8 replies
actually posted this onto another thread but I think it would be better read as a new thread altogether:
I thought about submitting this to our store manager, but knowing how they work they would pop it in the shredder or the garbage and it's really pointless. So if there are any assistants or co's or managers reading this maybe if you care maybe these things are happening or can happen in your store too.
Working as a 3rd Shift ICT, IM whatever they call it this week.. let me tell you a little about what I see nightly:
1. Mis-communication from Management. Someone here stated that poor communication hurts the store.. I can't agree more! We've been on the Inventory Program now for nearing 2 years and it's still as bad as the first week we went on it. Our problem started with ill communication with all the employees of walmart - not everyone knew they couldn't just take and add freight to the bins without using the handheld gemini's.. So bin accuracy was and always will be a problem for this. Problem #2 is we have a lot of assistant and co-managers with their own agendas.. many of whom have nothing to do (nor help) with the inventory program as we know it. Now that we have a backroom ZMS I feel bad for him, because the very program he's trying to enforce and rules to make things run smooth are constantly broken and ignored for the ego's of upper management. Unfortunately our ZMS is also known for blaming the ICT team for this, which we have little to no control over. If an assistant, co , or manager tell you to do something you do it, arguing will get you nowhere fast. There needs to be consistency of the rules with all management, passed down to all employees.
Problem #3 which is a little bit resolved where the Dept. Managers wanting their bins to be a certain look - i.e. these boxes of x together these boxes of y together.. ok but when you have 3600 pieces of gm freight come in and a ton comes to the back you don't have time to play "what they want" with the bins because there are other areas to work before time runs out.. and we all know the overnight managers *EXPECT* everything 100% binned by morning. Before the Co-managers came to overnights we used to stay an hour to 2 hours overtime every morning trying to make 100% happen, so we really can't afford to play perfection with each and every departments bins. Thankfully department managers where booted out of their bins and can't do anything with them anymore without an ICT associate.
More problems we run into all the time:
Gemini's and Printers. Be like our store and make a sign out log for all gemini's printers and handheld radios. ENFORCE IT! Make every associate who has been hiding printers and gemini's out on the floor and in bins and in their lockers or maybe even taking them home with them who knows what they do - give it up and sign it out like everyone else. This will ensure that all people day and night have access to the tools they need to do their jobs.
No pallets to the floor - fine. But keep in mind that two truck nights or large HVDC trucks cause the backroom to get to the point where we are not able to get to all the bins, the freight, and can't clean anything until it gets closer to morning. And people having to walk to the back, down stack, climb whatever they have to do to get their freight and work it out on the floor means that maybe those estimated times on task managers maybe aren't as ideal as they used to be. Likewise the overstock coming back is also not brought back as soon as it needs to be to be binned by the end of the shift.
PLEASE!! make day and evening people clean up the backrooms it is not just the responsibility of your third shift IM team! How many times have we come in at 10pm to find pallets shoved everywhere, under the steel, wads of shrink wrap thrown anywhere but where it needs to go, a plastic bale needing to be made that was ignored, likewise a bale needs to be made that wasn't, endcaps destroyed and the merchandise tossed however into breakpacks and carts and left in the back, carts full of zoned re-stock merchandise they didn't want to deal with left in the backroom, soda cans, bottles, just trash everywhere! We can all work together on all shifts to keep a clean store whether it be backroom or on the floor, or even outside for that matter. At our store it appears as if third shift team is responsible for cleaning the backroom, from maintenance to stockers to IM team and no one else has to do it. EVEN ASST. MANAGERS! I've seen them bring a cart full of trash, empty boxes and whatever else and leave it too. How can we expect associates to keep it clean and respectful when their own managers don't even set an example? We have often said that we don't leave it a mess for anyone else, but they sure leave it a mess for us. And it's not entirely a lie. There are days maybe not everything looks perfect in the back in the morning but rest assured it was better than what we came in to.
START holding accountability for people who aren't getting with the program.
START doing something about people who are on their 13th call off with D days and they haven't even worked for walmart 6 months! If people don't want to show any aspiration to show up for work maybe they should step aside. With this economy there has to be someone needing to feed a family out there looking for a job that they will come to work!
