Retail night shift, sending people home. Second workplace same issue.

[2here1coming]

My partner has worked in retail for the past 5 years, specifically night shifts as they bring in a premium rate.

Over the past month he has been getting sent home on occasion as soon as he gets there, along with others, as he's told there are surplus staff in and not enough work to do. It's a HUGE supermarket so there should be plenty to do. He has a permanent contract and assures me that on these occasions he will be paid holiday pay. I don't know whether he's just saying that to put my mind at rest though.

Similar happened at his last place of work, also retail, until eventually they wanted to stop the night shift completely.

Why does this keep happening and does it sound like they're gearing up to let staff go?

It's a worry as we have children with one on the way and new jobs are hard to come by right now.

Thank you, I'm a bit clueless with retail. I only ever did Christmas temping in a supermarket in my teens. It was a long time ago and I wasn't there long enough to know much about how the nights work.

He has been at this supermarket since September 2019.

I find it strange that they would they send an employee home at the start of a shift. There's always something to do, even if it's sweeping the yard or cleaning.

@dayswithaY It’s not strange that they would ask who wants to go home at the start of a shift.

Often you don’t know how high labour is until everyone gets there, you don’t know how many hours will be left over after day staff have left etc.

Yes, there’s always something to do (which is why if he says no, they can’t send him home and will find a task for him), but if labour is too high they will ask people to go home because they need to save money.

My ex used to work permanent nights in morrisons too and would they hell send you home!
Like a pp they would keep you busy by dressing the store or doing extra little bits or even at discretion if they had a certain manager a very long dinner break!

He does however sound like my ex though, he used to come home sick a lot, also had a persecution complex (they had it in for him apparantly as he was disciplined for attitude and absence, how he kept his job for 5 years ill never know)
Apparantly he wasn't allowed to go on days (prob never asked)

My exes hobby was xbox. He used to come in from a nightshift and game until the afternoon then sleep and I'd struggle to get him up for his nightshift.
In the mean time I was doing all the parenting and housework by myself.

Well he's up and out for football, that was quick.

A teammate came to pick him up.

What a lovely 24 hours he'll have had.

Chooses to come home from work and relax watching tv, a couple of hours on a shooting game.

Up and out this morning to his favourite hobby now no work until Tuesday night.

Meanwhile I work both days of the weekend and don't get home until 9 (I work 1-8pm) ...I still have to do all the childcare in the lead up. No dossing about or football for me.

@2here1coming

Does he work for Morrisons?

Sainsbury's, can I say that here? I'm sorry about your friend, it's so stressful isn't it. They don't give a damn about the employees or their families, nor the fact we depend on that money.

Knew it would be Sainsbury’s

We have the same issue at our store though it isn’t night shift that’s suffering it’s online

We were doing additional hours to cope with the rising sales of internet shopping

Now, we have all had our hours cut to to the minimum contract hours which I’m lucky they are still providing

I was doing 28 hours a week but contracted to 20.

If we finish early (which we regularly do), I tidy the shelves to get my hours up.

@blackheartsgirl

My ex used to work permanent nights in morrisons too and would they hell send you home! Like a pp they would keep you busy by dressing the store or doing extra little bits or even at discretion if they had a certain manager a very long dinner break!

He does however sound like my ex though, he used to come home sick a lot, also had a persecution complex (they had it in for him apparantly as he was disciplined for attitude and absence, how he kept his job for 5 years ill never know)
Apparantly he wasn't allowed to go on days (prob never asked)

My exes hobby was xbox. He used to come in from a nightshift and game until the afternoon then sleep and I'd struggle to get him up for his nightshift.
In the mean time I was doing all the parenting and housework by myself.

Bloody hell are you me? That is so relatable.

Mine has a persecution complex too. He also used to come in and game after a night shift (before he moved to Sainsbury's) and after 3 years of exactly what you describe I put my foot down and said stuff this, you can game on your nights off only.

But no we don’t get sent home

Hours have been cut yes, but there is always work to be done in store.

When my son who is single and.livef at home worked in warehouse on night shift they were occasionally told not much work does anyone want to take night off as holiday? He sometimes said yes because he was not keen on trying to look busy when work ran out. Also he said if he took it as holiday the other staff with kids could still work. He was very friendly with his colleagues in his department there were 6 of them.

Sorry to hear that Soubriquet, I hope you're able to get more hours in soon.

My partner told me that his branch had been taking in record profits since the pandemic. God knows why, if that's true, they're so desperate to cut hours.

So have we

We went from taking a million a month to a million a week in our department alone. And we are only a small branch

@Soubriquet

So have we

We went from taking a million a month to a million a week in our department alone. And we are only a small branch

Wow! Any idea why the sudden drive to cut hours if that's the case? It seems ridiculous to me, why hurt your staff when the business is doing so well

So are you currently pregnant with your third child by him? Or is this number four?

