AIBU to think these expectations of a charity shop manager are unfair?

[SorcererGaheris]

In the last year or so, the charity associated with the shop I volunteer in has become much more stringent on the issue of the shop remaining open all the time, even when staff shortages make this difficult or impossible without our manager giving up her time off to come in and cover without extra pay.

Our shop has a paid (FT) manager and a paid (PT) deputy manager. The rest of the staff are all volunteers.

Neither of the managers work on the Sunday, so the shop is staffed entirely by volunteers on that day. It's the only full day off that our manager gets, as her working hours cover the other six days.

In the past, if not enough of the Sunday volunteers could come, the shop just wouldn't open that time. But according to what our manager says, she is now being told that if a suitable number of the volunteers cannot show up on Sunday, she needs to come in herself to provide cover, if other members of staff can't/won't. The (non-Sunday) volunteers are usually unable or unwilling to work on a Sunday, so it ends up falling to our manager.

This Sunday, for example - two of the (four Sunday) volunteers are unable to be there. I can be there, but our fourth Sunday volunteer does not arrive until between 1-1.30 pm. The shop opens shortly after 11 and health and safety rules dictate that staff are not allowed to be alone in the shop when it's open to the public. The manager has been told that she is expected to come in and cover.

I am 100% sure that she will not be paid for these additional hours; from what has been said, it's typically expected that additional cover is done unpaid. I think the charity works around it by offering time off in lieu, so as not to be in conflict with the law, but due to the complexity of rota staffing when the majority of staff are volunteers (and thus can have as much time off as they want, for any reason) I think our manager finds it quite tricky to take all of her leave.

If the above was just a one-off, I don't think it would matter, but whilst those of us who volunteer on Sunday do our best to be there as much as possible, there are times when other things conflict and take precedence. Last Sunday, I myself did not come in because my mother and I were looking after my nephews for the day. One of my colleagues has a partner with fragile health and she sometimes has to arrange for him to go to the hospital at short notice. So there are times when, for a multitude of reasons, not enough of us can show up at the same time to ensure that the shop is adequately covered throughout the day.

In the past, it was just accepted that the shop would not open for that day if enough of us could not make it. But like I say, in recent times, the charity has become less understanding/tolerant of this and are more or less insisting that our manager come in to provide the cover instead.

My view is that - given the majority of staff are volunteers, with the freedom to have time off whenever - that expecting the shop to always remain open isn't realistic or fair. We're not a 'typical' retail business in that respect, because most of us are unpaid.

Considering that the only day off our manager gets is the Sunday, I think it is unfair to expect/demand that she always cover, especially for no pay.

@Welldoya

If so, that would have been an assumption on my part, not something I was told. I don't actually think it's quite as low as that for anyone now; but I do think that some charity shop managers are underpaid, considering what is expected of them.

A personal example - the bookshop was advertising for the role of shop manager for another Oxfam in the area. The hours for that role were 30 per week. I calculated that from the salary they were offering for those 30 hours, the eventual manager would be getting paid roughly 30p above minimum wage. Personally, I think that's significantly too low.

@Welldoya

Recently, Oxfam (not the shop I'm at) were advertising for a shop manager. 30 hours per week. The salary they offered, divided over those hours, amounted to thirty pence above minimum wage.

Other charity shop managers are perhaps paid better, but some certainly are not.

@Welldoya

Why does this (seemingly) bother you? I've already stated that I enjoy creating and discussing in these threads. I'm not being harmed, and neither is anyone else on this forum, so what is the issue?

@Welldoya

Just because I am (very) critical of how I perceive the treatment of the manager, does not equate to me despising the charity as a whole.

I've said on several occasions that the reason I volunteer there is because I find it fun. I enjoy the work. I don't work there out of any particular interest in the charity's cause; it's a bookshop and I'm a bit of a bookworm, so I have fun there.

I'm not going to stop doing something that, for the vast majority of the time, is pleasurable for me. I'm a hedonist - the main thing I care about is experiencing pleasure.

I'll also bash oxfam as I have seen them treat a manager terribly as well.

I used to shop at charity shops a lot, but the clothes aren't good any more, and I'd not want to be paying the outrageous salaries of the fat cats at the top whose only skills are marketing and ripping of the people further down the hierarchy.

I'm not at all surprised that those giving their time are horribly treated. Look at what they do to the apparent recipients (oxfam, Save the Children, MSF, I'm looking at you).

It does sound like there may be a breach of employment regulations - with statutory rest breaks or potentially minimum wage, but also like she may not be telling her employer how she's covering everything because then she'd be worried about being fired for capability since it sounds like it's her job to manage resources to ensure coverage, not actually to do it herself and that's what she's failing to manage. So I don't think the responsibilities are necessarily that unreasonable, depending on how much authority the manager has over the resources.

