Working conditions: a key to retaining staff

I just quit a job after three shifts! The working conditions there were zero and yet I am not very demanding.

It's 2022, not 1922. Some employers still behave as if their staff are things. This is the case with some billionaires. No, I did not work at Amazon because knowing very well what the working conditions are in this company, I will keep myself during my lifetime from setting foot there and even doing business there in order not to feed that monster.

I worked in a supermarket as a grocery clerk. It's a place I've frequented since I got here two months ago. So one day, I thought I understood that the young woman who was interacting with individuals who were installing an island in the store, must have been management. This was the case and knowing that in this sector, they were always looking for personnel, I asked her if it was possible to meet her on this subject. Which was the case the following week. Among the positions offered were those of grocery clerk. It's about putting the different products offered in the store on the shelves and ensuring that everything has a nice presentation. Nothing fancy so far.

On the other hand, what is less so are the working conditions of the place, which I suspect are the working conditions of many equivalent places, either large surfaces between ½ and 1 acre of surface or between 2,000 and 4,000 m². Being in the job market for almost 50 years and having done a lot of jobs of all kinds, I quickly noticed the faults of the place, which I obviously could not have known before entering as an employee, not as a customer: it was day and night in a way.

What is striking when entering the employee side, is the gloomy aspect of the place, depressing as much as possible. Then the apparent shambles. Everything has its place, but which one? The narrowness of the premises prevents sound management of the long-day arrivals between the cardboard compressor, the huge compost bins, the garbage composter and the trucks' entrance. People will tell me that it's the same everywhere and I agree up to a certain point. I also noticed that the space to store the defective items removed from the shelves on the customer side was more than full to bursting, which leads me to believe that no one had time to manage the whole thing.

What amazed me the most was the screen to point one's arrival with the rules of the thing. Your schedule says you start at 10 a.m. You can't clock in at 9:55 a.m. and so when multiple people arrive at 10 a.m., it becomes difficult to all clock in at a screen in 60 seconds. In addition, and for me this is unacceptable, one has to clock in the 15-minute breaks. To do this, you have to go to where the clocking screen is, often tens of meters from where you are working and retire to the equally gloomy basement of the building for the break or outside which is more than 50 meters from the pointing screen. Ultimately, it's no longer a 15-minute break but almost 5 minutes of walking, round trip, to the place to take it and 10 in real time. And back pointing back again. Then there are the one-hour meal breaks, which obviously have to be clocked in again, and so on. Ultimately, for a 9-hour day on site, the employee is only paid 7.5 hours. If someone works 4 days at a rate of 9 hours a day, he will therefore be paid 30 for 36 hours of presence on site at minimum wage, not counting the round trips to and from the workplace, which easily totals 40 hours for 30 paid hours.

The last time I worked in a supermarket, in Vancouver, although it was necessary to clock in and out, the breaks were at the discretion of each worker. The company did not manage its adult staff like daycare children. Everyone knew what one was dealing with and everything was going smoothly, despite the intensity of the work. I would have stayed there longer than the 5 months I was there, but family obligations forced me not only to end it but to leave town. The atmosphere there was okay. I had good relations with my work colleagues and the boss thanked me for the good work I had done during my stay by an email which for me could constitute a form of letter of recommendation :) (Photo)

Of course, we should not expect that in the labor market we will all be treated like employees at google and other companies of this kind, with rest areas with garden and greenhouses, espresso machines, play areas and fountains, etc. However, when you don't want to invest in the work atmosphere of those who spend a good part of their day there, you can expect turnover as well. What's more, when one or more sectors of activity cry out for not having enough staff and employers are determined not to improve the working conditions of employees, they are themselves guilty of the nonsense of these patronizing tears. Good bye.

Ideas for a new supermarket concept

This brief presence in this workplace that I describe as sordid made me think about a different concept of supermarket. Instead of having a massive quantity of items on shelves whose course with shopping cart is aberrant, why wouldn't we have a customer area where there is only one item of each format and each brand. The customer would walk with a scanner in the small aisles and point to the barcode of the desored item. No shopping cart. Just a scan and a walk. Each time the customer would choose an item, either an employee or a robot (or both) would work in the back to put the requested item in a delivery box. At the end, when the customer arrives at the checkouts to pay, either his basket of purchase would follow him or it would be delivered to one's home. Although this is already done remotely, the experience of the supermarket is still valid, but we can reduce the surfaces to be covered and the incessant congestion that the islands of goods now constitute, which are often at high risk of collapsing if one does a misstep, which could injure other customers and cause incredible damage!

§ § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § §