Apologies if there is already a topic on this.
Why is the company being so quiet about the lack of stock?
grocery promotion last night - we managed 2 ends out of our 12. all rest filled with toilet rolls, kitchen towels, MU stock - basically anything from warehouse.
All prom lines n/a.
No guidance or comms message to be seen.
apart from a pack asking for us all to train as lorry drivers, nothing.
At this time of obvious crisis, ceo gives a jolly video with flower suppliers.
What is going on? (I do know it is all due to brexit, by the way)
The HGV driver shortage is responsible, there's a shortage of about 100,000 hgv drivers for the Retail industry. This is likely to be the case until after christmas.
Can see staff cuts on the shop floor if not enough stock coming in to fill the shelves. To cover the costs of higher delivery costs.
Probably why they got rid of the regional people partners lol.
No workers, no stock. All was in papers. We have no OT to save money again which is stupid. But the we have some Stock sitting on pallets/ofds but shelves are empty. We do not have bodies to deal with small deliveries and no spare person to use ofds instead.
It's chaos.
Don't know about getting rid of regional partners they need to get rid of sds who have know idea how to run a superstore or an extra ,no staff equals no stock on shelves unless they believe in the elves .
Shortage of staff in distribution too. No one to pick it
Yes, I don't see how a store can have both, a Store Director and a Store Manager, Express Stores and Metros cope with just a Store Manager and an Area Manager, SS formats should be the same.
Quote from: grim up north on 13-08-21, 09:07AM
Shortage of staff in distribution too. No one to pick it
Stop treating them like slaves pay them a decent wage and then perhaps people not from eastern europe would take the jobs.
Distribution must be struggling for staff, as over the last day or so posters have gone up in our local area from an agency to work at Lichfield depot, immediate start, and even the offer of money if you find someone who goes on to complete so many weeks work there via the agency. I know Tesco depots and transport have always used agency but never seen them plastering town centres with posters and offering cash if you work for them and find someone new to join.
@NighandDay, When I was in express some years ago now you had store manager, reporting to area manager, am then reported to a store director who covered a number of area manager groups, in between SM and AM you also had an operations manager who looked after things like routines and audits and reported to the Area Manager. Guessing at some point the structure was changed to remove several of the roles above store level.
Because they bussed in workers from all over eastern Europe and flogged them to death, We never had an english name on any of the cage tickets and now they cant get cheap labour from europe they are struggling.
So like I said stop treating the pickers like slaves with unrealistic target stop using rfd tags to keep tabs on them and pay them a real living wage instead of as little as they can get away with that way you might get people to work there.
Quote from: penguin on 13-08-21, 05:09PM
Distribution must be struggling for staff, as over the last day or so posters have gone up in our local area from an agency to work at Lichfield depot, immediate start, and even the offer of money if you find someone who goes on to complete so many weeks work there via the agency. I know Tesco depots and transport have always used agency but never seen them plastering town centres with posters and offering cash if you work for them and find someone new to join.
@NighandDay, When I was in express some years ago now you had store manager, reporting to area manager, am then reported to a store director who covered a number of area manager groups, in between SM and AM you also had an operations manager who looked after things like routines and audits and reported to the Area Manager. Guessing at some point the structure was changed to remove several of the roles above store level.
Yes true, but at least with Express the director has some sort of accountability to a region in the country, while in SS both the director and the manager seem to have shared accountabilities and responsibilities to what is essentially 1 large building.
I think Tesco still has too many layers of bureaucracy. In any business where it needs to be cut, HR is usually the first to go.
Lets not drift to far from the topic.
Quote from: forrestgimp on 13-08-21, 04:15PM
Quote from: grim up north on 13-08-21, 09:07AM
Shortage of staff in distribution too. No one to pick it
Stop treating them like slaves pay them a decent wage and then perhaps people not from eastern europe would take the jobs.
Currently pay negs in distribution. Send that to head office
Quote from: NightAndDay on 13-08-21, 11:34AM
Yes, I don't see how a store can have both, a Store Director and a Store Manager, Express Stores and Metros cope with just a Store Manager and an Area Manager, SS formats should be the same.
Large stores have an SD but not an area manager, so not an extra layer.
