Should we be kinder to supermarket employees?

[TheQuirkyMaker]

I saw a young girl in tears last night, I said if a customer had upset her she should report it, she said it was a supervisor who had had a 'go' at her. We had a chat, she explained they are all on short hours, no proper contracts, and are constantly harried by work apps (there is apparently an app that checks their picking rate).
Should we accept paying a little bit more to make peoples lives better?

Not sure 'being kinder' or funding payrises out of consumer pockets is the answer. IMO big companies need to realise they have a responsibility and duty to employees and paying customers, not just boosting profits to pay fat cat shareholders - then they wouldn't be so focussed on productivity and putting so much pressure on their employees via apps. In addition to removing some of the stress from jobs, they could also go ahead and pay people a living wage and provide them with contracted hours so they know what they'd be earning and not have to deal with the stress of never knowing how much they will work and earn.

Of course we should but most people don't give a shit. Even wealthy ones. They are quite happy to buy clothes made in sweat shops by pre teens and transported across the ocean pumping god knows what toxins in the air to save £5. All this knowing their local businesses are declining and there are less jobs for young folk as a result. They certainly aren't going to give a shit about the poor working conditions for local supermarket staff. It's sad but true

We should be kind to everyone, regardless their job or social status.

Supermarket online shoppers have pick rates displayed on their handheld devices. I can’t comment if the targets are reasonable or not but playing devil’s advocate, they are a simple way to measure if someone is working hard or needs to be moved to another department.

Supermarkets make lots of profit and many customers struggle with food costs and food inflation so the answer isn’t to pay workers more. Supermarkets have shareholders so if they were forced to pay workers more then they’d compensate with higher food prices. It’s a shame that Labour hasn’t got rid of shitty employment practices like zero hour contracts.

Workers should obviously be treated with kindness.

And @icouldholditwithacobweb is absolutely right. These employers are often very profitable and are 100% responsible for how they treat staff. It should be highlighted more. If anything we should be boycotting the poor employers in favour of the better employers.

Not all jobs suit all people and we all have bad days at work.

Without a doubt. The job is a tough job without the added stress.

I think we should be kind to all employees, and your evidence of 1 doesn’t sway me either way.

I do think there is over use of zero hours contracts, but my student nephew tells him that it works great for him as he can pick and choose where he works.

I agree with pp, it’s for the high profit, low-tax paying operators of the supermarkets to be held to account.

Consumers paying more adversely affects the workers too, as presumably they also need to eat.

I can't speak for others but I try to be kind to everyone I encounter in daily life.

As pp said, supermarkets should look to the fat cat salaries they pay their chiefs before putting prices up.

I have always treated all supermarket employees the way I would want to be treated, but, bluntly, my ‘kindness’ isn’t going to improve the way her supervisor speaks to her, or her working conditions. Those aren’t in my gift.

Well the short hours and contract bit of the OP is the employees fault. She took the job, if she wants more hours, she needs a different job. There's many many people on here looking for the kind of flexibility she has to work around parenting.

The apps, well we're all monitored in our jobs. Apps are just a new way of doing it. On the face of it, I'm not seeing anything unkind here?

Short hours are a January thing it picks up later in the year the pick rate was initially set by a human being picking shopping in an empty shop with no customers saying "excuse me could you just" every five seconds so its not always going to be achievable

To a certain extent she needs to not accept a lack of contract, if she’s agreed to a zero hours or 12 hours or whatever with a verbal agreement for more hours she needs to tell them she needs more hours and a contract to that effect. It could be she’s not suited to the role and is taking far longer than others hence not getting hours, you can’t know that

That's the shit bit. Me stopping to say I appreciated and understood her was probably setting her back! Customer service is a negative unless it takes place in a controlled environment.

I don't disagree that people should be kind to supermarket employees, but Tesco, for example made around £3bn profit so it not about paying a bit more for stuff, it's about the growth of gig economy. Why do you think 'paying a bit more' will equate to better working conditions for employees? It will just mean more profit. What we need is legislation.

Was this whilst buying your vodka for the day?

And if she'd have backed up near you would you have assaulted her instead???

We should be kind to all staff in places that serve us, be it supermarkets, pubs, venues etc. But Tesco makes a huge profit and could be looking after their own with higher wages and more staff or better hours (rather than you're on 4 hours but need to do the work of a 6 hour shift so you don't have time to make mistakes or slow down etc)

I can’t comment on pick rates as I don’t think those get published online so can’t judge if they’re reasonable or not. That being said, targets are based on averages and someone would have calculated what’s possible. Not everyone can work up to the company standard and you will have people that generally excel and some that just can’t hack it for one reason or another. Targets are not a bad thing, there needs to be a measure of success anywhere you work. A business can’t sustain itself just by letting people do whatever they feel they can do. Imagine you as a customer on the receiving end not getting what you have paid for because a collective of employees not pulling their weight.

As to the manager - they could have been genuinely a bad manager who doesn’t know how to speak to people. That’s not a reflection on the work that’s expected, more so on that individual. Equally, it could have been an employee that won’t pull their weight and shifts the fault on to everything else as opposed to doing what’s expected. I come across those a lot.

Being kind to workers in retail is a given, no customer should ever be unkind just as no staff member should ever be unkind.

It's frustrating that after witnessing tears you conclude that customers need to be kinder and pay a bit more. You were told the member of staff was upset because of work expectations, insufficient hours and poor treatment by a senior colleague. In this instance it was not a customer related issue.

