A "Little" Late

My employee who called in sick Monday night was supposed to open with me Tuesday morning, be my right-hand person for some of the important stuff. I was a little concerned about whether she'd be better or not, as she only calls in if she's REALLY sick. Well, she showed up yesterday. A little shaky on her feet and rather pale, but capable of working.

However, the new employee called in. I had to wonder if it was on purpose. She knew the other girl had been very sick, and I made her mad by giving her my "we don't pay you to stand around and do nothing" lecture. She SAID an in-law was in the hospital and she was waiting for someone from a distant state to DRIVE here before she came to work. I was mentally calculating how long it would take before she could come in, and told her not to worry about it. I called a long-term employee who doesn't mind a little overtime to come in instead.

Because the new girl has called in twice in two weeks, the store manager scheduled her fewer hours and less desirable shifts next week as a form of punishment. When she asked why the schedule was done like that, the manager explained that when you call in so much, you obviously don't want to work very much. The new girl then said that she told me she was going to be a "little" late but I told her don't bother coming in. Four (4) hours is hardly a "little" late! Fifteen minutes, thirty, in rare cases maybe an hour. But four hours late? Don't bother coming in!

Why the Staff Turnover is So High

Argos_Employee asked...

How come you manage to employ all the worst type of employees? It seems you must be employing and firing employees everyday!

I didn't realize how much I was talking about our staffing issues. Most of the employees I've been complaining about are newcomers who won't be in the store for long. The thing is, the work is fairly hard, between the physical labor and the knowledge needed to do the job well. The pay is also lower than average for retail jobs in this area of the country. In addition, the unemployment rate in this area is low. To get an employee with both brains and brawn that can live off the pay isn't always the easiest.

The thing that keeps the good employees from finding a job that's easier with higher pay is the way we all get along. There are a lot of friendships among the staff and we even do things outside of work together. We work as a cohesive team. Whether it's stocking a shelf or carrying out a heavy item to a customer's car or painting a co-worker's house or going to the movies or visiting a sick co-worker in the hospital, we actually like each other.

It seems that a lot of people have trouble adjusting to the job and the quantity of work required and the high stress levels of how busy the store is and how demanding the customers are. New employees have a lot to learn about our specialty area. If they make it past the first month, then usually they'll be a good long-term employee.

Right now the turnover rate for employees is high, but that's because of the new employees. Work a day and disappear off the face of the earth. Work a week and quit. Work three weeks and fired for too many tardies/absences in that time period. Work two weeks, and find a job with better pay. I have a pretty good feel for people--after working one shift with a new employee I generally know whether they're going to last or not. Unfortunately, it's so hard to know if someone's good or not in a short job interview. I can weed out plenty of the bad ones, but some still slip through. Calling references is pointless because very few employers will risk saying much about a former employee.

In the last 3 months we've hired the equivalent of 25% of our workforce only to have most of them quit, while a few were fired. (Not all at once, but say we need 100 employees to be fully staffed. Over the last 3 months we've had 25 employees come and go, while 75 employees are happily productive and long-term. At this very moment, we're working with 80 employees, struggling to get everything done.) Our long-term employees stay, and stay, and stay. Not because the company or job is great, but because the work environment is FANTASTIC (with the exception of those darn customers!).

It's Monday.

Today was DEFINITELY a Monday.

When I came into work they had barely begun to unload the latest shipment. What were they doing all morning?!

Later in the day a customer brought in her register receipt and a copy of her latest bank activity on her debit card. On her receipt it showed we'd charged her $39.56 but on her bank statement it showed $395.60. Whoa! Big difference! It had just happened today and she was apparently paying bills online and noticed the discrepancy. At first I thought the computers had had a meltdown and we'd have lots of angry customers. But then I looked at the amount again. Hmmm…..the original amount, with an additional number added to the end. Then I looked at which cashier rang the transaction. Yep, her mistake. I looked in her drawer and found the corresponding receipt that said $395.60. OK, so it's our (the stupid cashier's) mistake, so now how do we fix it? The machines won't let us do a refund on debit cards; we can't refund that much cash, either. But, since it's our mistake, we need to make it right IMMEDIATELY.

Luckily the lady was patient while I made a few phone calls and got authorization to refund the cash. Another lucky break was that her checking account had enough money in it that she wasn't risking being overdrawn by having more money taken out than she had authorized. That cashier needs to go. Attitude sucks, she's slow (as a cashier), makes frequent mistakes, and doesn't do tasks thoroughly. Sure she does them quickly (tasks like stocking and cleaning), but she'd never pass quality control. Haste makes waste. BIG waste, in her case.

I had an employee out sick so we had to do her work plus our own.

Then at the end of the night we had more money than we were supposed to have, so I had to figure out what went wrong. It didn't take too long to find that when the computers crashed earlier in the day, several sales were lost. Fixed that, did all the paperwork again, and finally got to go home.

How NOT to Interview

I interviewed a guy who looked so-so on paper. My first impression of him was also only OK. I started with the "tell me about yourself" question to see what he thought was important about himself, how outgoing he was, how well-spoken he was, etc. He didn't tell me much about himself, although he very vocally told me lots about how the people at his last job "shafted" him and how he was supposed to become a manager but instead they promoted someone else and cut his hours, etc.

I wanted to stop the interview right then and there, but decided to press on with an abbreviated interview. The rest of it went OK. He obviously had a lot of experience in customer service. But when I tried to imagine him fitting in with and getting along with our current employees, it just wasn’t there.

Further, he wanted more hours than I can guarantee and a higher rate of pay than I could justify paying a new employee, considering he had little knowledge of our specialty area. Sure he could learn, but while he was learning he wouldn’t be of much use to us. I'd rather start the newcomers out lower and let them EARN the higher pay.

Anyway, my quest for quality employees continues. I really need someone, but not him.

Advice: don't criticize your last job or boss on a job interview!

Company Meeting

We had a nearly-company-wide meeting. I got to meet all the important people that I'd only ever heard about and see other people that I don't often see. Most of the regional managers were there. It was interesting to see how everyone interacted. They were really scraping the bottom of the barrel for a few of the managers, though.

During the actual meeting part I sat with a friend who's a manager at another store and her friend who's a manager at yet another store. The company VP came over to chat and was quite personable, but directed most of his comments to the guy and ignored me and my female friend. ?!!

At lunchtime I sat with yet another friend and one of her co-workers, both quite fun ladies. Someone THEY knew also sat with us. We were trying to save seats for the other two, but the company President came and asked if she could sit with us…….we couldn't exactly say no, could we? We were all a little nervous, afraid we'd say the wrong thing. One girl didn't care, and started talking about why she didn't like her job. Uh, hello!! The COMPANY PREZ is AT OUR TABLE!!

I learned a good deal, they fed us lots of good food, and it was fairly interesting. Some of the stuff was predictable—how to prevent/handle sexual harassment, signs of drug/alcohol abuse, how to sell more stuff, how to make the displays look better. The regional manager's boss tried to be funny, and failed, MISERABLY. We laughed politely, while rolling our eyes at his corny jokes.

At the end it got REALLY boring. The Q & A part sucked. Things got out of hand, with stupid questions that should not have been addressed company-wide.

• "Ms. Prez, our fire extinguishers need to be charged. Who do I need to contact about that?"
• "Mr. VP, I have an employee with bad breath. How should I handle it?"
• "We haven't had any widgets in three months. Can you tell me what's wrong?"

HELLO! Talk to your store manager and/or regional manager! Don't waste our time with your insignificant issues!

All in all it was a good day, and a nice break from a normal workday. I left feeling invigorated and excited about doing my job even better than before.