We have posters up asking if anyone wants to become a lorry driver. I'm hearing that a good welcome and pay package is in place for anyone who goes forward but it says it's a 20 wk training plan or 16 wk for those who already have a higher licence. It's going to take a while to fix. You need to live within an hour or a distribution centre. If distribution colleagues are going for this it could be why there is a shortage in the depots but it's a much better pay package so I can see that many may want to. It should not be such a long training period to replace the depot colleagues though. I'm not downplaying the role but 20 wks is a long time to train anyone for any part of a retail job.
Tesco lost countless numbers of HGV drivers every time it closed/relocated/consolidated one of its depots as well as the constant tinkering with their terms and conditions. After the way they were discarded and treated they aint coming back, and now they're coming up short. Another typically Tesco example of saving £1 in costs today only for it to lose hundreds in sales in the longer term thus putting more pressure on costs, underpinned by a lack of consequential knowledge in a leadership population that has long since been promoted to its level of incompetence. It's retail - you reap what you sow and you don't need a degree to understand that.
Tesco used to employ its own drivers. However to cut costs they got rid of most of these to replace them with cheaper agency drivers. Agencies largely hired European drivers who with Freedom of Movement were happy to work here on higher wages than they could get back home. Now with Brexit and changes to the tax system these drivers won't come here - so we are going back to employing our own.
I can see more pain ahead as a lot of people deciding to become HGV drivers are currently .Com drivers and suspect it won't be long before they are recruiting staff in fulfillment centres too.
I personally don't see the stock situation improving any time this year. With Xmas approaching, volumes being moved will increase but there aren't enough drivers to do it. .
Quote from: Redshoes on 14-08-21, 03:47AM
We have posters up asking if anyone wants to become a lorry driver. I'm hearing that a good welcome and pay package is in place for anyone who goes forward but it says it's a 20 wk training plan or 16 wk for those who already have a higher licence. It's going to take a while to fix. You need to live within an hour or a distribution centre. If distribution colleagues are going for this it could be why there is a shortage in the depots but it's a much better pay package so I can see that many may want to. It should not be such a long training period to replace the depot colleagues though. I'm not downplaying the role but 20 wks is a long time to train anyone for any part of a retail job.
People are leaving the dc where i work not to become lorry drivers but to move to other companies a mile down the road paying £2-3 per hour more and a set shift. Also after an initial 1 week training for dc staff, you'll be on a 8 week(can be extended up to 16) probation period. And, redshoes, although if someone leaves the dc they can replaced next week, how long a training period do you think the new person will need to replace 10+ years of experience?
Quote from: Redshoes on 14-08-21, 03:40AM
Quote from: NightAndDay on 13-08-21, 11:34AM
Yes, I don't see how a store can have both, a Store Director and a Store Manager, Express Stores and Metros cope with just a Store Manager and an Area Manager, SS formats should be the same.
Large stores have an SD but not an area manager, so not an extra layer.
I didn't say that SS has an Area Manager, I said Express and Metro did (Metro did years ago anyway).
Returning to the issue of empty shelves, I went to the express store I used to work in this afternoon for a few bits for this evenings meal, talking to one of the shift leaders she informed me that yesterdays fresh delivery was 10 hours late due to a shortage of drivers in the depot, and that the frozen delivery has been turning up one or two days late due to XPO who deliver frozen into express also encountering the same issue, one hates to wish the year away but before we know it Autumn will be upon us with the increase in seasonal illness that brings alongside any possible surge in covid, that along with the lack of drivers in general could well see the empty shelves problem affecting retail in general only getting worse before it gets better.
Spoke to a senior manager about this a few weeks ago. He said the problem is both widespread and long term. We won't see any improvement for a long time. Indeed, it could get even worse.
thats just how our coop runs
I could well be mistaken but I'm sure I saw somewhere recently around October time something else is coming into force due to Brexit that could have a wide impact.
Pretty sure that this situation will be used as a excuse if sales or profit fall behind.
Yes its a real situation and involves suppliers and other issues.
I could not get any food in my store yesterday as depot was running behind, but thankfully the depot sent in the tubs of Christmas sweets the night before, so I had a tub of Quality Street for dinner.
Only the Toffees left now.
Quote from: whatajoke2019 on 15-08-21, 05:48PM
I could well be mistaken but I'm sure I saw somewhere recently around October time something else is coming into force due to Brexit that could have a wide impact.
