Pandemics & Tesco's policy

[barafear]

Redshoes>

You sound like you are at least Team Support level if not manager - and you do make some very sane points. I wasn't trying to criticise what Tesco are doing - either corporately or on an indvidiual
store basis (specifically the one where I work) - I am just trying to understand the timing of some of the changes.
Yes, a couple of weeks ago it appeared we were overstaffed - 20+ checkout/H2H staff to cover 6 open tills plus self serve - so there were numerous staff members patrolling the aisles, encouraging
customers to follow the new rules etc. This also allowed some sort of change for checkout staff - so staff would not be sat on a till in a confined space (surrounded by screens, nowhere to move, no
time for comfort breaks etc.etc. - this confined space was made worse by a trolley being on every pair of tills to collect returns when limits were in place.

All I am questioning is the "suddenness" of the change to "back to normal" whilst lockdown is still on, Tesco are still in the enviable position of "being a privileged retailer allowed to open"
and in answer to the previous poster's comment that "all of Tesco's competition is also open" - well not strictly true - one of the big sales boom in the last month has been alcohol sales -
pubs being closed may have some impact on that - and now more than ever I believe the big 4 supermarkets can "collude" (not openly of course, because that's illegal) - but strangely they
all seem to have stopped the majority of promotions, price increases at all have been at least 5% and up to nearly 10% for Morrisons - that's price increases in just four weeks - now it may be that
supplier prices have increased - but I would be sceptical - and strangely Dave came out and endorsed my post yesterday - where I commented that people seemed to be spending much more
- Dave was quoted yesterday as saying that average spend per customer has nearly doubled in the last four weeks.

Staff sick pay as a result of Covid 19 is being funded by the Govt - so not an extra cost - therefore employing temps to replace them is not an extra cost (it is simply the cost of paying
the existing staff - if they were working rather than being off sick).

I do not get to see store sales figures - but I do imagine that they must still be down - despite queues and despite doubling of average spend per customer - but online sales have seemingly
increased too - so I'm starting to doubt the figures announced at Results time of the cost of Covid 19 being anywhere near £800m - but......

[NightAndDay]

While I don't doubt the figures that Dave gave are true, he has put a very unduly optimistic spin on it all, with articles of him saying that the weekly shop is back in fashion because of the Coronavirus, compared to BAU overall sales will be down, but Dave must utilise his PR experience to maintain shareholder confidence. In fact there was another article questioning Daves decision on using recent profits to pay shareholder dividends rather than coronavirus related contingencies.

[Morris999]

Barafear

When the panic buying all started all the retailers were caught majorly off guard.
Yes they made Christmas profits but this was done with February/March manning.
Everything was a disaster in every store, now don’t get me wrong colleagues did a fantastic job, but you could see the operation collapse and not recover each day.
So yes Tesco took on lots of Temps as they were needed, and Tesco along with the other retailers didn’t know how long this was going to go on for.
The government advice/guidelines were changing daily, and with the government then saying the at risk colleagues needed to stay at home it had impacts on the already struggling operations.

My store lost 20 colleagues on the first day, it ended up being around 30 colleagues/managers in the end isolating for 12 weeks.
You then had the usual planned ops/sickness along with holidays on top of that, then all the other colleagues who had to self-isolate for 7-14 days.
Tesco had to do something to recover the business.
Yes it was making more money than it knew what to do with, but that money is now offsetting the costs incurred due to the virus.

Every colleague who is off for 12 weeks is being fully paid by Tesco not the government.
Every colleague who is self-isolating for 7-14 days is being fully paid by Tesco not the government!
These colleagues are Not being coded as sick! So no SSP from the government!
All the checkout screens for nearly 4000 stores.
All the extra pos
The hand sanitizer at increased costs
The face masks/gloves again at increased costs
The cost of hiring all the Temps
Plus whatever else I’ve not mentioned
It all adds up.

In my store all our uni students are now back so are able to cover the shortfalls from the 12 weekers.
Absence is not far off normal levels now, and along with the shop shutting at 22.00, half the checkouts closed etc, there is just no need for all the temps that we initially took on.
Permanent colleagues are crying out for overtime but cannot have it due to all the temps that were took on.
We could lose most of the temps and manage fine in our store.
I will point out that we are Not a Dot Com store and sales have stabilised, and we have a constant stream of customers from open to close.

Yes they are big shops like the rest of the company is finding but completely manageable now.
Stock levels have mostly recovered, and as long as IDQ is kept off and the general public stick to the government’s advice we see no reasons to keep all the temps on.
There will then be the need to legally give them holidays/holiday pay the longer they are kept, again increased costs to the business, a lot of stores are finding that the large amounts of temps are no longer needed.

