to hope they keep the extended shopping hours on a sunday

[hawaiiWave]

I am a bit of a loser shopaholic and I love the current extended shopping hours on s Sunday, my local town centre shops are now open 10-6. I love drive,but it seems to help traffic congestion too, as shoppers are less concentrated.

Aibu to wonder why there is a restriction in the first place?

Englishgirl

The fact you say you have found it difficult to staff sort of proves my point. Businesses are not going to make it even more difficult to staff by offering unreasonable requests on their staffing schedules, what ever that might be. It's not in the interests of the business.

If the company you work for start the giving staff no hours if they won't work to your schedule they will leave and the best staff always leave first. It'll not be sustainable and the business will have to rethink.

i think sunday would be much easier to crew an evening for than saturday anyway...

although they always say 'we can change their hours' at management level, i only think someone would do it if they actually wanted that person to leave.

Edgar
True although if they did that they would likely win a constructive dismissal case

quite likely. the worst employees usually the most litigation- minded...

True Edgar

I understand what you are saying and for want of putting it better - my employer doesn't give a shit! (I know, I know - bad career move, thinking of not going back after maternity leave!)

They employ a recruitment agency which advertises in Eastern Europe - in the depot Eastern European agency workers make up 90% of the workforce. Within the business it is widely accepted that stores will be staffed in the same way if necessary. I don't want to say much more as it will be obvious who I work for.

We have huge labour turnover and the attitude is that there are always more people desperate enough to take zero hours contracts. The service in stores is already appalling and you are right - the good staff will leave.

I think recruitment issues locally are a combination of few students and very poor childcare options.

Race to the bottom Englishgirl

Well it sounds like they are not a company people would particularly want to work for anyhow.

You would be amazed - they are a hugely successful company with a strong presence on the high street. I (wrongly) assumed such a large company would operate with a degree of professionalism but it's shocking.

MD walks around the office screaming and swearing - she told my boss he was ruining his life and chance of career progression by having a family

Unfortunately we're in a recession so people leave, who cares? Easy to replace.

I get bloody depressed every time I think about going back.

omfg!!

Oh yeah she's lovely! I know I can't go back really, I'd have no career progression because the next step up would be working for her directly.

Do you get the feeling my flexible working request might be turned down?

"
Unfortunately we're in a recession so people leave, who cares? Easy to replace."

hmm. i never found a good employee easy to replace.

by which I mean one that turned up and made an effort. although you'd never work in a shop without noticing that even your best is replacable. the shop will ever open without them (and without you!)

one manager used to turn bright red and make physical threats! very suprising, but it was part of the culture.

sunday opening won't make that man any more or less of a cunt though.

and with recruitment costing about £1500 per body, they were very keen to reduce staff turnover...

But Edgar - they actually, really don't care if the employees are good, to the business they're just bodies.

Not the store management teams, by the way, just the senior team at the office.

The managers by and large do their best in a difficult company but it's tough for them trying to maintain the standards they want without the stability in their workforce.

YABU

English Girl if you go to bbc i player and check out last nights Newsnight they did a big feature on zero hours contracts involving contributions from members of the public whove experienced them. (McDonalds did not come out well)

I'll have a look thanks carer - I wonder if my company was mentioned?

It starts at 14 minutes in. McDonalds said that the reason they use zero hours contracts was so their employees can have more flexibility with childcare amongst other things. Id like to know how the hell they expect anyone to be able to pay for that childcare or organise it effectively with a zero hours contract.

is it aldi ?

ds2 has a zero hours contract. It's not flexible at all from his POV. He gets given his hours with no consultation as to his availability but if he doesn't do the shifts given the implication is that he won't get offered any on the next rota.

I'll have a look at the programme carer, thanks.

I'd vote for no Sunday trading. Don't think it's fair on the staff.

What gets me is the fact that they have to keep themselves available JUST in CASE they get called in so cant get another job to supplement it.
THIS should be bloody illegal.

our company doesn't do it. We have 8 hour minimum contracts and work around everyone, but as I say we also have reasonable opening hours for the line of work

Not Aldi no. Are they zero hours?

The other factor thats not been mentioned with the zero hours and 8 hour contracts is not only do they expect staff to work whatever hours they are set in the rota, but if they are off sick the company only has to pay the contracted hours in hours sick pay ie 8 hours or zero hours! So in effect there is no sick pay paid by the company and therefore the state has to pick up the tab because the staff have to claim ssp. On top of this if they have rent or council tax to pay the state pays that on top of ssp. The only one who wins is the supermarket.

I'll repeat myself again (to no avail, it seems), it's already a fact in Scotland and I've yet to see any posts on here that anybody has seen a huge difference in their life because of it.
Sunday is just another day of the week, unless you live in the Western Isles where they have only just got ferries to get them to the mainland.
And there's still some diehard religious types that object.
It's the 21st century, weekends are a thing of the past.