It sounds like there is a need for better volunteer management - the shop obviously doesn't have enough volunteers who are committed enough. Better volunteer management should mean there aren't days when the needed number of volunteers aren't there. so if that's part of her remit and not something that head office manage, then it seems likely it's less that the expectations are too much and more that she just isn't up to the job. The manager does sound pretty poor at volunteer engagement from this and your other threads (moaning to your volunteers about your job is pretty high up there on how not to manage volunteers).

Also it seems poor to have 1.5 fte and not have them cover every day of the week between them. There may be a reason for this that is the manager's responsibility, like the manager agreeing to a change to days to please either herself or the deputy manager when it would have been more appropriate to insist on Sunday being a contracted day. Or it may be down to the employer advertising jobs this way so they can claim they don't insist on Sunday working or something. Hard to know.

But, you have previously posted about the shop not actually being safe to work in and that affecting volunteer engagement, and if that's what's really driving this and the manager doesn't have influence over the refuse collection/donations accepted, then that's very unreasonable of the employers.

Can she get another manager from another shop to cover?
Alternate Sundays with the deputy manager? Get another volunteer for Sundays?
Ask the area manager to cover?
Close the shop regardless of being told off? Take TOIL on a weekday to make up for the Sunday?
Bring a grievance against her employer? Make a working time regulations or minimum wage complaint to the LA if she's forced to work too much or for under minimum wage?
Lots of options if the current setup no longer works for the organisation who now want them to stay open on a Sunday.

Have you posted about this shitshow before? It sounds familiar

Well there you are then - Bingo.

Religion is a protected characteristic and she goes to church. By law, they cannot force her to work on Sundays. That's all she needs to tell them.

The equality act does not give you a right to a particular day off for religious reasons if it means genuine operational difficulties for the workplace. A workplace would need to try to accommodate the request, but if it is not possible without being detrimental to the business (like having to close sometimes) it does not have to.

However, retail workers have a right to refuse Sunday working without needing a reason unless they've been hired on a Sunday only contract. So niether she nor the deputy manager could be "forced".

But the manager's problem seems to be that she is responsible for ensuring Sunday coverage. She's working Sundays because she's failing to do that, not because she's contracted to. So if she opts out she still has the issue of needing to ensure the store is open.

Yes - I maintain there is nothing wrong with that.

@Rachelshair

She could try asking those things, but I'm not sure if they are feasible in practice.

It's not the responsibility of other shop managers nearby (who themselves are probably working full-time) to help cover at our shop, so while she could well ask, the response would probably be no.

Same with the area manager - it's not the area manager's duty and they would probably not do it.

Alternate Sundays with the deputy manager?

That is something that I agree they could try - I don't know if they will, as I think they both prefer to have Sundays as a day off.

Close the shop regardless of being told off?

It's clear the manager finds being told off to be unpleasant and wants to avoid it that, so she's under pressure to keep the shop open.

Take TOIL on a weekday to make up for the Sunday?

That can be difficult to do in practice, as it requires rescheduling the working hours of not just the deputy manager but also other volunteers, and that's not necessarily possible.

My perception is that our manager is not very good at standing up for herself/advocating for herself to her superiors. Some of the suggestions in this thread make sense to pursue - I'm not sure if I can see our manager doing them.

I think she is making some effort to try to recruit an additional volunteer or two for Sundays, but in my experience, that's a tough day to get people to agree to volunteer on.

I think she is making some effort to try to recruit an additional volunteer or two for Sundays, but in my experience, that's a tough day to get people to agree to volunteer on.

So volunteers definitely are her responsibility? To be honest, she just doesn't sound very good at her job. I get there may also be some corporate issues that make her job harder than it could be but from things you've posted about her in the past, she does really poorly at the volunteer aspect and that's a critical part of running a shop that relies on volunteers properly.

Definitely happening to my friend (also near retirement age so doesn’t want to rock the boat)

I'm surprised volunteers are allowed to be there without paid staff. Where I volunteer has decided to open on Sundays but the manager or the deputy has to be there. The manager still only works five days though. On most Sundays she's on her own so has asked for volunteers to go in for an hour so she can have a lunch break.
The well being of the staff seems to be bottom of the list for the company/ charity.

I think charity shops have passed their sell by date. People are well aware that hardly any of the money they make actually goes to needy people, they charge high prices for the donated goods they sell, they take advantage of their volunteers and low-paid staff, , while the Greedy Executives rake it in. And that's not even mentioning all the sex crimes.

72p of every £ at BHF goes towards research. I have volunteered with them for six years and don’t feel taken advantage of.
https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/where-your-money-goes

"Research" is very vague. How much of that goes to the senior management in "research" and how much to the workers? How much good is done as a result of this "research".