This new scheduling system is absolutely crazy! All of February busted up off days. Week 1 off Monday and Friday. Week 2 work Saturday through Thursday. Week 3 off Friday work Sat Sun off Mon work Tuesday off Wednesday work Thursday through Sunday. So on and So on and similar patterns in march except working 8 days straight off one work 4 off one ect ect. Who the hell programs Lowes's kronos scheduling software? I understand that the system tries to schedule based on customer statistics ect but we all are still short on the floor. Its even worse than it was when we all had rotations. This sh– makes no logical since. If its supposed to save the company money in payroll how is it? They seem to pay out the same amount of hours and payroll regardless if we are on rotations or this sh– schedule. I don't understand it people where the hell does this make logic? We barely get to see our families and corporate claimed that "You will have better family work life balance" ? My boss (ASM) today said pretty soon him and other ASM's plus SM would lose the ability to adjust these schedules in the system to better accommodate normalcy. He said that management are still on rotations and will continue to be on rotations. In the last two weeks he has had 2 weekends off in a row. Myself and other associates however have not had our first weekend off in over 12 weeks. All im asking is what the hell was wrong with the scheduling we had before? We were better staffed and work life balance was good. Corporate is a bunch of id–ts that have no clue what actually goes on.
10 replies (most recent on top)
Y'all need to get out while you can...start looking...lowes is a sinking ship ran from the top by garbage human beings only concerned with cutting costs to increase stock price.
@1oqt+13WQPYJk
Point taken, but not a great example. The only thing that comes close to being 1/3 the price of infinity is the pro express coat, which is garbage.
Customer centric scheduling is just another was of reducing payroll with out it seeming like that is what is going on.
Everything Marvin does is to squeeze more money out of the stores. Our paint department was told to lead with infinity.
Customer: I’m selling my house and my realtor suggested I paint the garage.
Lowe’s: we recommend infinity
Customer: wow that’s expensive, three times the cost of this gallon.
Lowe’s: we recommend infinity
We were one of the first to be a “test” new scheduling system that is now company wide. At first out schedules were adjusted to make it more life friendly. Once it was rolled out company wide we were told they were chastised by corporate for this and it stopped. Now they can only adjust a small amount. I was getting 10 hour days and 5 and 6 hour days. Often I would be scheduled three 10 hour days in a row. Of course two days off in a row was rare. I became convinced they were attempting to drive out full timers and those that have been there for some time. I was there for 6.5 years in four different departments. It was common to be covering multiple departments as there was no one scheduled in them. In addition there were multiple hours in a day on several days a week when there was no one scheduled in my department (tools) so of course that tells me they don’t really give a rip about shrink...our shrink in 2019 was 100K in tools alone...we were a 50 million plus store. In any event I have been around long enough to see the writing on the wall for Lowe’s, this is a failing company. I quit at the first of the year. Yes it is bad and will only get worse under Marvin.
I'm so glad they did me a favor last summer in laying me off. It sounds like things are really getting bad. Just think the 100 days is coming to a store near you real soon.
What's funny is that this is not the only way of doing things, which we know because we were the ones doing things differently not that long ago!
We had a rotating schedule that everyone could predict, and a weekday/weekend team to help fill in holes in scheduling. And it worked, for years. The only reason we changed is because that's not how orange does it.
And if you gaze long into an orange, the orange also gazes into you.
Welcome to retail.
Customer centric scheduling leaves us with huge holes in scheduling and days of freight on the floor since there is no one to put it up.
A customer told me last night as I was covering 3 departments in addition to my own “how can you stay in business when you have no one to help customers?”
Corporate obviously do not trust their store managers to schedule their employees. That is trouble some.
As bad as it is now, we too have been told that most managers would be loosing their ability to alter the schedule that the "system" generates. Being warned that we can expect shifts as short as 5 hours and more than 8. Not worth my time to drive in for a 5 hour shift, nor is it possible for me to work longer than 9 hours due to the needs of my animals at home. My ONLY major complaint on the old "matrix" method of scheduling was the 2nd Sunday off per 4 week rotation often left us very short staffed on Sunday's and over run when there were call outs. I am sorry but the writing has been on the wall for quite some time and unless we are willing to bleed out Lowe's it really is time to leave.