Yes morale is low.. How can it not? Most of the employees don't make very much, especially when expected to do the work of 2-4 people and all we hear from management is complaints and threats of write ups with little to no appreciation for our efforts. After a while of this most employees who maybe loved working for walmart begin to not even want to care anymore, just show up to do enough to get by and collect a paycheck. We can agree that some associates just don't do much, not much effort at all.. Fact is they are still working there some of them for years and every year we get the very same raises they do and some of us do at least twice the amount of work. So what does that teach us? Maybe we don't need to work so hard because laziness and non caring bad attitude associates who do barely enough to be called a "worker" with their 27th call off in 2 years get rewarded the same as someone who comes in everyday, even when sick, puts forth the effort to do their job and often more, and takes everything dished out.. where's the morale going, in the toilet.
Some of us haven't given up.. we need our jobs and are willing to adapt to the changes, willing to work with management and coworkers to get things accomplished, so that we don't dread coming in everyday. This list (which is actually sort of short) are things that people can do in every store to make things better for the associates, managers, and will pass on to the reason we are here.. the customer.
thanks for reading.
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1
Guest |
Apr 16, 2010
As a Support Manager that took the position a few months ago,..I couldn't help but sit here and think of one thing,..It isn't just MY store. Management likes to state that this works in other stores, In truth, I have found on one hand maybe 5 people to say it does.
5 out of hundreds of stores,..apparently there is something amiss with this program, and if the program is not bad enough, it is the mess I walk into nightly in the backroom.
I well understand your frustrations, because many of us share them. I applaud your letter, and the time you took into writing it. Just remember this, your NOT alone.
5 out of hundreds of stores,..apparently there is something amiss with this program, and if the program is not bad enough, it is the mess I walk into nightly in the backroom.
I well understand your frustrations, because many of us share them. I applaud your letter, and the time you took into writing it. Just remember this, your NOT alone.
2
Guest |
Apr 17, 2010
You are not alone I am in Michigan-and it sucks here too-I loved working for my store-it is so hard to smile everyday.
The IMS program has a lot of bugs-and what are the ZMS actually doing-nothing at my store.
The IMS program has a lot of bugs-and what are the ZMS actually doing-nothing at my store.
3
Guest |
Apr 17, 2010
To #1: this is what I am finding with these type of sites, although this site is a more civilized site than the others lol. But yes from one coast to the other the frustrations are pretty much the same. And we hear too that the program works in other stores, that we were one of the last in the district to adapt to it so that's why it's not working, and the famous line we've heard from management for over a year now "It'll get better".
From the last two nights at my job I can see things getting even worse. We have now split our bins in two, so that instead of 3 sections we now have six. However.. after two days of working with it, I was finally informed by an assistant manager that we are not to use the second bins yet.. even though people have already binned things into them including our team! I do not understand why they had to set it up if they weren't going to use it yet, and why WHY WHY didn't they get everyone on the same page that we were not going to use it yet! I came in after two days off to find this like this and started my nights off doing department picks from the new bins.
Partial case stocking. For over a year and a half management has allowed partial case stocking to go on and our WACO boxes were completely out of hand in both pharmacy and foods. I was recently told a few months ago from our ZMS that partial case stocking should have NEVER gone on and our co managers were redirected to get everyone to stop. Well apparently only on nights, because they have us put bin exceptions for foods on a rocket cart but when they run them on days they partial case stock them! We will come in to a bin exception cart each night with 5-20 boxes of eaches and worse we have gotten griped at by management for partial case stocking on nights towards the stockers and our own ICT team for not reporting (taddling) it! Once again no consistency with policies between shifts.
Sometimes I think this system is set up for failure. A little far-fetched I know but wouldn't it be easy if management needed to "clean house" and fire a few employees if needed for not adhering to the rules that they constantly change every week if not every day? More realistically it comes back to managements failures to communicate and enforce the RIGHT set of rules for making the program work.
I'd like to hear more from other stores 3rd shift ICT's and see what they are up against or better yet how they deal with these sort of problems. It is getting so frustrating that all 3 of us in our division 1 store have talked about quitting, because the problems are out of control. The overstock gets more and more, the rules get more and more, expectations get more and more, and our hands get tied more and more. We all just want to be able to come in and do our jobs, feel a sense of satisfaction. Instead we dread coming in, we stress and struggle all night, and usually leave angry and about ready to choke someone most mornings.
From the last two nights at my job I can see things getting even worse. We have now split our bins in two, so that instead of 3 sections we now have six. However.. after two days of working with it, I was finally informed by an assistant manager that we are not to use the second bins yet.. even though people have already binned things into them including our team! I do not understand why they had to set it up if they weren't going to use it yet, and why WHY WHY didn't they get everyone on the same page that we were not going to use it yet! I came in after two days off to find this like this and started my nights off doing department picks from the new bins.
Partial case stocking. For over a year and a half management has allowed partial case stocking to go on and our WACO boxes were completely out of hand in both pharmacy and foods. I was recently told a few months ago from our ZMS that partial case stocking should have NEVER gone on and our co managers were redirected to get everyone to stop. Well apparently only on nights, because they have us put bin exceptions for foods on a rocket cart but when they run them on days they partial case stock them! We will come in to a bin exception cart each night with 5-20 boxes of eaches and worse we have gotten griped at by management for partial case stocking on nights towards the stockers and our own ICT team for not reporting (taddling) it! Once again no consistency with policies between shifts.
Sometimes I think this system is set up for failure. A little far-fetched I know but wouldn't it be easy if management needed to "clean house" and fire a few employees if needed for not adhering to the rules that they constantly change every week if not every day? More realistically it comes back to managements failures to communicate and enforce the RIGHT set of rules for making the program work.
I'd like to hear more from other stores 3rd shift ICT's and see what they are up against or better yet how they deal with these sort of problems. It is getting so frustrating that all 3 of us in our division 1 store have talked about quitting, because the problems are out of control. The overstock gets more and more, the rules get more and more, expectations get more and more, and our hands get tied more and more. We all just want to be able to come in and do our jobs, feel a sense of satisfaction. Instead we dread coming in, we stress and struggle all night, and usually leave angry and about ready to choke someone most mornings.
4
Guest |
Apr 17, 2010
To #2:
I suggested to one of our 4 co-managers that we have an ICT meeting with all shifts, the backroom ZMS and management. We had that meeting 3 weeks later. Well that turned out to be a joke because the ZMS didn't even want to do it, pretty much gave us a list of things he expects us to do, and start doing, then adjourned the meeting without asking or listening to any of our concerns. One co manager joined the meeting for 10 minutes and left, no other management came at all. So much for communication.
I suggested to one of our 4 co-managers that we have an ICT meeting with all shifts, the backroom ZMS and management. We had that meeting 3 weeks later. Well that turned out to be a joke because the ZMS didn't even want to do it, pretty much gave us a list of things he expects us to do, and start doing, then adjourned the meeting without asking or listening to any of our concerns. One co manager joined the meeting for 10 minutes and left, no other management came at all. So much for communication.
5
Guest |
Apr 17, 2010
also please managers or whoever runs the bin exception carts.. PLEASE fix on hands, shelf caps, whatever is wrong with that is causing the bin exceptions. All that's getting done is the freight is being re-worked, as if they're just trying to "get" the o/n stocker that maybe didn't do it right. Not always the case. So the next night a worked bin exception cart awaits with a note to be binned (since no one else can bin it I suppose) and when doing so forces the bin exception, then the next night it will be picked, and the cycle goes on and on and on.. It's easy to say why don't we fix it? Simply stated, we can, but we don't always have the time to investigate all these problems. I realize days doesn't always either, but somewhere in the middle we can find some kind of solution.
6
Guest |
Jul 27, 2010
I love how Wal-Mart always Says "Our people make the diffrence". If they really meant that they would pay us better and treat us better. How can they expect me to be happy about my job and smile for the customers if they treat me like crud and frown on me! overnight ICS member in ri
7
Guest |
Jul 30, 2010
To #6: To all off you guys, I'm in a store that we are pallet free and everything is bined. the program is working, management do work, not just walk around. we are short as it isand when we leave unwork fraight 1 st shift takes the ball and keep it rolling. won't tell you theres stress full times we the system is working in my store.
8
Guest |
Aug 1, 2010
To #7: What are some of the things you guys are doing to eliminate overstock in the bins? one of the problems we are running into is on the weekends when the dept. managers don't come in we end up having like 2 or 3 pallets of nothing but triage, so when the co managers come in on monday theres 3 pallets of mixed depts
