Work colleagues

[parsforlife]

If you're a 76 year old woman who's worked on the checkouts for however long she's been there, I think it's unreasonable to expect them to go in the warehouse and start moving heavy things about. I think any manager or superior in that position who misused their staff that wildly would be much more at fault than the system that prompted it, however.
Tesco recently rolled out similar bullshit in the past month, coincidentally also at the same time the wage there went to £9 an hour: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/05/tesco-cut-jobs-latest-redundancies-counter-staff
As much as the "everyone does everything" approach works in theory, there are multiple problems:

• Existing part time staff are often part time for a reason. Whether it's children or other outside commitments, not everyone is able to drop everything to work whenever they're asked to. This also applies to full time staff, and generally in these kinds of arrangements it's going to be harder to accommodate people the way they might have been before.
• This is admittedly irrelevant in the Tesco example, where in Metro stores there's now a maximum of 30 hours a week, 6.5 hour shifts, and no full time staff. 
• That link says 4,500 jobs were to be cut. That means 4,500 people were going to be made redundant, it doesn't mean 4,500 jobs are suddenly going to disappear. The jobs are still there, the hours are now only covered by part time staff. Again, while this might benefit different shops at their busiest hours, you're hiring several thousand part time staff. You're replacing full-time, experienced people with literally anyone who applies for a job.
• In a lot of cases, these part time staff aren't going to be as invested in the job as someone who was there full time and had been for years. Maybe they're only in the job six months, by which point they've learned to do two or three of the several roles on offer they're supposed to be able to do. Then you need to spend time training their replacement, only that falls on whatever experience you've got left in the shop, which probably isn't much since they were either made redundant or chucked it out of frustration at their ridiculous, unsuitable new working arrangements.

Regardless of all of this, whether it's new or existing staff, in a retail setting you need to know what people are suited for. You can't ask a 76 year old woman to go filling the fruit and veg, carrying potatoes and carrots around, any more than you'd start training a bunch of daft shelf-stackers to work at the customer service desk. If people are worried about being put into unsuitable roles then that's something to manage on a person by person basis, but it doesn't affect the fact that the comparative drop in conditions and work/life balance facing them isn't fair. 

Tesco fucked over a lot of staff. I don’t agree with a model that has staff in to work limited hours, loses staff loyalty and generally results in several inexperienced staff looking around at each other wondering what the f**k to do. Tesco are scrambling right now trying to find a stable business model and too many innocent staff are being hit by the debris.

Of course in any management role you‘d be looking at what job your staff are suitable for. Asda would clearly prefer a situation where all staff can do any role but it would be up to every individual manager to use their team effectively. The employee in question can still use h &s regs to cover scenarios they aren’t physically capable of.

On a side note they’re needs to be severe questions over why a 76 year old feels the need to work.

[Zen Archer (Raconteur)]

39 minutes ago, parsforlife said:

 

Well yes, but a teacher tidying the classroom to help the Jannie and the Jannie handing out books to the kids to help the teacher is a perfectly ok distribution of tasks.

I honestly can’t imagine being at work and thinking ‘well I’m not doing anything right now and have another 5 hours to go, guess I’ll twiddle my thumbs, f**k everyone else, not my job’. Surely the thinking should be ‘being payed for the next 5 hours, done my duties, how else can I help my colleagues’

 

I hope to f**k you don't work in a hospital. 

[beefybake]

33 minutes ago, BigFatTabbyDave said:

There's an alarming number of people on low wages whose response to hearing that unionised workers have better conditions is to say, "well, I don't have x, y, and z, so why should those c***s get it?"

The obvious, obvious, obvious and logical thought is, "why aren't you giving me x, y, and z as well?". Even the wealthiest Tories must shake their heads in bewilderment that so many people don't understand that.

They don't.

They just rely on people who are struggling, and without much power, to turn on the nearest available target, or each other.

[Dosser-fae-the-shire]

Anyone on the side of Asda here is an absolute fuckin arsehole. The examples in the news are just lazy journalism. This is having a big impact on a lot of staff and it’s appalling that it’s allowed to happen. I personally know of people who have hours to suit looking after disabled family members and are being threatened with the sack if they don’t agree to sign this new contract.

[BFTD]

22 minutes ago, parsforlife said:

On a side note they’re needs to be severe questions over why a 76 year old feels the need to work.

 

What is the basic state pension these days, just out of curiosity?

I feel the answer may lie therein.

[welshbairn]

2 hours ago, parsforlife said:

There’s probably a decent compromise to be made. If you look at Aldi(which is the direction Asda are moving) as an example employees are relatively quite well payed and have decent opportunity’s to learn and progress, but they are expected to be quite flexible and work in combined roles, the ‘i do checkout, he works warehouse, they stack shelves, he cleans...’ is well dead(rightly) if the checkouts are quite everyone chips in and is re-stocking, if it’s particularly busy then the staff all head to the checkouts. It works well for both staff and business.

Could be wrong, but I think they have to be on call 24/7, which means you can't commit to any social life. No problem with being shifted about from job to job if I'm able, but f**k spending your time off dreading the phone ringing.

[Busta Nut]

f**k Asda.

[highlandcowden]

21 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Could be wrong, but I think they have to be on call 24/7, which means you can't commit to any social life. No problem with being shifted about from job to job if I'm able, but f**k spending your time off dreading the phone ringing.

exactly

theyre c***s

[parsforlife]

I hope to f**k you don't work in a hospital. 

 

Why?

Could be wrong, but I think they have to be on call 24/7, which means you can't commit to any social life. No problem with being shifted about from job to job if I'm able, but f**k spending your time off dreading the phone ringing.

 

Not sure on the details. The ‘need you in Tomorrow at 7 texts that staff get in the evening are an absolute joke’. A boss saying they need you to work next Friday is far less intrusive.

What is the basic state pension these days, just out of curiosity?

I feel the answer may lie therein.

For someone born today 68. For the lady in question 60, 16 years ago.

 

 

Sorry thought you meant age. Current rate is £129 per week. Not too bad if your mortgage is payed up but you’ll be struggling you’ve got to meet rent above your day to day needs. My point wasn’t ‘why is she even working?’ More ‘why hasn’t she been able to put away a sufficient pension/ why is the state not stepping in?’ The article states she’s worked for Asda for 46 years, I’d more question why that isn’t enough than why being asked to work in other departments is not ok.

[highlandcowden]

13 minutes ago, parsforlife said:

 

. A boss saying they need you to work next Friday is far less intrusive.
 

 

it is if you've already made plans

[parsforlife]

it is if you've already made plans

It’s not great, but it’s virtually impossible to get a retail business to give staff much more than 10 days in advance notice . If you have a specific occasion (wedding for example) or an emergency (funeral, severe family emergency) then is would be unreasonable for you to be expected to work. But if you miss Steve’s birthday drinks then tough shit.

[highlandcowden]

44 minutes ago, parsforlife said:

It’s not great, but it’s virtually impossible to get a retail business to give staff much more than 10 days in advance notice . If you have a specific occasion (wedding for example) or an emergency (funeral, severe family emergency) then is would be unreasonable for you to be expected to work. But if you miss Steve’s birthday drinks then tough shit.

for the shitey pay these companies pay we must agree to disagree.

for a massive salary aye you should expect to be chained to your phone and work but not for what these guys are earning

[Jacksgranda]

2 hours ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

If you're a 76 year old woman who's worked on the checkouts for however long she's been there, I think it's unreasonable to expect them to go in the warehouse and start moving heavy things about. I think any manager or superior in that position who misused their staff that wildly would be much more at fault than the system that prompted it, however.

Tesco recently rolled out similar bullshit in the past month, coincidentally also at the same time the wage there went to £9 an hour: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/05/tesco-cut-jobs-latest-redundancies-counter-staff

As much as the "everyone does everything" approach works in theory, there are multiple problems:

• Existing part time staff are often part time for a reason. Whether it's children or other outside commitments, not everyone is able to drop everything to work whenever they're asked to. This also applies to full time staff, and generally in these kinds of arrangements it's going to be harder to accommodate people the way they might have been before.
• This is admittedly irrelevant in the Tesco example, where in Metro stores there's now a maximum of 30 hours a week, 6.5 hour shifts, and no full time staff. 
• That link says 4,500 jobs were to be cut. That means 4,500 people were going to be made redundant, it doesn't mean 4,500 jobs are suddenly going to disappear. The jobs are still there, the hours are now only covered by part time staff. Again, while this might benefit different shops at their busiest hours, you're hiring several thousand part time staff. You're replacing full-time, experienced people with literally anyone who applies for a job.
• In a lot of cases, these part time staff aren't going to be as invested in the job as someone who was there full time and had been for years. Maybe they're only in the job six months, by which point they've learned to do two or three of the several roles on offer they're supposed to be able to do. Then you need to spend time training their replacement, only that falls on whatever experience you've got left in the shop, which probably isn't much since they were either made redundant or chucked it out of frustration at their ridiculous, unsuitable new working arrangements.

Regardless of all of this, whether it's new or existing staff, in a retail setting you need to know what people are suited for. You can't ask a 76 year old woman to go filling the fruit and veg, carrying potatoes and carrots around, any more than you'd start training a bunch of daft shelf-stackers to work at the customer service desk. If people are worried about being put into unsuitable roles then that's something to manage on a person by person basis, but it doesn't affect the fact that the comparative drop in conditions and work/life balance facing them isn't fair. 

How can you do a maximum of 30 hrs on 6.5 hr shifts? 5 x 6 and an unpaid 0.5 hr break?

[UsedToGoToCentralPark]

How can you do a maximum of 30 hrs on 6.5 hr shifts? 5 x 6 and an unpaid 0.5 hr break?

Rest breaks at work

Workers have the right to one uninterrupted 20 minute rest break during their working day, if they work more than 6 hours a day. This could be a tea or lunch break.
The break doesn’t have to be paid - it depends on their employment contract.

[Miguel Sanchez]

14 minutes ago, Jacksgranda said:

How can you do a maximum of 30 hrs on 6.5 hr shifts? 5 x 6 and an unpaid 0.5 hr break?

Yes. 

[54_and_counting]

6 hours ago, Cerberus said:

Anyone work at Asda's?
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50246335

Big Mag'ret fae Royston likes her wee afternoon shift working the tills and she doesn't want it to change.

Yup and a lot of the "stories" about the new contract have been union led because at first the union acted all billy big baws about not letting it happen etc etc, now they look fucking sheepish as people need to sign it or they dont have a job

Your flexibility will still be in your job family, so the 76yo checkout worker wont suddenly be asked to start lobbing crates of beer onto a shelf

The company still take into consideration things like childcare, peoples health etc, its not a case of move or your sacked

They won't alter your shifts on a weekly basis, if you do get your days changed it will be long term change 

What a lot of the moans have came down to, even though you won't hear this part, is people with cushty midweek contracts are now pissed off that they mighy actually have to do some form of weekend work

[parsforlife]

26 minutes ago, highlandcowden said:

for the shitey pay these companies pay we must agree to disagree.

for a massive salary aye you should expect to be chained to your phone and work but not for what these guys are earning

What would you consider reasonable notice for shift change?   Agreed it’s pretty unreasonable to expect low paid workers to just jump at the drop of a hat but we’re never going to likely be in a position where three roles can be filled with staff on regular full time shifts.  
 

I think it’s wrong to think ‘there badly payed why are they deserving of those conditions ’  we should be more wondering why they receive poor pay in the first place.

21 minutes ago, Jacksgranda said:

How can you do a maximum of 30 hrs on 6.5 hr shifts? 5 x 6 and an unpaid 0.5 hr break?

 

11 minutes ago, UsedToGoToCentralPark said:

Rest breaks at work

Workers have the right to one uninterrupted 20 minute rest break during their working day, if they work more than 6 hours a day. This could be a tea or lunch break.
The break doesn’t have to be paid - it depends on their employment contract.

 6*5 hours is a very convient way of avoiding most regulations whilst getting staff on tap. A farcical loop hole.

[alta-pete]

Can we all agree please, the word is ‘paid’?

[Cerberus]

Getting paid £9.18/hr at Asda is terrible. Is that even legal?
The garbage wages enough should be a warning that you're at a 2-bob outfit who don't care about the workers.

[BFTD]

2 minutes ago, Cerberus said:

Getting paid £9.18/hr at Asda is terrible. Is that even legal?
The garbage wages enough should be a warning that you're at a 2-bob outfit who don't care about the workers.

Haw, some of us are still dreaming of £9.18/hr.

Wonder if Asda are hiring.