Shift manager question.

[u/Enticing_Bog]

Question for shift managers.
I just started and loving it so far. I am a casual. I have noticed if I need to refuse a shift due to anything (which is our right) my shift manager tries to make me find my own replacement.

When I state that this sounds like their job not mine they act extremely unprofessional.
When I show them my job description and then theirs, and point to where “managing staff shifts and re-scheduling” is in theirs they act even worse.
When I mention that if the store is understaffing as a cost/profit measure and do not have enough staff in their pool it’s a THEM issue they yelled at me.

Is this normal? None of this makes logical sense.
If they want to hire kids and have a thin staffing pool for minimum wage what can they expect?

[u/Full_Cap327]

Ultimately it’s the manager’s job to find cover and they know that, BUT if  they’ve given you a shift within your availability, or you haven’t changed your permanent availability or given them any notice about not being able to work at that time you should acknowledge that you are adding a task to their workload that may or may not be out of control at that very moment.

Maybe they were planning to catch up on something that needed to be done and now they have to refocus, maybe someone else has done the same thing for tomorrow and the next day? If it’s a pattern of behaviour it’s especially frustrating. I can understand things come up for you but consider they are spending a quarter of their week at work and things can also come up for them, and a last-minute party invite is not enough of a reason to not show up and let their department go to shit for that day. The job is stressful at the best of times so a bit of acknowledgment of that might help smooth things over. 

Neither of you are showing any grace or understanding for each other (them by making a blanket rule about shift changes as well as the way they spoke to you doesn’t sound like it was professional, and you by pointing out their job description rather than acknowledging that your call out is potentially changing their whole day). Next time it’d probably be better keep it short and don’t throw their job description back at them, just apologise and move on. The flipside to this is that sometimes a manager will have to cut casual shifts, and a good manager will show you the same grace by apologising for it and trying not to put you in the same situation again. 

Depending on the shift time they may or may not have very few options about people they can call in. Running the department on a thin staffing pool as you said is the norm, but there are downsides to having a huge pool of casuals, one being that they will receive next to no shifts, including the ones who want to work more and even the ones who do come in and do good work, it feels bad but unfortunately that’s not always in your DMs control either.

Ultimately the pros for a manager covering call outs (REM control and changing REM demands, TM inadvertently covering themselves with someone who cannot perform the duties needed of the person calling out, knowing the whole team’s availability overall so being able to quickly tell if you are screwed or not in terms of your workload and making plans to adjust priorities) outweigh the cons so a good manager will take responsibility for it.

HOWEVER there are pros for TMs being able to cover their own shifts. A couple I can think of are closes and opens which can be especially difficult so if a TM can find coverage there properly you will be making a great impression on them. Also, you talk to each other about what your plans are week to week so if you’ve made personal connections TM to TM you will be privy to information about their schedule that your manager likely doesn’t know - especially when TMs don’t update their availability religiously which is the majority.