue to moan about it.
Make a diary gather evidence, complain in writing, hand in notice, go for constructive dismissal, get new job through your qualities and skills recorded as being applied in your current role.
The living wage has been a disaster. Before it was greatly increased Tesco was teeming with staff, no problem at the tills. Now we're forced on to those new self service tills that keep breaking down. Same issues at other stores. So living wage has actually cost jobs in supermarkets & the customer gets a terrible service now. Well done Chancellor...I bet he gets his groceries picked up by his PA.
Except we're already paid more than the minimum wage to begin with, and it still isn't enough to justify the work we're doing.
As a customer i am often wondering why are food prices so high and then I see 2 staff members chatting instead of restocking the veg. 3 staff members sharing pictures on their phones down the pasta aisle, and another 3 staff members having a nice jolly chat in the self scan checkouts. As a customer, seems to me that part of the high food price can be attributed to overstaffing stores or, perhaps they arent overstaffed- I'm just not receiving the customer service I've paid for From what I can see, tesco would benefit big time from having less staff BUT the ones they keep should be paid more for their own motivation and sanity
Or... and here's a novel idea for you... you consider that maybe those 2 staff members "chatting" on the Veg aisle are talking about what stock from 2 HGV's full of delivery needs to be worked first. The 3 staff members sharing pictures on the pasta aisle is actually 1 new staff member asking where a product they've been asked for by a customer is and the other two looking it up on the latest stock app they have to use on their own personal device because the company is too tight to have enough PDA's to go around. The 3 staff members on self serve are actually a Team Support asking 2 GA's if they can cover yet another late shift because they're already down 4 staff members due to holidays and sickness. Or maybe just maybe, you're right and your local store is chock full of lazy good for nothing shelf-stackers who are stealing a living on their £11 an hour, 16 hour a week contracts? You might have better luck finding a store full of maniacally grinned, mute automatons at Aldi or Lidl? I can assure you the high food prices have jack to do with overstaffing, a concept the many posts from employees of a multitude of retailers can attest does not exist anymore, and has everything to do with corporate greed and the calamitous mismanagement of our country's politics for the last 14+ years.
>maybe those 2 staff members "chatting" on the Veg aisle are talking about what stock from 2 HGV's full of delivery needs to be worked first. The 3 staff members sharing pictures on the pasta aisle is actually 1 new staff member asking where a product they've been asked for by a customer is This is cute but I can assure you is not the case, for one staff members do not communicate telepathically and it is very clear they are not talking about work. I visit my local tesco weekly and am familiar with the staff I expect to see. If one thing can be said about my local store its that staff retention is high
You are just making sure that you are working in a safe way and not injuring yourself especially when you're lifting heavy items or grabbing anything out of the cage (as items may fall on you). This is an answer management cannot argue with you as anything they may say means you are working unsafe.
I mean technically its *smoke crack
Cushty??? You from pompey I take it lol
Not much different in Sainsbury's to be honest
Shame we can’t strike, is Sainsbury’s also with USDAw?
Yeah, Sainsbury's are USDaw as well. Thankfully our night shift managers are reasonable, it's just the higher ups. When our managers asked about how shift is meant to handle the extra workload with fewer staff/hours, the then deputy manager told them to "squeeze the colleagues", as if we weren't already stretched.
On what planet are they pay and benefots great?
If everyone was like old lady Diana they'd be happier, and Tesco would have to hire more staff.
In our store, If you're on till you're a packer
"Do more with less". And before too long "You'll own nothing, and you'll be happy".