When you talk about the supermarkets colluding in this, then yes you are correct, but not in the way you are thinking.
The government got with the retailers at the start of the crisis to work out how to keep stock on the shelves.
Removing multibuys was part of this, but not all the retailers agreed to it from what I’ve heard.
Restrictions on opening times was another, there obviously was more discussed and agreed upon.
Some retailers have increased prices, but this was to discourage the panic buying of essential items, and was put out there that this was the reason.
Also some suppliers have taken advantage and these costs have been passed on.

Dot com sales have yes increased, but with all the extra resources being allocated to it, I’d be surprised if it’s actually making a profit when everything is included.
It wasn’t before the crisis no matter how the senior Dot Com management at HO tried to fudge the figures.

Then there is all the lost sales on things like Easter eggs and other seasonal lines.
I know my store and the ones in my area are still trying to shift them, even though they were heavily discounted before Easter.

Someone mentioned the tax breaks till next year, and yes Tesco could take advantage of that, but Tesco will still have to pay it back at some point.
With them being a profitable business, still being able to trade, HO will obviously look into it to see if it’s more profitable to pay it this year or next.
I’m not an accountant but I’m guessing Tesco will get creative this year with their tax returns to pay as little as possible.

Sorry about the long winded post

[barafear]

No need to apologise for the long post - it's most welcome and what my original post was requesting - someone to make some pertinent points on the matter.

I don't know whether your facts are correct though - I was under the belief that Covid 19 "sick pay" was being paid/reclaimed from the Govt.
Most staff are not eligible for company sick pay anyway - but you seem quite sure in your statement - but I would be surprised if this is true.
i.e. Tesco are paying all self isolators normal contractual pay and not claiming anything from the Govt to offset.

You mention "tax breaks" - the main "tax" Tesco will be saving on is NDR (Business Rates) - this is a £585m saving for this financial year - this will not need to be paid back -

I agree with most of the rest of what you have stated - yes it's unprecedented - yes there was a lot of different things to do at short notice - and staff at all levels of the business have had to change - and yes lots of new things have been bought - screens and other PPE etc. - but I'm skeptical whether the short term costs of these items (as it now seems Tesco is keen to get back to "normal" ASAP) is really anywhere near the quoted figures.

[Morris999]

The Tax I’ve no idea on, just assumed all businesses will have to pay it back next tax year.

However Tesco has said any colleague who has to self-isolate will be paid from day 1, regardless of when they started and 3 day normal wait for sick pay.
They have also said not to code it as sick, but to code it as paid absence and not to include it in any absence calculations.

It’s all on people policy’s and has been sent to stores most weeks since the crisis started.

I personally doubt it will be near the higher end of the figures quoted, that is more likely the Tesco board covering themselves against the shareholders.

[Siwel123]

The lack of overtime due to temps is a sticking point in our store, lots of departments don't have any overtime hours and this is starting to annoy a few colleagues on flexi contracts who worked constantly throughout all of this, pulling in 50 plus hour weeks easily to just be told no hours sorry when there's loads of temps doing 5 day weeks

[Jasperjakes]

Yes siwel same in our store.  Doesnt seem fair to staff on low hours flexi contracts losing out when normally they are used to extra hours to support there income.

[Siwel123]

That's what everyone in our store is saying, the people on flexi contracts have worked a lot of shifts doing all the c**p jobs, and then when they ask for a bit of flexivility back and some overtime, they're told there's none even though we've well over 50 temps in store at least

[lucgeo]

Quick question...have colleagues instore been issued with masks and gloves to wear??

[Siwel123]

There's mask, gloves and visors in our store if people want them. However it's up to staff if they want them

[lucgeo]

And do staff wear them??

[alf]

At the moment the vast majority do not.

[lucgeo]

  unbelievable 

[alf]

I don't either, it sounds good in theory but the protection is only as good as the user.

The number of people wearing face masks, constantly touching them, then touching themselves, rubbing their eyes etc.

Though at least with proper usage I can understand masks, even if it is  impractical to wear one for several hours.

But as for gloves, simply a waste of time.

[Siwel123]

The majority don't wear the kit but i can understand why not. Unless you follow proper medical guidelines to wearing the ppe, it may provide no or little benefit.

The best thing you can do with the circumstances we've is wash your hands regularly, sanitise them when possible. Keep your distance from all customers and other staff as much as possible.

[Mark calloway]

Has anyone been told to order the test for the virus? I'm certain they'd discipline us if we didn't

[lucgeo]

I thought key workers were only advised to take the test, made available to them, if they were showing symptoms?

