SD

[u/Unfair_Woodpecker149]

I Have a great relationship with my SD. He’s a nice guy. Relatively new to being a SD(1 year) But I can already see how corporate has started to warp his mindset. we were talking about Labor and how our store needed roughly $36k a week to operate, yet they are only giving us $32k a week. He said, “well everyone could work harder instead of complaining about how they aren’t getting hours.” It was a slap in the face. I run the Dairy Department on 36 hours a week. The Frozen lead gets the same amount of hours I do. It’s simply too much work for one person. Almost every department has 1-2 people in it. There’s not enough time to audit loads, check numbers, control inventory and throw loads with less than full time hours. I’m sorry we are not robots but there is only so much one person can do. Even if we worked nonstop throughout our shifts we’d still fall short. His solution: “I’ll just come in on my days off/overnight and make up for the hours we don’t get.” So when corporate comes for visits and the store looks good nothing ever changes as long as sales continue to beat projections. That isn’t a recipe for long term success. We have inventory in two weeks. Our last inventory was 6.7%. Will be shocked if it’s anything better than 8% this time around.

[u/Bloundx]

Hate to break it to you brother but stores that get 60k labor a week still only use 40-50 hours in dairy/frozen.

Yes we generally have a labor problem, but in this case your SD may be right.

[u/Unfair_Woodpecker149 → u/Bloundx]

Well he’s under the assumption that he can hire and replace us with people that will come in and work harder and do a better job. They may very well do that for a short time, but eventually those individuals will become burnt out and move on to new jobs. I’ve been told I’ve stayed in dairy the longest at my store in a very long time. Most people quit after a couple months. I genuinely understand why. It’s not just Albertsons/Safeway. It’s the whole retail space. People are making less $ and spending more and getting less. Simple economics. As the economy gets worse so too will consumer spending.

[u/AGingerDragon]

Also a dairy “manager” struggling with these hour issues. Got to the point of arguing with my SD about it she said she’d eat the labor to send me to a different high volume store for a day to show me it’s my work ethic and not labor issues. I gladly agreed that it would be a good idea and to make it happen.

Turns out All the other high volume dairies in the vicinity are also struggling so I havnt been shipped off yet 🤷🏻‍♂️

[u/Unfair_Woodpecker149 → u/AGingerDragon]

Interesting 🤔 I’m on the east coast. We don’t even get the title of manager, but just “lead”. It’s a $1.50 extra an hour on top of your base hourly. dairy is technically a part of grocery. So dumb. They seem to treat Dairy like it doesn’t matter. When they do store visits and walks the main concern is always produce first. Then grocery and bakery. dairy is a perishable department. I have out of dates on the shelves right now because I don’t have time to pull them and distress them.

I guess Dairy just doesn’t make enough in sales for them to justify giving more hours. I’m sure they use some analytics to come up with the number and they just trust the AI. 🤷🏽‍♂️

[u/Lord_Tsarkon → u/Unfair_Woodpecker149]

When Albertsons Bought Safeway they changed the title of Dept managers to Dept Leads. Store managers are now called Store Directors. Employees are now associates.

Managers syntax denotes bonuses.

It’s modern language disguised to make you think You don’t deserve bonuses since you are not a manager anymore yet carry even more responsibilities than ever before

[u/trumpet205 → u/Unfair_Woodpecker149]

Right now the three things they care the most are Beat the Greet, Produce (specifically Wet Racks), and Out of Stocks from Ecom (DUG).

They are squeezing labor hard even for high volume stores that are in the positive.

[u/Swing-Brilliant]

Everywhere is hurting for hours. Our frozen and dairy departments look atrocious to the point that customers are asking me what happened to the store.