To put a complaint in about manager at sainsbury's.

[MeDadMeDad]

I was working a night shift last night at sainsbury's, the night manager walked up to me in the Isle I was working and said he is going to conduct a colleague search on me and to empty my pockets.
I said to him he will not be doing a search on me as I have never been asked to empty my pockets and be searched in all the years I've been there, I told him you haven't asked anyone else and also I haven't taken anything.
He said he wasn't accusing me of anything it's just procedure.
I told him again he will not be doing a search and I will not be emptying my pockets and if he has a problem with that to go through a disciplinary procedure. Aibu? Should I put a complaint in against him?

Yabu to refuse to be searched - that’s standard practice. However YANBU to refuse to be searched without a witness present. I would expect as a matter of routine a search to be carried out off of the shop floor and in the presence of a witness.

Zara does this, not just pockets hut handbags etc too

I thought this was standard practice in retail.

Are you stealing stuff? The Cost of Living crisis is hard on everyone.

I don't think it is unreasonable to ask for vaseline and rubber gloves first.

When I worked at Boots it was normal for staff to be searched but it always happened off the shop floor and it was done by one security guard with another in attendance. We had to take our shoes off as well.

Co op do it. It's no biggy. I rather enjoyed it when my quite shy, younger than me manager checked my bag complete with incontinence products. His face was a joy. But it is company policy.
It doesn't need doing off the shop floor if there's no customers in, which there wouldn't be if it was overnight.

'A dildo' actually made me laugh out loud 😆 who the fuck would be walking around with a dildo in their pocket while working a night shift in a supermarket?! Of all the odd things I've read on here, that's up there.
Anyway, I'd have just done it because I don't care. I've got nothing to hide, takes 20 seconds, go back to work 🤷‍♀️ you've not been shoplifting, so no worries.

It's part of your contract, CCTV counts as a witness. I'm assuming your manager has been reprimanded for not completing them before.

YABU. I work in retail and bag checks, locker and pocket checks are random. Never had a problem with it.

You just look guilty if you refuse, unless he was insisting on a strip search I don’t get the issue.

Although it’s security who do the searches not managers.

I worked for tesco many moons ago, and they had a search policy - I'd be astounded if Sainsburys don't.

However - it was very clear what could be searched (lockers, pockets, and inside shoes, as I remember), when (once clocked in and before clock out) and where - it had to be in a private space off the shop floor.

I would recommend you check the policy and see if the search conformed. But refusal to be searched would have been a disciplinary matter - it would have been seen as pretty much a confession that you have something on you that you shouldn't!

We were also not allowed to carry our own money while working, it had to be in a locker, so there could be no question of it having come out of a till. Anything we bought on shift had to have the receipt sellotaped to it.

All of which is entirely reasonable imo.

It does sound odd that a manager would do this on the shop floor. I would've thought it should be done in private and with a witness/security guard present.

Standard procedure in every shop I’ve ever worked in!

It’s within the policy. A friend is a manager and they push her to make sure she’s doing a minimum of 15 searches a week.

I used to work at a supermarket and this was a standard random security protocol.

I used to work in Boots and was regularly asked to submit to a search. No big deal surely?

It was a joke. But made to illustrate it's an invasion of privacy.

We used to have to take a marble out of a bag at the end of our shifts. Colour determined whether we were searched and if it was bag, pockets etc. It made it fair and it wasn't a big deal.

I worked in Sainsburys at night a couple of years ago. This is completely standard. What I will say is that some managers clearly hate doing it so avoid it until they are forced to do some and others do them all the time so I don't think that it's unusual to go a while without having had a search. They have a set amount to do and a random selector to tell them who to search.

TheatricalLife "who the fuck would be walking around with a dildo in their pocket while working a night shift in a supermarket?! Of all the odd things I've read on here, that's up there."

I can't believe you said that's up there! 😀

I mean, I suppose it could be if it wasn't in a pocket 👀😂

We have to do this at work. Its random who they ask.

If a staff member takes a dildo to work, you think he's going to be the weird one?? 😳

Anyway OP, you haven't mentioned the policy on this?

When I used to work in retail there were always policies that meant they could do random stop and searches whenever they wanted.

A family member was manager of a shop, & she used to do this regularly.
There was a lot of "shrinkage".
No-one searched her, & guess who was finally caught ?

It's not an invasion of privacy if it's in the contract.

YANBU.

It’s irrelevant what the procedure is regarding random searches in other stores. 😂

If OP has worked in that particular store for some time and has never been asked to empty their pockets before, then I think refusing the request at this juncture was entirely reasonable.

Any new manager who wants to introduce a change to the existing custom and practice (regardless of what might be written in a policy document), needs to write to all the staff making them aware of this change before they try to implement it.

I've said YABU. I work for a retail business and staff searches in our shops are totally common practice. We have a policy as to what you can physically carry on you when on shift - no cash, cigarettes etc. So to have these on you on shift would be a breach of policy and therefore misconduct.

Searches can be done at any point in the day by a trained manager, though they must have a witness with them. This can be anywhere in the shops, including work spaces and at the staff exit.

To refuse a search could I think be deemed misconduct as it is in our policies and procedures.