I don't have any advice but I feel for you.
It makes me so cross that your husband and so many other supermarket workers are treated like this.
These guys have kept the country fed over the last year and there seems very little praise for their efforts.
Good luck Op and I hope it all works out for you, I really do.

@KittyKattyKate

So are you currently pregnant with your third child by him? Or is this number four?

I'm pregnant with our third, we have two already.

Thank you rbmilliner x

I don’t know. Budget cuts I think

They haven’t said why, just that they need to reduce the hours

We have had 3 vans cut from the store too which means less items to pick which means less hours for everyone but there is still high turnover of profits

@Soubriquet

I don’t know. Budget cuts I think

They haven’t said why, just that they need to reduce the hours

We have had 3 vans cut from the store too which means less items to pick which means less hours for everyone but there is still high turnover of profits

It's immoral, given the high turnover this should be the last thing they're doing.

I hope you're managing ok financially. We can just about cope with him coming home on the odd night, as much as I'm not happy about it if it can be avoided.

Yeah we are ok. I am down by about £100 a month but I have taken up a second job to help with that now.

I read constantly on here that so many people are either scared to go to the shops or prefer online food shopping so it's inevitable that fewer staff will be needed in stores.

Who knows if your DH is telling the truth, probably not based on what you're found out so far. I'd prepare for possible redundancy, it doesn't sound like he's employee of the month material. He either doesn't understand how he's paid or he's deliberately lying about the holiday pay bit.

I can imagine that any forecast of how much work would be required could be hopelessly wrong this week, given the re-opening of non-essential shops. Perhaps an expectation of barbecues and outdoor picnics has not been the reality, and all the extra shopping has been not that benefiting supermarkets.

That does not defend a supermarket planning such that people end up travelling all the way to work and then being sent home, if that is the case.

We have separate bank accounts so I've no way of knowing whether or not he's really being paid for these nights he comes home. I would hope he isn't offering to come home if it's unpaid but then I can't possibly know for sure and don't have much trust in much he says when I find out he has been lying.

I just remembered something he said to me the other day, apparently him and his colleagues are going to get a bonus for working through the pandemic. Do you know anything about that, Soubriquet?

I can imagine that any forecast of how much work would be required could be hopelessly wrong this week, given the re-opening of non-essential shops.

@peak2021 It’s not about how much work is required, it’s about how many hours the departments are given by management. If they don’t have the hours to give and need to save labour they will be heavily pressured to try and get staff to go home.

Of course if the staff say no, there’s nothing they can do, but management will remember and will schedule less in future if people aren’t willing to cooperate (remaining within individuals contracted hours, of course).

I think you're absolutely right @peak2021, we've been busier than usual even post Xmas until this week. Once shops opened there was an immediate drop off of footfall. There have always been plenty of people just mooching around store drifting from one section to another just for something to do. The only exception was very early pandemic when there was queueing and stricter entry, since it was eased it seemed like supermarkets were pretty much the only places open for clothes/toys/tat and people enjoyed just coming in to not be at home. The weekend we went into lockdown (just the weekend) my superstore made the same it as the entire Xmas week and in general made an absolute fortune compared to previous years.

I'm in work right now (just grabbing a late breakfast) and it's busy on the shop floor (I work at a service point so not shop floor), however Sunday's tend to be an odd day, it's either heaving or deadly quiet. I expect if this coming week is like last then we might see some offers to go home unpaid (never offered holiday option here) to save money not because there's no work. They're 2 different things where retail is concerned but one can trigger the other.

I expect if this coming week is like last then we might see some offers to go home unpaid (never offered holiday option here) to save money not because there's no work.

I'm very curious to find out if this is what's happening with DP, but short of getting hold of his pay slip I'll have no way of knowing.

I did wonder at the point of posting whether he had fabricated the holiday pay bit to make it less of a big deal that he's not in work.

As far as I'm aware the holidays reset in March, he had to use up what he had left before then and then he began accruing again. If that's the case then he's not going to have much if any holiday to use yet is he?

We're allowed to book all our in 3 week blocks for April if we want but if we were to leave before we'd actually earned it we'd have to pay it back out of our final wage.

So if I took 3 weeks in April but left in May I'd have to pay back at least 2 weeks worth of holiday, quite possibly more. I'm not certain how they'd work it out but it's basically 28 days accrued across 52 weeks isn't it? We also have to work a certain number of bank holidays as per our contract.

As far as I'm aware the holidays reset in March, he had to use up what he had left before then and then he began accruing again. If that's the case then he's not going to have much if any holiday to use yet is he?
Different supermarket but our holidays reset at start of April and we could in theory take the whole years worth then. However if we were to subsequently leave without having worked enough to accrue that then we would have to pay it back.