Cross-posted at the Writing on the Wal. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, start here.
Today, I'm completing an analysis of Wal-Mart's "clarifications" of its new computerized scheduling policy. Let's begin with a real "up is down, black is white" point:
- Most of our cashiers love the new scheduling program because it means that there are more registers open when more customers shop our stores, and because their schedules are now more predictable.
How do they know? Seriously, how can a employer like Wal-Mart, which taps store phones and monitors e-mails to see if anybody is talking about unionizing, have any idea what its employees really think? Would you feel safe speaking your mind to an employer like that? Every peon appears happy in a police state. That's kind of the point of creating one, isn't it?
Personally, I think Wal-Mart knows this argument is crap. Remember, this is the same company that claims 88% of its employees think the firm is a good corporate citizen. If that's true, why is their turnover rate at Wal-Mart in the U.S. 50% (which is much higher than even for other retail jobs)? Wal-Mart, like Joe Walsh once sang, is living a life of illusion, and I think the company likes it that way.
- The new scheduling system will create associate schedules that meet two requirements: they will better match customer traffic demands, and their schedules will be more consistent week to week because we can more accurately forecast customer traffic hour by hour, thus giving our associates predictability to help plan their lives away from work.
Sounds good, but it hasn't worked out this way. This is from an article about an early test of the system at a West Virginia store:
Workers who have had regular shifts at the store for years now have to commit to being available for any shift from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., seven days a week. If they can’t make the commitment by the end of this week, they’ll be fired.
Besides, the fundamental problem with the scheduling system isn't regularity, it's the total number of hours employees work. Remember, the computer runs like a reverse auction so the more hours you have open the better the chance is that you'll get anything. As this Wal-Flack explains:
Wal-Mart sometimes runs into a "mismatch" between the times that an employee wants to work and the times when the company needs to staff the store, [Wal-Mart Spokesman Dan] Fogelman said. Wal-Mart associates who offer broader availability are likely to get more hours, he said.
[emphasis added]
What good are predictable hours if you can't make ends meet?
- . . .Additionally, management has seen the amount of time spent on creating schedules by store managers go from 8-15 hours per week down to 15-30 minutes per week.
Now this is really interesting. How long do you think it will be before nearly all management functions are taken over by the computer (or at least all run out of Bentonville)? Is de-skilling managers really a good idea? Do managers get to go home during that 7 and a half hours+ or are they out pushing carts? [If you know Wal-Mart I think you know the answer to that.]
Replacing one big crappy task with a lot of other crappy little tasks doesn't make a manager's job any easier. It just makes it easier for Wal-Mart to fire the manager. Well at least this way everyone at Wal-Mart can share in the misery.
JR