The Woolworths Thread (8 Viewers)

[babikakez]

then again i was supervisor at 16 and 2IC at 17 and Service Manager at 17/18.

From what you've told me though, your store has so much trouble in attracting and retaining staff that they don't really have many options. Correct me if I'm wrong, but other stores would probably be able to be more choosy regarding the age of their supervisors.

Although, in saying that, our service manager was 2IC at 18 and manager at 19, and we have also had 16 year old supervisors (only one though, and she was about 2 weeks from turning 17)

remember your only 15 and doubt they will give u supervision untill your atleast 16.5-17.

Harry, this is pretty much the case. Seriously, I'm in the same position as you. Although, I'm only spending four hours a week on checkouts as of next week, so I'm not really going to worry too much. I suggest that you take the same approach.

 

[babikakez]

yeah accept it. you get to choose your hours, so choose hours that fit in with your study. even if its like 4 hours a week.

Quoted for truth.

Roga: That sounds like an excellent plan, just make sure that you stick to your guns about your availabilities. Otherwise they will exploit you.

 

[jexca]

Wow I can't believe the huge numbers of staff people mention that are on at any one time in their store, its unbelieveable!
We're a fairly small store, I think we do about $105k on a normal day, and about $130k on a good day.
When I started in September 04, there was an abundance of staff, and there were always PLENTY of people to get the work done. There would usually be 2-3 supervisors on at any one time. Now, we struggle to get everything done in a day. I've recently started doing supervision here and there, and in the past two weeks, our normal night supervisor was on holidays, so I was doing most of her shifts. Most nights, from 6.30pm, i'd have 3-5 staff on with me until close (11pm Mon-Thurs and 12am Fri), which simply wasn't enough, considering tea breaks have to be covered! Most nights, i'd have to leave a note and apologise for the sloppy cleaning job that was done, because in between serving and counting drawers (as well as dealing with numerous discrepencies), there was simply not enough time to get anything done.
Now on Saturdays, we have one supervisor who does open, usually 6.30am-3.30pm, then another who does close, usually either 12-10 or 1-10. I have been coming in for 5 hours on a saturday to cover their lunch/tea breaks.
Our hours are continuously being cut, and our Service Manager and 2ic get in charge every week for going over budget with rosters. However, the minute the store manager comes down to the front end and sees a few trolley's waiting at each register, the supervisor gets in trouble, however, generally, an express alert has been called, and all operators are on their registers.


Haha. I love supervision, don't get me wrong. I just need more staff!


/rant.

 

[pharmaceutical]

hmm just a question that i REALLY need answering, firstly i passed the group assessment and was called to go in the 2nd interview with the store manager yesterday, and she said that they will call me either today (which they havn't yet at all and i've been waiting forever) or tomrrow because some 'induction' is on saturday......... so just give it to me straight out....do u think that they rejected me already or they will call me tomrrow which is very close to the induction time, and when they do call can anyone remember around what time they usually call?

 

[townie]

if your going for a 2nd interview your almost garunteed a job, unless u severley fuck up

and on an unrelated note

rumour has it word has come from up on high to slash wages as profit results werent as good as expected, they're certainly doing it at my store

 

[pharmaceutical]

omg this waiting for them to call me is making me so nervousssssssss,

so does that mean ur hourly rate has decreased?

 

[townie]

omg this waiting for them to call me is making me so nervousssssssss,

so does that mean ur hourly rate has decreased?

no, hourly rate the same, but less people working

 

[Pilotdude]

From what you've told me though, your store has so much trouble in attracting and retaining staff that they don't really have many options. Correct me if I'm wrong, but other stores would probably be able to be more choosy regarding the age of their supervisors.

Yeah, we are shocking, we have one of the worst turnovers in the state! too much money to be made, example: cleaners earn 120k so why the fuck would anyone work at woolies? and get treated like dirt??


Lol i seriously cannot believe this company is complaining they didnt make enough profit! WTF?? $24 billion isnt enough?? 8.6% up on last years sales.

Even end of financial year they cut wages but i expect this year will be worst, so the senior managers get their nice big bonus for doing jack shit.

Jexca, sounds EXACTLY like my store, the wages get cut and cut and cut then there are no staff and the manager complain cause i call them on, as there is only 1 grocery staff member trained because our SRO is too lazy to train anyone else. Then they have the cheek of saying you need to call in more staff, then no one comes in so they are screwed. Unlike coles who just shut when they feel like if they have no staff our company is too stingy to do that, rather have 300 people waiting and one person on checkout


But then again, the wage cutting goes higher than store manager, area manager and regional manager. But they dont understand if we dont call in full timers or part timers we dont have staff. No use having a go at the service manager/SSM for calling them in, if they want people to get served.

The other prob we have is out only competition (if you could call it that) is coles, they do less than half the sales a week we do and their store is the shittest coles around, its really bad: shelves empty, rude cuntfaced staff, out of date stuff (worst than us ) and really outdated compared to our store!

Im doing a LQR manager relief and i had to supervise tonight and there was no fucking staff, 3 people after 6 which is bull shit. Had q's 7 deep at 2 registers, and the express queue was MASSIVE lol and i couldnt help as i was on smokeshop, and duty manager was serving in deli as they were short.

