Sounds like an excuse to me...
Apparently our store used up too much payroll early in the year and now are cutting hours to repay that overspending by reducing staff hours, especially part timers now getting a 3 hour shift for the entire week..
14 replies (most recent on top)
Not and excuse at all. Payroll is tied to sales. If sales decline then they cut your payroll. This is a week by week thing so you may be scheduled for 20 hours but if the sales for the week before don't come in on projection your manager gets a call from the DM who tells them how much they need to cut. Then your schedule changes. Our manager usually asks for volunteers first in case someone wants a day off.
If they are scheduling part-timers only 3 hours a week it is Sears way of telling those employees to leave.
If this is the case I would encourage all who can in their respective states to file for underemployment benefits. Not because you "want the handout", more to get Sears to release you properly from employment and give you a reason. Which they will have to give unemployment a reason if you file for underemployment benefits.
@1wda You are totally correct about having to do work that multiple different associates would have done in the past. It seems like the goal of store support was to have everyone do everything with no "division". If that was the goal then the masterminds behind store support have succeeded. I'm commissioned sales, just like @1unc, and I am always asked to cover in some other part of the store: the CAC, softlines, store support. Last I checked, none of those departments were in my job description. From what I remember from the storewide meeting at the beginning of the year, we were told that store support was only supposed to apply to softlines and the backroom, but like @1unc says, everyone is affected by it.
When I started here 11 years ago, we had dedicated people in their departments doing their own tasks. We never crossed over to other departments in the store because there was almost always ample staffing levels and most associates were getting at least 20 hours a week. We never had customers walk out because they couldn't get help. We never had chaos like we do now. The store was always clean for the next day of business and all of the merchandise coming off the trucks was processed and ready to go the next day, where now it takes a full week or two until it's all done.
Half our store is leaving in the next three weeks. The mgr does not know. They are just tired of more work with the same, low pay. Loss of benefits, low hours and doing the job that three people used to do now one does. Other retailers pay more with more hours and less stress so I don;t know how they are going to replace them. There are lots of businesses with a mile or so of our store who pay more.
Word is out in our town.... Do Not Work for Sears or Kmart
I have to agree the one that got it worse more than anymore was SST condensing shoes, hardlines and backroom biggest mistake ever. Its just horrible the whole move and change honestly its like the people on commission get the hours, but the end of the tail gets the scraps. People are leaving left and right they are just fed up with the mess and the extra work. Hell today I heard from a co worker that her kid was at another store and that apparently they have no softlines MCAs that it seems like supervisors and mangers actually cover the floor its just sad.
nobody wants to work store support because not only are their hours still low -- even after they were promised higher hours after the transition to sst -- they are expected to do more work for the same pay they were getting when they just handled back room -- which wasn't all that high to begin with ---
so just about all of the original back room people have left after the transition to sst -- and the new people coming in to replace the former back room employees realize in short order how much hokey it is that they are working their tails off for minimum wage -- when they realize they could go down the street to do the same job at target or walmart for a couple dollars more an hour -- so they quit and go work somewhere else ---
The end result -- nobody is working in the back room -- softlines does shoes again -- just like nature intended lol -- the tools/L&G adset and any tools resets are the responsibility of HI associates -- and those of us selling in HA on commission get to pick up whatever pieces are left --- like thr pathetic b.s. such as having to put together grills on the sales floor --- store support was never was a winning proposition for store employees -- and its effects are definitely being felt ---
@iill I see your point for salespeople but when it comes to cutting hours the vast majority of cuts come from the hourly associates and not the salespeople. Our DM for Sears told us It's much easier to cut hourly associates than salespeople. That's why hourly associates bear the brunt of the cuts in hours and why he directed me to cut the hours for Sales Support to the absolute minimum. As a result nothing is getting done in the store because no one is here for Store Support. What a clown.
You have to keep your payroll under 14% of sales. If your sales lower, they no longer support the hours you were given. Why pay people to stand around if the sales aren't there? Simple math.
I remember having to do the schedules. Always scheduled precisely what was allocated in WFM, not a minute more. Always scheduled 100% to SAR. But, without fail, every week the store manager would get a call and hours would be cut lower than what was allocated in WFM.
Needless to say nothing ever got done. I was real tired of the constant b--ching from the DM when she found out that the assigned tasks weren't getting done due to not having sufficient hours to do them. There was absolutely no time left after everyone spent it ringing at the CAC, doing adset and putting out freight.
On a conference call we were all shamed by the DM for incomplete pogs and typicals and one of the leads on the call, from another store in the district, said that maybe the reason why those tasks weren't finished might have something to do with not having the hours to finish it. The DM started ranting and went on full meltdown, and shamed that lead for "making excuses" and that she'd start finding people to "get it done". I knew right then that it was time to get out.
It is normal it has happened where the ASMs or Supervisors will all of sudden have to cut expenses/hours because the DM tells them they have to. At the current moment we havent had nasty cuts but like 2 or 3 months I remember cuts were so bad (I am a veteran) and I was getting like 11 to 13 hours for almost a month. All of sudden they went a little up, but not so much. I hear its based on overall performance of the store how hours are allocated.
Apparently sometimes they go over hours and they need to cut back to recover I was overhearing in the softlines/cashier side they need to cut hours the next weeks since they went over.
This is only the beginning of the cuts. Most of us are down to just 4-6 hours a week
Have u been living under a rock or something!!!!sh-- happens all the time in our store!!!
Yes....In our store, Store manager gets call or email from DM telling him to cut payroll....so he calls leads and/or ASM's into his office to go over the schedules and snip hours off.
Very common in Sears stores. The company has done it to our store and others in our district numerous times. I am a Lead who does schedules. If they are scheduling part timers only 3 hours a week it is Sears way of telling those employees to leave. Trust me. I know. It is an unwritten policy of Sears that I have been directed to follow and do, no questions asked.