Yes. Tarifs, custom checks and whole paper work go life on imported goods.
driver i spoke to yesterday told me 50 cabs at Litchfield as no drivers.
drivers refusing to go out on second runs. as never any staff in stores to unload them so waiting hours.
company need to get competitive wages in quickly to keep staff
spending millions on emergency agency drivers
joke around depots is pallets of chocolate tubs going out this week as company know they wont have any drivers at xmas ....turkeys out next week ....
Slashing staff in stores our store is 500 hours over budget which is laughable must equate to 15 full timers or 30 part timers if they are on reasonable hours how the hell do they think stock gets on shelves if it's delivered. Tesco will go the way of Woolworths if they continue in this vein.
Probably be asking customers to unload wagons next.Pathetic.
Seems to be the norm in all stores now, people leave and not replaced 10 people get jobs not one on more than 12 hours a week and most on less, Highly paid section managers doing nothing while team support do everything they used to do for no extra pay.
I look around our store and there is no one except dot com they have about 4 million drivers and click to order or whatever its called.
Slightly off topic , but just a thought , having seen the empty shelves myself as a customer sometimes , and as someone on here posted the other day that they only had stock to do two promotion ends out of twelve last week , then I wonder if the suppliers will cancel some agreements and not pay Tesco for the promotion space that they should be getting extra sales from but are not as the stock is not getting to the stores . And is Head Office increasing the waste budgets for the fresh foods that turn up twelve hours late so you've potentially lost a days sales on the short coded products . I predict poor Christmas trading figures for this year due to availability issues - and can can see a big drop in profits for the year ending - especially if the suppliers do cut the subsidy's given to Tesco for promotional space . Even the Clubcard mailings that went out do not have any additional vouchers any more to encourage you to buy other products - is that because they also know the availability issues for the coupons would be horrendous ? . The likes of Home Bargains / Band M / Heron Foods and others must be having a field day with the extra sales there gaining where people go to those shops as Tesco didn't have the stock on the shelves . The title of number one retailer will soon be gone the way there running the business at moment . At nine thirty on Sunday morning 15/08/2021 ( Browsing time before the Extra store opens at Ten am ) store i was in looked like they had not had a delivery for two weeks as there was more off sale than on sale and it looked as though it hadn't even been tidied up or rumbled on the Saturday afternoon / evening in readiness to open on the Sunday as there was empty boxes on a lot of the shelves . Had that had happened a couple of years ago the store manager / duty manager would have noted it in in the safe and legal book and the managers working late Saturday night would have known about it in no uncertain terms .
Talking of empty shelves anyone know what the issue with bottled water is, lots of shops got little or no stock of it at the moment, I could understand it if we had a period of very hot weather but its hardly tropical conditions at the moment is it.
Quote from: Hammer10 on 17-08-21, 02:19PM
Slashing staff in stores our store is 500 hours over budget which is laughable must equate to 15 full timers or 30 part timers if they are on reasonable hours how the hell do they think stock gets on shelves if it's delivered. Tesco will go the way of Woolworths if they continue in this vein.
This is what happened to tesco in Poland. They were slashing hours like mad, no workers so no profits, no profits so more hours slashed. At the end tesco quit the market.
Papers were saying that it went to situation that in British stores/dcs worked 11 times more people compared to Polish stores/dcs at its lowest level of staffing.
And now it is like looking into mirror what is happening here in UK. Honestly we must wait and see what will hapen next. People must eat so tesco will be here in 10 years time but its very likely some other company might go bust.
@Penguin, I vaguely remember the Pingdemic, the brief spell of hot weather we did have and distribution issues being cited as the reason for a shortage of bottled water.
I still can't but feel, at times, those in HO are determined to run T into the ground and re-brand stores, where possible, as J@cks. Which, funnily enough, hardly seems to get mentioned these days? Don't even think they've carried on with the expansion of said business??
Quote from: Hammer10 on 17-08-21, 02:19PM
Slashing staff in stores our store is 500 hours over budget which is laughable must equate to 15 full timers or 30 part timers if they are on reasonable hours how the hell do they think stock gets on shelves if it's delivered. Tesco will go the way of Woolworths if they continue in this vein.
