There is a lot expected out of employees, especially throughout the perishable departments. Corporate management seems to be cutting labor hours to find that fine line of having just enough employees working in order to keep the store functioning.
For example.....I currently work in a meat department run with 3 employees. From 6am to 9pm there has to be someone in the department. This means that 2 of us work 5, 8 hour days, and our manager works 6 days every week, without an assistant manager to help him with his management duties. Also, we work 6 1/2 hours by ourselves before seeing the next person come, who relieves us for a lunch. After lunch, this means there is only 1 hour each day that our department has 2 employees in it. The closing meat employee must get a member of another perishable department to cover their lunch, which in turn stops the function of their job. We're supposed to get a half hour lunch and 2 15 min breaks with each 8 hr shift. I only get a 1/2 hr lunch every shift because there is no one to watch my department for my breaks. We're also supposed to greet a customer within 10 seconds of their arrival to the meat counter. My back freezer is on the other side of the store, which is about a 30 second walk. If i'm working by myself and have to grab product from the back freezer, tell me how it's possible to be there for a customer within 10 seconds?? On the weekends, working alone, you're expected to keep the lunchmeat counter full, self-serve counter full, seafood service case and meat service case full, and also help customers. With the business my store does, which is a low-volume Harris Teeter, there is no possibility of being able to stock and cut product while assisting a line of customers purchasing product from the service counters.
Not sure if it's like this throughout the whole company but it's been the same in both stores I've worked at. The lack of hours that corporate allows the stores to operate on seems to be the bare minimum. I believe it hurts productivity, negatively affects sales, and induces a high stress work environment.
Another con would be keeping customers satisfied. You're always expected to give the customers exactly what they want and sometimes it's very degrading when they treat you like you're a piece of dirt. This is just the nature of a retail career though, not a company issue though.
