News:

Welcome to V.L.H

Main Menu
Welcome to verylittlehelps. Please login or sign up.

28-03-24, 03:39PM

Login with username, password and session length

Recent

Members
Stats
  • Total Posts: 38,115
  • Total Topics: 630
  • Online today: 316
  • Online ever: 1,436
  • (24-01-24, 01:01AM)
Users Online
Users: 4
Guests: 301
Total: 305

'Over Contracted' Query

Started by whatajoke2019, 28-06-21, 08:56PM

Previous topic - Next topic

whatajoke2019

Good evening,

Out of interest are other stores being told they are 'over contracted' and that overtime is pretty much non existent unless a department is 'green' on hours?

I guess this is nothing new but just curious as to what the rationale behind it is (probably none, knowing HO!)

Just wondered how someone who's clearly never worked on the shop floor in their entire life can say 'no' even though I spent more time today on a service call than my usual department, which I wouldn't have thought possible if we had too many colleagues on the books  ???.

lordadmiral

#1
It's tricky. Let me give you some example.
We are told we are 20h over. We lost 50h as people quit. So now we are only 15h over. Due loss of staff we advertising for 30h. We hire 30h after a month or two of nightmare struggle and we are told we're 40h over. But because we are heavily understaffed we have unlimited OT for a while then we're told no OT as we are over hours and we spend too much on payroll.
I've work 15 yrs now for Tesco and this is the way company operates.

In HO they use some mathematical function to estimate payroll/hours but unfortunately it has nothing to do with real life.  It feels like no matter what, we are always over-hours and company will try to cut cost.
Do not forget that management is centralised and one decision apply to all stores. 

Above example is sarcasm and imaginary numbers but perfectly describes BS we live in.
Our night team is something like 12 people with OT on busiest day of the week ( need 18-20) but we can't hire due to checkouts being over hours.

Such absurdity means that we can fill half store one day, and other half another day.
Then the night when we should have hardly any work our back-stock is so huge we don't have time to start delivery.  So next day we have double, and no staff again. But we are over-hours.

londoner83

The problem is the tools the company use to set the hours (ideal base/heatmap) are set to the lowest sales week in the previous quarter. As a result the hours you are allowed in any department will be too low for even a average weeks sales in the weeks ahead.

As the hours are too tight things become impossible to complete in the time allowed with the result things are left.....and staff become stressed at what the are then asked to do. Add into the mix the colleagues used to picking up overtime who are  disillusioned when it is cut/stopped .....and you wonder why so many people leave.

dizzy_1

From what I've been lead to believe (take that with a pinch of salt) when they work out hours for checkouts it's not full shifts, so you might for example have 4 staff between 8-9am then get another 2 between 9-10am (6 staff) then nothing until noon then you get 4 extra staff (10 staff, because it's lunch time and busy) but you only need them for an hour.
At 1pm you revert back to only needing 4 staff (-6 staff) until 4pm when you need + 6 extra staff until 6pm.
So between 8am and 6pm you have used 64 hours, then you have to take in to account breaks, and the fact no one will come to work for just 1 or 2 hours and if for some unknown reason the "heatmap" says you only need 55 hours a day then your screwed.
i dont have an attitude problem you have a perception problem!

newguy20

One of the problems we are faced with is exactly the same there are shifts that are a pig to fill in my department on overtime, but yet we cannot recruit somebody to them, as the whole department is 'over hours'. Except that it's over hours at different times of the day. And in actual fact the shifts are needed and on there as overtime, but they won't fill them (manager given the same explanation as above ie that they base hours on the quietest possible time).

Checkouts seems to be a law unto itself with busy/quiet times although they do have some 'wiggle room' with hours for putbacks etc which are tacked on to create shifts.

There's also a culture at the moment of ringing people up to cancel overtime (say being rung on the Monday to cancel a shift on Wednesday) because over hours, then ringing the same person back on Wednesday because someone rang in sick... 8-)

whatajoke2019

Thank you for the replies, it's been very helpful.

It's a shame those from higher up never step foot in many stores and actually see what an impact these calculations/decisions have...

Mind you I always have a laugh to myself when TMs pull faces because the night team in our store have had to leave delivery... so whoever is in first is asked to make a start on it.

Several service calls later and the same TMs pull faces because it isn't finished.

Really can't think why  ???.

OvaSees

Company has been telling us for years now that 'the only hours that exist are those required to do the routines' so with all the cuts, reductions and changes where does that put us now?

The number of hours determined for a department/store to run is derived from numerous sources including, but not limited to, the operating model. The issue arises is that it gets trumped by finance - it may be determined that 100 hours is required to run a department properly but the cost of that may exceed the financial determination (payroll budget), in which case the number of hours you are thus 'allowed' (target hours) is reduced to bring the cost in line with that budgetary constraint, and this is done by increasing productivity targets and/or simply lowering the allowed hours number. So even though that department actually needs 100 hours, it will get less because it cannot afford to pay that many. If you have more hours than that contracted, this is what gives rise to the term.

It's typically Tesco voodoo mathematics, the practical upshot being that departments and stores are invariably not 'over contracted' they are 'under funded' because Tesco cannot maintain its target profitability whilst funding all of the work it needs to do at the same time. This is why, despite any changes to ways of working and productivity 'improvements', staff and managers constantly feel under increasing pressure and can suddenly be told they are 'over contracted' even when no changes have occured to their contracted hours or ways of working.

forrestgimp

Its been like that for centuries. I started over 25 years ago and in my first few months was told many times that we were over our PI so we had too many hours on the department, the inference being that we either worked harder and did more work or we would be let go.

Even then I didnt believe them and told them if we were indeed over hours to make me redundant as the job was rubbish and yet all these years later I am still here getting paid for doing the least amount of work I can get away with.

Biscuit tin

The Aldi way is coming. Kiss goodbye to your set shifts and departments.

Katarn2000

Some VLH users: 'we don't have enough hours to do the job!'

Also some VLH users: 'I do the minimum work I can get away with'

OvaSees

#10
If you are intimating cause and effect by suggesting that staffing levels determined for all departments in all stores are in part the result of some employees behaviours then that is disingenuous - based on the very same observations it is more likely that any perceived relationship is the other way round. Inadequate staffing levels generate apathy from exasperated employees facing increasingly impossible odds who become disillusioned, disenfranchised and disenchanted resulting in lower productivity. Not rocket science, yet seems to be difficult to comprehend in a company that's been around for over a century - perhaps our leaders haven't 'taken the learnings' from this yet.

I get paid for replenishing the required number of cases per hour but there is no reason or incentive for me to do anything more, I therefore do only what I am paid to - this is not the same as doing the minimum work I can get away with, it's me doing what is required and nothing more so if that isn't enough to get the job done then we are understaffed.

NightAndDay

Quote from: Katarn2000 on 06-07-21, 09:32PM
Some VLH users: 'we don't have enough hours to do the job!'

Also some VLH users: 'I do the minimum work I can get away with'

Minimum wage minimum effort, if you put the effort in you'll see the folly of your ways when you get "promoted" to Shift Leader.

lol its me

why put the effort in? we're getting paid £9.3 an hour pay s*** get get results

King1999

Example today ....... SM What's gaps like ....... me I haven't finished them yet in the middle of taking a Goole delivery in....both stockies on the backdoor........wanting the same results and not having the staff to do it........ the board are up their own arses on a different planet  in la la land........i couldn't careless anymore that's the end result treated with apathy.......apathy is what you get back.The redundancies are starting to bite in-store and ....backdoor....with the constant not replacing leavers.Its a joke.

forrestgimp

#14
Quote from: Katarn2000 on 06-07-21, 09:32PM
Some VLH users: 'we don't have enough hours to do the job!'

Also some VLH users: 'I do the minimum work I can get away with'

Not sure if that was aimed at me however you are wrong regardless, I do what the job says I need to do no more no less I'm not fussed if we are 1 or 1000 hours understaffed I do the same amount of work. Why would I work myself into the ground for a company who care not a single jot for my well being or the job I do so long as the metrics that are currently in vogue are met.

I dont know if my current job is over hours or not to be honest I do however know they are waiting for me and my mate to leave then the job is no more. They dont want to pay redundancy to get rid they are trying to bore me to death.

How do I know this? They told me and I also have the memo stating my job will not be filled once I am gone.

whatajoke2019

I had a look at the store replenishment thing earlier on today as someone had mentioned it was working again.

Without making myself personally identifiable I had to restrain myself from laughing like a mad person when I saw one department needed 0.7 of a person to work back stock and delivery on one area but another area of the store asked for one person to spend just shy of over two hours to replenish a particular section... which, when I used to work on nights, took three quarters of an hour tops if you really took your time.

I know HO seem Hell Bent on making us a carbon copy of Aldi/Lidl but I just don't get it-I imagine the majority of our estate (excluding Expre5 and Metr0) are just too big to be productive enough to run at 100% with minimum staffing levels without it having customers walk in, see the majority of us sat on a till, shelves empty... only to walk out and see it done right 'first time' at the German discounters.

Lavender girl

#16
Really sorry if this is not considered related to the topic...I'm new here and can't find out how to start a new "thread"?
I want to ask if Saturday 1st January 2022 is considered a BH. I have been told I can't have the day off, as the Monday 3rd Jan is the "proper" BH.
I asked in Tesco Help.  They eventually, after several weeks, told me the information had been sent to my store and to contact my Manager!!

[admin]Welcome. Ref: starting new topic. Please read VLH Supporter Benefits[/admin]

lackofinterest

#17
jan 1st is a public bank holiday. nobody can be made to work it. jan 3rd is a "bank" bank holiday. whoever has told you that you have to work is a bullshitter. its new years day and in my opinion the greedy tw*ts shouldnt even be allowed to open

Lavender girl

Ok thanks.  Anyone else?

forrestgimp

Perhaps lackofinterest can link to somewhere official that can be quoted as saying 'a random from the internet says I dont have to so i'm not coming in' probably wont get lavender girl far.

Lavender girl

Thank you!  As I say, I tried asking the Online Help and they wouldn't reply to me directly!!

lackofinterest

Quote from: forrestgimp on 14-07-21, 09:30PM
Perhaps lackofinterest can link to somewhere official that can be quoted as saying 'a random from the internet says I dont have to so i'm not coming in' probably wont get lavender girl far.
nobody has to work NEW YEARS DAY. last time i looked new years day wasn't 3rd of january!!!!. maybe its in our tesco somewhere but i don't use it!!!

lol its me

#22
Taken from Our Tesco:
"Saturday 25th December will be classed as a bank holiday and we will follow the same working arrangements as we do normally for Christmas Day. (The same will apply for Saturday 1st January – New Years Day)."

Found under:  Working Here-Recently Updated, FAQs, Promotions and Important Articles UK Bank Holidays 2021

Also:
"If you joined on or after 26th January 2009 and there are insufficient volunteers to work on a bank holiday, you may be required to work on up to five bank holidays (excluding Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day) if you are normally scheduled to work on the day the bank holiday falls. Colleagues in Scotland do not have to work on 2nd January if they don't want to."

Your manager is lying to you.

forrestgimp

Quote from: lackofinterest on 14-07-21, 10:40PM
Quote from: forrestgimp on 14-07-21, 09:30PM
Perhaps lackofinterest can link to somewhere official that can be quoted as saying 'a random from the internet says I dont have to so i'm not coming in' probably wont get lavender girl far.
nobody has to work NEW YEARS DAY. last time i looked new years day wasn't 3rd of january!!!!. maybe its in our tesco somewhere but i don't use it!!!

Shouting wont achieve anything, and you are as aware as the rest of us how managers will only accept official proof of anything that goes against things they believe to be true. With that in mind and your absolute conviction of what you wrote I assumed it was more than just words and you had the required proof.

Seems I was wrong. Oh and ar you really expecting people to cite 'Lackofinterest: Verylittlehelps.com' as evidence of what they tell them when saying they wont be working 1st of january.

lackofinterest

tesco bank holiday is saturday 1st january so nobody can be forced to work this day as agreed between usdaw and tosco. nobody needs permission. if tosco want to open then they ASK for volunteers instead of lying to people with threats, if not enough volunteers then don't open. simple as.

SMF spam blocked by CleanTalk