Our store is over 2000 hours over manned yet there is never no staff and red call to checkout all the time at customer queueing for ages and non one to fill the shelves for the stock that's is coming in seems like a total mess at the moment
Quote from: whatajoke2019 on 17-08-21, 10:28PM
@Penguin, I vaguely remember the Pingdemic, the brief spell of hot weather we did have and distribution issues being cited as the reason for a shortage of bottled water.
I still can't but feel, at times, those in HO are determined to run T into the ground and re-brand stores, where possible, as J@cks. Which, funnily enough, hardly seems to get mentioned these days? Don't even think they've carried on with the expansion of said business??
Honestly, you're giving the morons in HO too much credit if you think they have any kind of coherent plan. All they're interested in doing is justifying their next bonus by churning out yet another stupid idea. They couldn't care less if it works: just as long as it looks good on paper. Bonus points if it can actually, "save" money. By which I mean cut the jobs of people who, unlike HO staff, actually work for a living.
Tesco has built in durability because people will always need to eat. Which is why we're still shuffling around like a Zombie, no matter how many times the people in head office shoot us... >:(
Quote from: Himynameus on 17-08-21, 11:12PM
Quote from: Hammer10 on 17-08-21, 02:19PM
Slashing staff in stores our store is 500 hours over budget which is laughable must equate to 15 full timers or 30 part timers if they are on reasonable hours how the hell do they think stock gets on shelves if it's delivered. Tesco will go the way of Woolworths if they continue in this vein.
Our store is over 2000 hours over manned yet there is never no staff and red call to checkout all the time at customer queueing for ages and non one to fill the shelves for the stock that's is coming in seems like a total mess at the moment
If you are over hours and screaming for staff it means the hours are in the wrong place. People like 9-5 and mon-fri generally. If there are too many people in at the wrong time it will mean there can be a shortage at other times but the store is still over hours. Historically people used to get school hours if they needed them. If there are hours available now they can still have them but there has to also has to be a business case to support.
Exactly, the issue in many stores is that many colleagues work Mon-Fri daytime and are highly reluctant to move to evenings or weekends. As these positions are often filled by younger student types who leave to go to uni or for full time jobs in the career of their choice departments become seriously understaffed at these times.
On paper moving Dawn a single mum from her school friendly 9-3 Mon & Wed shift to a
4-10pm Fri and Sat evening is possible but in reality you can never impose it.
It is not that simple as all the staff in our store are very flexible we have no problems covering early or late it's just brutal staff cutting if they want to slash the wage bill don't be tight just offer voluntary redundancy I know there are many who would take it in the long run they will recoup the money back on having less wages to pay it's all about playing the long game and not just ruining people's lives in the here and now.
The other problem is the incessent nepotism and cronyism that happens in many stores, in my experience, the people who work during the morning shifts tend to be entitled middle aged women or young girls who wouldn't know what happens on a late shift if it bit them on the behind. They tend to never want to do overtime and the SM doesn't do anything about it because they're all matey with each other.
Quote from: VladPutin on 18-08-21, 06:51AM
Honestly, you're giving the morons in HO too much credit if you think they have any kind of coherent plan. All they're interested in doing is justifying their next bonus by churning out yet another stupid idea. They couldn't care less if it works: just as long as it looks good on paper. Bonus points if it can actually, "save" money. By which I mean cut the jobs of people who, unlike HO staff, actually work for a living.
Tesco has built in durability because people will always need to eat. Which is why we're still shuffling around like a Zombie, no matter how many times the people in head office shoot us... >:(
Totally agree with that Vlad. I've been involved in 2 projects recently and after speaking to some people from HO all they're interested in is how it will make themselves look if it fails
We have exactly the same issue. Weekday mornings are when all the older staff want to work, evenings and weekends they struggle for staff and yet they "can't recruit" because the department is overstaffed at another time of day. Yet they will give out overtime, some of the time, to cover... although fewer people want to work it because evening shifts are understaffed, everyone's rushing around, plus the antisocial behaviour element... and meanwhile on the other side of the card the cashiers working at 9am on a Tuesday are twiddling their thumbs.
Quote from: Hammer10 on 18-08-21, 10:59AM
It is not that simple as all the staff in our store are very flexible we have no problems covering early or late it's just brutal staff cutting if they want to slash the wage bill don't be tight just offer voluntary redundancy I know there are many who would take it in the long run they will recoup the money back on having less wages to pay it's all about playing the long game and not just ruining people's lives in the here and now.
spot on mate but it would cost them a fortune because so many people would want to take it!!
Just read Tesco HGV drivers are calling for strike action over pay as Bookers drivers are getting paid more to drive around the wagons.
Only a kakistrocracy such as Tesco could ever cause the situation of Strike action of its drivers by their own pay decisions for a subsidiary.
https://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/19521913.hgv-strike-threatens-leave-tescos-london-stores-empty/ (https://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/19521913.hgv-strike-threatens-leave-tescos-london-stores-empty/)
Do not forget, latest data from Kantar indicate that sales are down. So we are looking at cost cuts on one end and huge pay rise on other end.
It's chaotic situation.
Quote from: Nomad on 18-08-21, 07:20PM
https://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/19521913.hgv-strike-threatens-leave-tescos-london-stores-empty/ (https://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/19521913.hgv-strike-threatens-leave-tescos-london-stores-empty/)
Unite regional officer Paul Travers said: "Despite the company indicating that it wanted to get pay talks started early to address the issue, the top managers have gone 'missing in action'.
"We understand the general manager is on holiday and another senior manager has just disappeared from the scene.
"At a time when country faces the worst HGV driver shortage in modern times with an estimated 100,000 vacancies in the industry, it is the height of irresponsibility that there is no executive for Unite to negotiate with, it is worthy of a Fawlty Towers episode."
Quelle Surprise
I think there seems to be a general feeling about the business now, which is we all gave so much when we were "feeding the nation" and now when they're wanting something back for nothing, people are actually saying no and rightly so.
I've seen this so much where I think the majority of colleagues now either don't care and are just waiting for retirement or just no longer care.
The situation with empty shelves is a complex one (I would like to hope) however I honestly feel everyone has now just had enough.
The ongoing panic around star lines and promo ends and what the SD is going to do when they come in is almost laughable.
The only ones left who really care are the store managers who are more concerned about being given the boot, because they know that they wouldn't be employed anywhere else as they've been stuck in the same bubble since the mid eighties and don't have a clue about the outside business world.
I seriously do now think it's a bit of a sinking ship and in a way maybe it's time they got bit on the arse to wake them all up.
Totally agree.
Tesco going down the tubes is a decade overdue, the Orwellian filth should have taken their business to the discounters 5 years ago.
My local store had plenty of groceries available today. No shortage of anything as far as I was concerned. And it was that busy they'd put the traffic lights on when I came out
Quote from: King1999 on 17-08-21, 03:25PM
Probably be asking customers to unload wagons next.Pathetic.
Probably. With all the other work the company has pushed on to them the customers are just the same as dot com pickers now with the addition that they do our Mystery Shopper surveys as well. They're not served they're processed, just another cog in the wheel.
As bad as things are, they're about to get much worse. The UK is running very low on carbon dioxide which is used in, among other things, meat production and fizzy drinks. Some very senior people in both government and business are getting rather worried. The phrase being used is, "Black Swan Event".
All over the media today, emergency meetings on the said shortage, one expects panic buying to be the headlines tomorrow, you can see it coming a mile off.
Back to beans on toast with a glass of tap water, very healthy :)
Well that did not take long, top of the Daily Mail website tonight, story on empty shelves and it shows an empty produce department in a Tesco superstore.
Quote from: Nomad on 18-09-21, 07:31PM
Back to beans on toast with a glass of tap water, very healthy :)
Christ, you must be almost as old as me if you can remember that! :o ;D
[admin]I have a strong suspicion that as regards our ages the inverse would be more accurate. :'([/admin]
Given the news that unite have rejected the pay rise offered at their distribution sites the chain is going to be squeezed even further.
Panic buying had been going on a few weeks in my local superstores people buying 4 or 5 trolleys of shopping in a week to stock their cupboards up.
Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the supermarket. >:D
Panic Buying begins in 5...4...3...
No panic buying total opposite sales are way down not even hitting a million a week we were taking 1.3 million durung COVID.
we have panic buyers in already, the store was absolutely heaving today