as we all said - can't run a business if you screw your workers

[paddymcdougall]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2013/09/25/wal-mart-returning-to-full-time-workers-obamacare-not-such-a-job-killer-after-all/

Wal-Mart Returning To Full-Time Workers-Obamacare Not Such A Job Killer After All?

In fact, Wal-Mart’s unwillingness to pay most of their workers a livable wage, while avoiding enough full-time employees to properly run a retail outlet, has led to the company placing dead last among department and discount stores in the most recent  American Customer Satisfaction Index—a position that should now be all too familiar to the nation’s largest retailer given that Wal-Mart has either held or shared the bottom spot on the index for six years running.

or anyone who has not been following the Wal-Mart saga, sales have been sinking dramatically at the retailer as the company has turned to hiring mostly temporary workers (those who must reapply for a job every 180 days) to staff their stores while cutting full-time employees’ hours down to part-time status in order to avoid providing workers with healthcare benefits.

The result?

Empty shelves, ridiculously long check-out lines, helpless customers wandering through the electronics section and general disorganization at Wal-Mart store locations.

Who would have guessed that a well-staffed store filled with competent and reasonably paid employees might actually have an impact on the success of a company?

It may be a clever enough dodge to cut employees below the 30 hours per week in order to avoid the expectations of Obamacare, but the move comes at a substantial price to be paid in lost revenue and profits. Given that the entire point of business is to show a profit, it is only a matter of time before employers learn what Home Depot learned some years ago and what Wal-Mart is slowly beginning to figure out—you get what you pay for.

Cut back on employees and you will, eventually, cut back on your profits as the savings a business creates by cutting worker hours leads to greatly decreased sales as customer satisfaction disappears.

Yeah... you want sales? you hire good people, pay them fairly, give them health care, don't just cut their hours arbitrarily....

[ekg]

the company has turned to hiring mostly temporary workers (those who must reapply for a job every 180 days) to staff their stores while cutting full-time employees’ hours down to part-time status in order to avoid providing workers with healthcare benefits.

I knew about the 'temp' workers.. I didn't realize that meant they had to re-apply every 180 days..

It's my opinion that the downfall of this country.. what actually took us away from 'remember when...' was Walmart. They killed off the 'one on one' customer service and the 'mom and pop' type stores..They came into towns killing off the 'hometown' stores offering cheap goods,low prices and handing out low wages.Telling the communities they were coming into "The plant may have closed, but we'll bring jobs back to this town" ... and the blue-collar union worker whose job just went overseas had no choice but to take the barely minimum wage job....This 'model' lasted for what? 20 years? But eventually you get what we've got now..the number one employer in the country working people who can't make enough money to feed themselves..

people think that when you're in a job like that you can just quit and go get another one.. HA! What they don't get is that it's a double-edged sword. You don't make enough to support yourself AND you don't make enough to leave and find something else. This job will pay you something on Friday.. unless a better job just falls in your lap on Monday? Well, you have to eat.. so you keep the shitty job.. all the while getting further and further behind because they just don't pay you enough.. You're too poor from working there, but you're also too poor to quit because the shit job you have doesn't pay you enough.

This went on for years and years and years.. killing off the 'mom and pop' places, killing off the idea of 'pride' in your work and your company.. If you want to look at where the downfall of 'the good old days' started, I'd say look to when Wal-mart started gaining in popularity..

good article Paddy... I especially  like how it pointed out that wal-mart hires people to teach their employes how to get food stamps and medicaid.. oh yes, you read that right, to get their employees.. food stamps and medicaid.. so right off the bat they know they aren't giving their people livable wages AND instead of giving them a livable wage, they're making us, the US tax-payer, pay for their employee benefit package.. all the while they are banking billions in profit each year..

That little tid-bit should be in the "A-block" of each and every news story across the country for the next week.. allowing this shit to constantly go on, unnoticed, has got to stop..

[Howey]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2013/09/25/wal-mart-returning-to-full-time-workers-obamacare-not-such-a-job-killer-after-all/


Yeah... you want sales? you hire good people, pay them fairly, give them health care, don't just cut their hours arbitrarily....

I call bullshit. Wal Mart, especially the ones down here, has very few full time employees. The ones they do have, those with tenure, are dropping like flies via layoffs. All the elderly door greeters are gone - fired! - and the little old lady that runs the dressing rooms has like fifteen additional duties, shit managers should be doing like scheduling breaks, answering phone questions, etc. The part timers they have have nasty attitudes and the few full timers left do too because they've been fucked over so much.

Their shelfs are persistently empty. What's with this great deliver system they're supposed to have?

Funny thing is...go to Walton-owned Sam's Club and it's totally different. Huh.

And don't even ask me about our local K-Mart. I'm literally scared to go in there, so I won't.

[paddymcdougall]

Always reminds me of when Circuit City, to save money, fired all the top sales people - because they were being paid so much. THEY WERE BEING PAID SO MUCH BECAUSE THEY MADE SALES!!! what did management miss in that?

Of course, CC died....

Hopefully they hire back the full-timers where you are, Howey! I haven't been to WalMart in years, and rarely went then, so can't say. I do have a cousin (husband's cousin) who works at one, and she certainly has plenty to say about the lack of quality in the people they hire...