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Empty shelves

Started by beentheredoneit, 11-08-21, 12:05PM

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beentheredoneit

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)
beentheredoneit

NightAndDay

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.

Vinny1985

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.

NightAndDay

Probably why they got rid of the regional people partners lol.

lordadmiral

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.


Hammer10

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 .

grim up north

Shortage of staff in distribution too. No one to pick it

NightAndDay

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.

forrestgimp

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.

penguin

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.
Do not let anyone tell you there is not a decent job and life beyond Tesco.

forrestgimp

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.

NightAndDay

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.

Nomad

Lets not drift to far from the topic.
Nomad ( Forum Admin )
It's better to be up in arms than down on your knees.

grim up north

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

Redshoes

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.

Redshoes

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.

OvaSees

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.

londoner83

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. .

grim up north

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?

NightAndDay

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).

penguin

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.
Do not let anyone tell you there is not a decent job and life beyond Tesco.

VladPutin

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.

expresscoop

thats just how our coop runs

whatajoke2019

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.

stockstaffreduction

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.

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