Hi, I'm 18. Been working at a retail chain for nearly a year now. Team is great but the pay is abysmal (£7.49 an hour). I only work weekends and the occasional Monday and Friday because of college.
When I first joined, we were allowed to have small breaks outside of our one half hour break for 8.45 hour shifts. These small breaks were for eating and chilling for five minutes or so. Half a year ago, my manager said these breaks are removed because the store wasn't doing well enough. Annoying, but fine, our store was doing terribly and surely it can't last that long. These breaks still haven't been brought back, and after asking my manager about it, she said our store still hasn't improved enough, even though we were first, budget wise, in our region this quarter. However, she gets to have about 3 to 5 smoke breaks a shift, all over five minutes.
My manager and the team have a good relationship. Me and her especially. This is one of the only grievances I have about my job, another being my pay, which she has no power to change apparently.
Also, we've been told that we have to give out these qr codes on the receipts. They basically lead to a review site. We're told we have to print out every reciept. My problem with this is that no one wants these receipts and they just end up in the bin. Not only that, we've been doing this and we haven't seen an increase in reviews at all. A few weeks ago, we were told that anyone who does not participate in this will be “terminated”. This was introduced a couple of months ago, alomg with a new system for each employee being “in charge” of sections of the store, such as wastage and making sure certain areas are stocked at all times. But we've recieved no pay raise, no additional benefits, just extra work and responsibilities.
I've loved working here but I'm thinking it might be time to go soon. I don't like the way the store is going and I think I'd rather deal with the same stress but for more pay, like at Sainsbury's or something. What do you guys think?