Customers need to treat supermarket staff with respect but the bigger issue is unreasonable expectations from the supermarkets and shit terms and conditions. Contracts which only guarantee a small number of hours leave staff effectively "on call" 24/7 in the hope they will be offered extra hours to make up their pay. How can anyone budget or plan childcare under those conditions?

We need to stop appealing for "kindness" as if it's a magic bullet, it doesn't pay the bills or make shit contract terms tolerable.

Uh OK OP

I very rarely even interact with retail staff now the customer is the check out agent because everywhere is self service. I certainly wouldn’t be happy to pay more, I pay more now for shopping than ever before and get less customer service. The issue here was clearly explained to you as being the result of the employers treatment - lack of shifts, high targets etc

Poor supervision, short hours, no proper contracts and constantly being harried by work apps are all employer issues not customer issues.

Of course we should all be respectful of supermarket worker and most of us are but how is paying more going to do anything other than line the pockets of the Supermarket?

Well of course in an ideal world it would work that paying a bit more would make a difference to staff.
In reality, supermarkets are in a cut throat world and the pressure of shareholders.

she said it was a supervisor who had had a 'go' at her Surely that's the problem? I worked in 2 supermarkets when I was younger and it was hell. The reason it was hell was because of the supervisors and managers. One manager pushed cages into employees in the warehouse. When I was 16 another manager who must have been late 40s demanded to see my appendectomy scar because apparently my Dr's note "could have been forged".

Customers I could mostly just forget about and move along with my day but the people above me I had to deal with every day.

My husband had taken early retirement. Then he saw an advert for a local store wanting people (in fact my daughter had a Saturday job there but left as she got a better one). My husband said he could do a couple of shifts a week (doesn’t need the money) but would feel value, feel useful etc so twice a week is/ was working 10-2.30 pm. He can drop the youngest off etc. He’s a good employee and customer love him and how helpful he is.

He was made part of a WA group as they contact rotas etc via a WA group (his own personal phone) initially it was just to confirm the rota each week. But over the last month/ my husband has started to get a bit fed up with it as it’s daily ‘rants’ by the manager over what they aren’t shifting as extra mark ups with pressurised sales. My husband wants to help people / you go in and want a plaster - you get your plasters and go to the till but the company is trying to sell mobile SIM cards and ‘star buys’ as an employee you HAVE to push the star buys as you get ranked on how many you sell per shift and some of the staff push these star buys hard on customers. My husband wants to help the customer and will offer the star buys but in a normal way and not a hard sell.

Last week a message arrived on one of his days off saying (these messages are to all of his employees via the manager)
I get the star buy rankings for each of you, every shift and this number needs to be as low as possible (this means who have upsold more of the star buys) and some of you just aren’t. If a customer doesn’t have a reward card to must make them take one - it’s not an option. They need to be forced to have a reward card - you have all been warned

A few days later:
Again I am warning everyone that I am starting formal warnings and disciplinary meetings for anyone who has a high number during any shift for not selling our star buys and if I catch a customer walking away from you and they don’t have a store reward card you will be in trouble and disciplinary will start.

sent at 8 am.

A few days after that :

Right everyone you need to come to work with solutions not problems, x town is not any different to anywhere else in the flipping solar system. We need to improve our rankings for these star buys and we are going to do it now. You will start your next shift with a private chat with me and you will have five things you are going to do to increase the number of star buys you sell. No one is excluded from this chat. Dont come with a problem a solution for how you are going to upsell, upsell, upsell. Every single person must have five good solid strategies to improve their star buys sales on the till. Not four but five. Five different strategies. As from next week I’m going to start writing down everyone’s number and then disciplinary start Does everyone understand?

sent at 7 pm

He hasn’t worked there for the last 5 days as he only does two days a week,

Yesterday

He went in for his shift upset and came home and said I was doing this job for a tiny bit of money but more to help them out (always short of staff) and I enjoyed helping the customers. But actually I’m getting threats of disciplinary as a group over my own personal phone etc and it is making me feel pretty shit. He has now resigned and the manager is telling him he is fab employee customers love him and please don’t leave etc

well don’t treat your staff like that then. We are fortunate we don’t need to work. He left a hugely high up senior company role last year and took early retirement and that was massively stressful and he did that for 30 years before taking early retirement.

For someone on a zero hours contract trying to afford bills whilst on a minimum wage who can’t tell a manager where to shove it - soul destroying. You don’t need to treat your staff like shit.

I’m retiring this year early (54) and I’m planning on volunteering for a charity but I am worried - it will cost me money eg petrol etc to get there and I’m giving up my time and expertise - if someone talks to me like shit I will be off. I have a good friend who volunteered in a hospital cafe (used to be a headteacher) and the manager of the cafe came in which is a paid position (my friend doesn’t get paid at all) and she starting talking about the water containers (tap water) being too full and nice clean glasses etc - they are supposed to provide these but she told my friend off to actually topping it up, making sure it was cool etc saying it won’t encourage people to buy bottled water (expensive) and then got in her face and said loudly we might be a charity but we still need to see the money do you understand we need to see the money …. If they are upset offer them chocolate AND cake and not just ask ‘what can I get you?’ You need to tell them what they want ???!!!!! And my friend and her friend also working in there just left and walked out. They were paying to drive and park in the hospital and working completely for free…

Honestly it worries me how people are treating other people both at work and volunteering.