Me and my husband both worked in retail management (big store chains) for years.
When I first started, my manager completely disregarded labor budgets. Every night (afternoon and evenings were our busiest times) there were at least 4 people scheduled (not at a big chain grocery story, but a big chain pharmacy/store). This way, if someone called out, we still had a decent sized staff to get through the night. Every Thursday, which was our truck/delivery day, everyone was scheduled so we could get through it fast and efficiently. For the seven years he was there, the store was organized, clean, fully staffed, and customers didn’t complain beyond the normal annoying customer bullshit.
When he left, the assistant manager replaced him, and this guy. Oh my god. All he wanted to do was kiss corporate ass. He would schedule two people a night and if one called out, he’d rarely call someone to cover the shift. Thursday nights made no difference. We were so backed up that our back room was actually dangerous. Crates and totes were piled up way higher than they should have been. The office was an absolute mess. The store was a disaster. There were times on a Saturday that only one person was in the store to work and when they asked how they were going to take down the sale signs, put up the new sale signs (which hadn’t been cut or sorted yet), ring, and face the store all on their own, they were told “You’ll figure it out.” (they quit on the spot and then when he spoke to me about it I got an entirely different version of the story).
The only reason I stayed as long as I did was to be there for our younger employees, and since they started quitting and he wasn’t hiring anyone to replace them...no reason to stay. Plus, I was pregnant, so fuck that. I wasn’t working sometimes 7 days a week just because he refused to schedule a full staff.
The biggest store he worked in did approximately $2M a week. Obviously a store that did this much weekly revenue needed an appropriate staff to keep the building running well. Yet, every week, my husband, who ignored corporate’s labor budget in order to have the store operational, was yelled at and threatened by district managers and higher-ups. Despite the fact that he proved time and time again that he needed that labor for the store to turn the biggest profits, they were mad. Because he had the audacity to give people hours. Because he knew it was better for customers if there were people there to provide customer service.
Eventually, he left that company to work for another. He had the same problems, of course, but in addition to them, he was expected to work 50+ hours a week. He would be gone every day for at least 10 hours. Our second kid was only a few months old. Our oldest was just getting ready to start school for the first time. When he mentioned to his new boss that he wasn’t seeing his kids as much as he wanted, the fucking asshole literally said “I don’t see mine much either. That’s what we have pictures for.” Needless to say, my husband didn’t work with them very long.
So, yeah, these companies have been doing everything in the power to test these waters for years. The pandemic just gave them a perfect excuse to do it even more while whining about some fake labor shortage and claiming ‘no one actually wants to work’.
