A post about staff, and sometimes, Area Managers moving around. One of the girls called herself a The Company whore, as she'd worked at almost every store in the metropolitan region. I'll also reintroduce a returning AM.
Things at The Company can be far from consistent. Especially during Christmas and holidays, when things get busier and staff are forced to leave, as casuals are not allowed leave in December-January. Fair enough, as that's when it's busiest, and other full time staff are able to take leave (though not store managers, I believe) then as well. Last year, we lost a good batch of experienced staff, as they went on overseas trips over the holiday period and had to quit. Others also graduated from university and are working in their respective industries. Of those that went overseas, they have since found other work at such reputable fashion labels as
Hugo Boss,
Esprit and
Country Road. We are indeed expendable. So it can become quite hectic and short staffed, to say the least. We also usually train new staff before the busy sales period, which generally starts around November. So the busy stores, combined with short staffing, new and inexperienced staff and lots of stress will start in the next few months.
All the above, and then with staff's vastly different and always changing availability, we are then required to move around and work at different stores. That's usually fine. I've now cut down my rostered hours to a maximum 15/week and that's enough for me. The way I see it, it also frees me up to cover shifts where necessary. But only working at Innaloo for a few days a week, I must say, as I'm not there to follow things up, it can lead to a lack of accountability. Some staff are
split between two, sometimes even three stores within a week. Often only working a few hours at one store and then a few hours here and there at another.
Despite our best efforts, it can be hard to stifle our lack of care. Because really, even though there is a list of things to get done for the next few days or whatever, 'non-regular' staff will not be there again to follow it up, so realistically, they don't care that much. I generally do care about how all our stores are run, and will endeavour to fix things up and get things in order if there is no manager or there are new staff, etc, but there is only so much one can do in a 7 hour shift. Alone. If I were to one day become a manager, I'm sure I'd be obligated (for the sake of my own sanity at least!) to put in overtime (most likely unpaid) to fix things up and get everything in order and to my liking! Our stores are set up pretty much the same, but there are always the little things that always stump you. Like where the sticky tape or pricing gun is at any particular store. I must admit that when I am frustrated at someting at a particular store, I won't always bother to change it because really, "who cares, I don't work here anyway!" or "who cares, I'm not going to be back here for a while anyway!" So-and-so can fix it up to however they like it displayed, etc.
On another note, our current Area Manager, Lauren, will be leaving our region to preside over the city stores region. It's much smaller, with only a few stores to manage, so should be easier for her, seeing as she's new and all. We're talking what, 2 months new? At least she seems nice enough and eager and enthusiastic. Though some staff think her incompetent, I'm keen to give her a go, and with time, think she'll get it right. Eventually. But at the moment, she seems to have given up on our region, and isn't exactly going out of her way to help us out or fulfil her AM duties. When she joined, two retail stores had since
closed, and the stores were shuffled around to accommodate our new AM, Lauren. We had previously been under the superior leadership of Gemma, who's been with The Company for some 7+ years or so...
I had been working exclusively at my previous store (before moving to Innaloo) for some 8 months or so as I had
major issues with our AM, Charlene, so they probably figured it'd be easier to move me to a different region with Gemma.
Charlene, Charlene.
Charlene started at The Company about 4 years ago, and quickly rose to Store Manager and then Area Manager positions. Apparently, one particular gentleman in Head Office was quite fond of her. This is something I heard in store, so may or may not be true. I'd say the source is pretty credible though. For some reason, she then left The Company for some 2 years and joined the team at a young women's fashion and accessories chain store, before rejoining us recently. As an AM, she was moved around a bit, and before coming to take over from Natalie (our AM who had diligently started as a casual during uni, then moving up to AM in her 6-odd years of loyal service to The Company). Charlene was previously based in New Zealand to manage the few stores just recently opened there.
The regions had been shuffled before, but I had personally never been under the managership of anyone but Natalie. Natalie was tough, but respected. She put in a lot of work for The Company and was pretty much always available to help when on call. She hired me, and had faith in me. Natalie left mid-last year, as she had been offered a better position somewhere else, where she would have a lot more responsibility with range development and she now has ample opportunity to travel overseas. And she now drives a huge Toyota Kluger, which beats the Hyundai Elantra hands down.
The arrival of Charlene was met with some apprehension, as The Company was in a bit of turmoil having just demoted several other long-serving AMs as well as various head office staff. These staff then moved into stores, so also ended up taking up some of our shifts and hours as well. Not many staff knew much of Charlene to begin with, as she was based in NZ, but we hoped she would be as good as Natalie was, being experienced in The Company policies and how things were done. Well, we should have all just changed our availability then, so as to avoid dealing with her wherever possible.
Perhaps time has been an amnesiac, but I can't remember any positive things ever having happened as a result of her coming to manage our region. Sure, it was a hectic time over Christmas with the majorly stuffed up stock levels and sales, which were out of our control, but her being heartless, demanding and completely lacking in compassion and understanding didn't help much either. With so many boxes of stock arriving and needing to be unpacked, and many new styles to fit in when there was no more space, no generous increase in staff hours (yes, we're still expected to do all of this and serve the 20-odd customers as well), as well as then having to pack up and consolidate to clearance stores the same stock just received days ago, our stores were not looking their best. Needless to say, the staff were also extremely stressed. Many casuals, as students also had exams and assignments, store managers were expected to train several staff at a time while getting little increase in staff hours, so they had to train the newbies and serve customers and deal with all the stock issues, as well as complete all the store tasks and endless paperwork, pretty much alone and without any support.
Charlene would come in every week or so to do store reports and was openly critical of the state of our stores and the staff for not being able to get everything done 110%. I had never seen staff morale so low as it was under Charlene. She criticised staff in front of customers, gave many of us "formal interviews" (like a formal warning, three strikes and you're out) for issues that were out of our control while offering little support as to how to deal with our stock and staffing problems. Being stingy with hours leads to disgruntled staff. Further cutting back hours during busy sales periods, that is, sending staff home when the staff remaining are obviously swamped and will continue to be so for the rest of the shift, also does not make for happy staff. I felt bad leaving Jane during a busy weekend pre-Christmas rush, but I am also not staying back at work when I am not going to get paid.
Charlene had appointed Stephanie, the manager at Nevertire to call up her region's stores and check to see if we were on track to making the day's budget. If we weren't, then staff hours would be cut. It didn't matter that we had 30-40 boxes of stock on the floor, or that the stores were still extremely busy with customers, if you weren't 2/3 of the way there or whatever measure it was that they were using, someone was going home. As casuals, that was usually us. So we weren't getting regular hours either. Paging Charlene for authorisation to be paid (AMs must authorise the pay for any extra hours, that is non-rostered, worked) for extra staff to come in to help with stock or customers, was out of the question.
Inevitably, the stock situation- receiving, transferring in, unpacking and displaying stock, and then having to remove, untag and pack up and transfer stock out again within a matter of days or weeks; got so bad that many stores had to schedule "stock unpacking nights" and staff were invited to bring in their friends and family to help out. Seriously. They would be paid the requisite award wages. There has been some reluctance at The Company to pay for hours outside store open hours, as there is no direct opportunity to make money. So if staff requested to stay back for half an hour to tidy after close or to cash up, there was little chance of it getting approved and the staff getting paid. Another one of the reasons why we're not paid to cash up and which I have raised in my most recent acerbic Staff Feedback submitted. So to have to organise stock unpacking nights, where staff would stay behind to pack and unpack stock was not only unprecedented but also a blinding sign that something was obviously very wrong.
Well, the constant unreasonable demands and pressure Charlene put on staff, as well as her condescending and arrogant attitude eventually got to many staff. Stephanie, like Jane had been training several new staff and had difficulty coping with the pressure and Jane quit early January, Stephanie shortly after, and joined us at our store in her last month. James, co-manager at my store with Andie, took over the manager position at Nevertire, and soon found it too difficult to manage. He was put under a lot of pressure by Charlene to pick up the store's performance and appearance, and not coping, rather than offerings of help and advice, received several formal interviews for petty issues so that he was eventually demoted to a casual position. James was demoted even though there was no other manager available to take over. So several 'lucky' staff, who were back to full time study, were suddenly working 30-hour weeks. The constant changing and lack of managers and constant, experienced staff had led to a disorganised store and demoting James was not helpful at all but to serve their own egos.
I'd also had my fair share of run-ins with Charlene. As an experienced casual, The Company could rely on me to work at several different stores and still work hard and get things done. Sure, I'll get things done, but I want to be paid for it. And therein lay the issue of the conflict between myself and Charlene. She wouldn't pay me. I had to drive for over an hour to pick up a store key, and she wouldn't authorise my pay. I was livid. I had late customers and had to cash up, and she wouldn't pay me for the extra half hour or so. We needed extra staff hours and she never allowed it. I was working extra hours for whatever reason, and she refused to pay me. I calculated that at the end of it all, when I refused to deal with her any longer, she owed me at least $250 in unpaid wages. And that wasn't even including overtime.
I felt that Charlene didn't care about us and was arrogant and self-serving. She was a miser with hours, keeping well under the budgeted hours even though we were allowed extra unrostered hours, as she wanted to keep staffing costs down so as to maximise profits and protect her own bonuses for performance. There were countless shifts and hours when we were unknowingly scammed out of our overtime pay, and paid our regular award wages. I personally don't have any good things to say about her, which as those who work with me will know, won't stop me from saying nothing at all! Surely in the 7 or so months that she was our AM, she must've known that we all hated her. And we always wondered what it'd be like to have so many people hate you and then not even care. It's hard to find enough superlatives to describe our feelings towards her. Hate is strong, but perhaps not strong enough for some staff. She was passionately abhorred, loathed, despised and detested region-wide.
Things haven't exactly resumed normality, and The Company is changing for the cheaper, so I am quite interested in seeing how Charlene is welcomed back to our region. Admittedly, many of the remaining staff are so new that they have not met her (such is our staff turnover), but have
heard about her! I know I for one will now be confident enough not to take any of her crap and will ensure that none of the other newer staff are pushed around by her either. I am currently in the process of
stirring the pot some more (see the link and following post "Update" as well) and am campaigning for fair pay for our work. I should be very interested to see if they have taken any of our feedback on board and reassessed her performance and to see if she has changed at all.
She'll be rejoining us shortly, coming back from having been moved to the Northern New South Wales-Queensland region. I'll be sure to keep posting updates as they occur!
