axonxorz t1_j9gfvy6 wrote on February 21, 2023 at 7:37 PM

Reply to comment by Xanthelei in Firms stick to four-day week after trial ends by blitz9999

> Far too much of it is impossible to track or standardize time frames for, such as aiding customers in finding things or cashiering.

For the very little guy sure, but bet your ass that Walmart and others absolutely do this. How many retailers are left that are not under an umbrella of a megacorp?

Case in point: Target. They have(had?) specific second-scale timing for cashiers. 8 seconds to scan an item, with additonal time "granted" for larger items. Then more time-accounting for the customer payment phase (Hope granny had her change ready, or you're getting a flag). And in response, you have forum post after forum post of employees trying to figure out the best way to game the system so they don't get flagged for a slow customer ('cause it's the cashier's fault) like starting card payment and cancelling before choosing another, or voiding an item to scan it again to buy another 8-second window.

Xanthelei t1_j9ghh65 wrote on February 21, 2023 at 7:51 PM

I can't speak to Target, but the only thing that was tracked when I was a cashier at Walmart was how many credit cards I got people to sign up for each day. As a floor associate, I wasn't tracked on tasks in a way that could be paid piecemeal, because all the tasks on even our daily to-do list were so wildly different in scope. Finishing putting out new stock is a very different thing from logging the Apple inventory serial numbers and both are very different from resetting the movies and games sections every week for new releases.

What you describe for Target explains why I stopped shopping there even before the prices got too high. Getting rushed through check out is a shit level customer experience, the tracking program was absolutely some number focused idiot's idea. Anyone who worked in and cared about customer service would have seen the downfall of it immediately.

axonxorz t1_j9gl4zl wrote on February 21, 2023 at 8:18 PM

> Anyone who worked in and cared about customer service would have seen the downfall of it immediately.

Therein lies the problem. In my experience, purveyors of these metrics programs are massively removed from the actual work and have such a weird abstract notion of it that they can't put themselves in both their employee's and customer's shoes to see that everyone hates this but you.

You talk about different tasks having wildly different scope. At the C-Suite level, every task your org performs is a cog or a widget or an itemized process, and the inability to discard that mindset leads to this BS.

Xanthelei t1_j9gllfc wrote on February 21, 2023 at 8:22 PM

It's one of those things where if I was allowed to pass one law that had to be followed for the rest of eternity, it would be that anyone who is going to be making a decision that impacts a job HAS to have worked that job for at least one month solid, at standard wage, in the 6 months prior to the point they're making that decision. Or maybe I'd just force it to where if employees doing the job affected get a 60-70% majority that say it's stupid and shouldn't be implemented its vetoed forever. The first one makes me smile at the thought of a CEO having to cycle through peon level jobs for a full month, but the second one is way simpler.

eightNote t1_j9hw8s7 wrote on February 22, 2023 at 2:14 AM

That's kinda crazy when I think about how not busy the target is near me.