[Mark calloway]

My wife has symptoms and I think I'm being TOLD to get her tested so I can rush back to work. Those carrots won't stack themselves

[Redshoes]

We have been issued with visors too. Self service are wearing them. It started with just one person but everyone just wears them now. It's not enforced, it just happened.
We donated some masks to local care homes as colleagues were not wearing them. We do have one or two that do but on the whole we don't. This might change though as we are in Scotland and it has been made a request in Scotland.
The cleaning up your space after finishing in the canteen is going well. Everybody is doing it. The cleaning of pda's is also working well.
Out temps have been cut. Some left last week and others leaving this week. The only temps we are training now are ones who have gone into actual roles to cover for people being off for the 12 weeks. Not all of them covered by temps, just the ones where it has put too much pressure on the dept.
Mulitbuy offered were causing issues. For example buy two and save £1 on toilet rolls when the brief was one per customer. It takes time to remove these offers and now things have sat aliased it takes time to set them up again. There are only so many price changes a store can cope with in a day. PI can be very erratic and hard to cope with in the best of times. There have also been issues with social distancing in offices so this has had an impact on how quick things can be implemented. I don't know for sure but assume the programmers for price changes need to do the job on a system in work and not from home.
We are also now getting brands in we have never seen before. The buyers must have been out sourcing things from wherever they can get them, just to fill the shelves. Pasta is such a long term issue the plans for this section have been made into a cage location in our store.
For us the sales are up, daily. The PFS is down by more than the extra the store is making though. I hear that in some reas the PFS's are flooded but the rigs are suffering. Jobs going and there is a slump in the market. This is not just because of less traffic on the roads and people staying at home though.
As has been said, dot.com trades at a loss. The less profitable stores are the dot.com stores. I don't work in a dot.com store either but I have in the past.
There are a lot of cost implications in all roles in all areas for the business. From what I see on yammer a lot of the head office work is limited to what people can do from home computer. I don't work in a depot but things have changed for them too. They have had to pump extra out to stores at a time that was not expected and deal with it as people go off for the 12 weeks or with symptoms.
The huge changes that have had to be made have been made at a traditionally quiet time of year. We don't normally deal with changes in a fast way but we have had to and then change the changes.
The government will only pay the minimum support but they are giving away our tax money so that is as it should be. It is aimed at keeping a company afloat and keeping people's jobs. We have to do more than that as a business. We need to make a profit to get investors and to be in a position to buy products.
There is not a bottomless pit of money. We need to now move away from the knee jerk early reaction and into the long term plan. As part of this the temps that are not really needed should go. The existing colleagues jobs need to be protected and cutting costs by employing not vital people is the biggest cost saving measure that can be made. It protects the company that protects our jobs.

[Siwel123]

I agree with red shoes here, the temps have been marvellous and there's still a place for many within the company, but the need for 80 plus new staff, when that many didn't go off in our store is an immense waste. We still need them on dotcom, but filling departments such as produce, fresh and grocery, would be ok to lose all if not most temp staff now.

[blablabla]

My wife an daughter are both showing signs of the virus, my husband am sure has it. I am due on shift tomorrow evening. If I phone in tomorrow to explain the citation what is the correct information that will be relaid to me ? Ie stay home ? Or go to work?

[Siwel123]

Stay at home, if they're showing symptoms you shouldn't come to work. As you're a key worker, you can book them in for a test, as then this will allow you to return to work sooner.

[barafear]

As a follow up to my earlier comments on this thread - I read this comment posted on a BBC News story (about another supermarket!) - these are not my words - but more or less reflect what I stated I thought was now the new norm for Tesco:

The new Soviet queue system is drab and grim, but our local Tesco has cut staff hours and only opens 4 out of 18 tills.
They realise people will put up with this farce and see an eye to cut costs yet further.

[Redshoes]

We are only opening half out tills. We have decided that it's too difficult to manage the social distancing opening the facing tills. Colleagues don't mind the back to back, screen or not but it's the customers being so close that is not liked. We have queues but we cope. We slow down the queue into the store if the queue fir checkouts gets too long but it's manageable.
I do wonder about IDQ at the end of this. The target had already been relaxed so I wonder if it will ever come back. We have TS that get very stressed at even a small queue as that is what they have been conditioned into not accepting. The customers though are fine. We open up as many tills as we feel safe to do so, can't do more than that really.

[barafear]

I had to pop to Aldi last night to buy something that Tesco seem to be permanently out of stock on - now not even showing on their website at all (well at least not with my post code) - Orange Juice with bits - just the standard Tesco on the shelf 85p product. Anyone know about the shortage/absence of this product?

Anyway - off to Aldi to buy some - and since my last visit they've added an interesting contraption to "help with the face to face customers" - not sure it works - but it's interesting never the less!!

Basically it's a plastic curtain hanging from the ceiling (so about 2 ft long hooks from the ceiling) - and then it stops about 4 ft from the floor - it has hazard tape on top and bottom so you can see it's there - but I'm not sure whether it's adequate! But I suppose it's something and as others have said the plastic screens around the cashier are far more extensive than Tesco have - literally all the way around and just a small hatch for products and payment.