It was quite amusing, then you get stupid people asking if more checkouts are going to be opened, i mean what do they think i'll do pull staff out of my arse lol, tempted to say that to someone one day.


I must say though, LQR is great! real good fun and we have a great team over there! compared to all other depts its been good. Learning heaps, just hate doing floor stacks then 45 mins later having to redo the whole thing cause theres nothing left.


Lol think ive written enough. Last day in LQR tomorrow then a month or so left till i start on the mines

 

[pharmaceutical]

just a quick q, but does everyone still get 1.5 on sunday and 2.5 on public ? or that only applies to people that have been there for a while and not to people who just recently joined woolworths

 

[jas62]

hey all!!!

This thread is funny!! haha I have been working at woolies for 2years and i really enjoy it i just yesturday got supervisor numbers and i will be learning how to supervise over the next couple of weeks. I read that you guys sometimes have q's 7 trollies deep omg that never happens at my store the most we get to is maybe 3 before we call people up or people from expess go down to a big lane we are open from 7-10 except sundays it's 10-5. On a normal day between 10-4 we usely have 4-6 people on and between 4-6pm 7-9 people and they are all lazy juniors on. It's funny at our store as soon as there is one trolly waiting customers come up and say can we come through expess theres to long of a wait down there then they go through expess take like 10minutes to serve then we have 15-20 people waiting behind them grrrrrrrrrrrr they give me the shits!! Then you get the ones who leave there food out in da sun(it's really hot here) and bring it back and get up us because it's off and demand to see the manager. haha i could go on for hours!!!!

 

[chokoholic]

hey guys! If I quit woolworths and I don't give back my discount card, how long do you think it would work? One boy who quit still used his discount card (but that was on the day he quit... anyway).

 

[babikakez]

rumour has it word has come from up on high to slash wages as profit results werent as good as expected, they're certainly doing it at my store

OK, so there are people (on checkouts) in my store atm getting 2.5 hrs a week with FULL AVAILABILITY (these are 17 year olds so its not as though they're costing heaps out of the budget), we have four people (including csm) working from 5pm on weekdays (except thurs nites), if anyone can see if my store could cut wages, can they let me know. I seriously don't see how this is possible.

On penalty rates, everyone, no matter how long you've been with the company, gets paid at 150% on sundays and 250% on public holidays.

May I also ask why the people who do rosters cannot respect availabilities? I have not been available on thursdays for about six weeks, why all of a sudden am I supposedly available this thursday. When I changed my availabilities for school, they specifically said 7.30-close on sat, 9-6 on sun. I do not see thursday on there. How does my csm see thursdays on there? This is why no one turns up for their shifts damnit.

 

[quiksilver102]

Has anyone noticed their store management trying to make just about all casual staff ppt? That reeks of cost-cutting to me.

 

[townie]

Has anyone noticed their store management trying to make just about all casual staff ppt? That reeks of cost-cutting to me.

again, orders from up high

told y'all!

 

[babikakez]

told y'all!

You're comments from earlier in the week were the only thing I thought of when I saw next weeks rosters. I had 5.5 hrs, 2.5 of which I actually can't work. Thanks for the warning, was really appreciated lol.

 

[Peartie]

I thought the minimum engagement for staff was 3 hours - or is that just in NSW?

 

[Pilotdude]

There are loopholes in the EBA (WA's anyway) that allow people at school to work afternoons if their store closes early as everything in WA closes at tea time and is closed on sundays cause this state is so far behind the rest of the country!

How stupid is the new change orders, you have to go into no sale, change orders then type it in, sure its easier but it doesnt have $20 dollar notes in the system so you have to manually add them which makes it pointless!

 

[CieL]

How stupid is the new change orders, you have to go into no sale, change orders then type it in, sure its easier but it doesnt have $20 dollar notes in the system so you have to manually add them which makes it pointless!

Sounds exactly like the current Coles system.

Fancy that, we're developing a new system which becomes a bit more similar to Woolies.

 

[townie]

hey, anybody work at Winston Hills Woolies, if so, whats the store manager like? 'cause our store is getting him

 

[babikakez]

There are loopholes in the EBA (WA's anyway) that allow people at school to work afternoons if their store closes early as everything in WA closes at tea time and is closed on sundays cause this state is so far behind the rest of the country!

How stupid is the new change orders, you have to go into no sale, change orders then type it in, sure its easier but it doesnt have $20 dollar notes in the system so you have to manually add them which makes it pointless!

Yeh, my 2.5 hour shift was wednesday 4-6.30, works on that loophole mentioned. My store closes at 6 on weekdays (except Thurs).

Also, we were never able to order $20 notes in change orders, were you? But otherwise I don't have a problem with the new change order system, except that I didn't know how to use it on Saturday and had to wait ages for a supervisor to help.

I was also wondering, how many stores have express lanes in the "next please" format, (if you know what I mean). Because once our refit is done (scheduled for completion by September), we're losing ours. The only other stores I've been in have actual lanes for express. I don't want new express lanes, it will take all of the fun out of being on express. :mad1: :burn: