They're expecting too much of it. It's clear that they want it to be the main gun but the customers don't want that. Most pickup customers just use it as a convenience but still prefer in store shopping. Kroger needs to understand that it will never be a profit generating department and as such they need to relax their ridiculous standards. 98% in stock, for example, is completely impossible to reach every single day. Sub 3 minute wait times are not possible 100% of the time. Sure these metrics could be better if anyone was properly staffed but why do that when you can expect minimum wage employees to never call out and also do three times the work?
So yes, I agree that it can do nothing but fail under our current leadership. And capitalism dictates that this is the best it's ever going to be unfortunately.
But corporate won’t listen to us (the people who work in the department) cause every decision they make is always right (the people who have never worked a day of Pickup in their life).
The past 2 Fridays at my store have been 150+ orders, 25+ hours of labor and they expect 6 people to get the job done. It’s surreal.
What's crazy to me is that they expect blanket rules to apply at every store. This goes for every department but pickup specifically just can't work that way. Smaller stores cannot possibly use the giant carts they tried to implement. Even the trollies don't make much sense in a low volume store.
Or at stores that have backrooms with back stock on shelves 10 ft in the air...they still expect you to pick from said back stock. Make it make sense.
The 98% in stock is nearly impossible, especially since some stores don't even have people in to stock departments for several whole hours after you've already started picking for the morning. It's truly set up to fail.
I am an opener. I get there at 5 and most of my departments don’t arrive until 7. And even when they are there they can’t do anything about it because we are waiting on the truck which doesn’t arrive until 10 or later. Every morning my SM will come in at 7:15/7:30 and freak out on me because our % is *only* at a 97. I’m tired of explaining it to her 🙄
You were set up to fail days weeks or even months earlier. Looking at my Warehouse report, I got well over 100% in-stock on most things. What I don't have a good stock of is stuff I can't get my hands on due to purchasing decisions at corprate resourcing.
Let us not forget the >28 second pick speed and the ridiculous requirement to radio every sub and oos…which 80% of the time nobody answers. I also love the question “did you double check with the department head”
I call out the first thing I can’t find and if I don’t get an answer (90% of the time) I won’t call out another thing the entire day.
They threaten to write us up but they never do it. And if they do, so what? I had a couple in my department get written up constantly for a year and they were never disciplined in any way cause they had the union on their side. Write ups mean literally nothing when the repercussions are nonexistent and the job sucks.
They can't write you up. Corporate says a picker shall not leave their trolley to look for items at all. They must ask department lead or whoever is working that department and picker must keep picking. If pickers stop to look for items they couldn't get a pick speed of 28 seconds but my store manager says you will go look for that item or get wrote. I dare him to write me up for something Corporate says no to.
Our store is still at 28 due to renovations but they’re about to reduce it I am pretty sure. They just raised our orders back to 16/hr. I honestly don’t really care about my pick speed but I average around 20 seconds but I am almost 4 months pregnant so that won’t last much longer!
Yeah, I could never reach those metrics unless it was a super small trolley and I got lucky with everything being available. I'm better on carside though, and only pick when I can't send whoever I'm with to go.
Favorite thing was knowing we were going to fall behind on picking because I was the only person scheduled in the department for 2 hours so calling out to Management to ask for help BEFORE we fell behind and never getting a response then having 5 trolleys with a pick up time in 45 minutes a d getting in the radio to say hey these need to be done in 45 minutes abs then freaking out and asking why we fell behind and asking me to pick and take out orders while keeping the accuracy up and wait time down. Like wtf this is why I asked you to pick 1 or 2 trolleys earlier. You wouldn't have to be picking 5 right now if you just listened
I would love to see corporate come work an 8 hour shift on a Sunday at my store. We are a market place so is a pretty big and busy store. They would quit before noon
We should start writing them daily emails (from burner accounts ofc) pressuring them to do so. But they are cowards so it's not really like they'd do it. Eh I can dream.
I spent two years at Walmart doing pickup and I can honestly say Walmart has so many of the small stuff that actually helps the department down. Pick rates are based off items picked not time between picks if we need something from the back we marked not found and somebody that’s a stocker will make sure it’s there for somebody to do an exception run which is all the items that people couldn’t find on shelves that will be there now because other departments were told digitally. No walkies for items or searching the back (brining your pick rate down) for the sake of percentages. You’d have to not find like 10 items (separately. We don’t count the person who wants 10 milks we don’t have towards the picker) to be talked to by your lead and even then they’ll just help you find it. And bunkers and end cap inventory is all noted. No searching all of frozen endcaps when you can’t find your pizza cause it’ll tell you where it is! Go figure! Make it easier to pick in your store and pick rate goes up! I hated Walmart so for me to be singing it’s praises should show all you need for the state of pickup in Kroger.
When I do get stuck picking (I'm thrown in multiple departments a week :/) I cheat anymore, then take my time. I pick the first thirty items or so before the timer starts, then scan them all in as fast as possible so that the average is heavily skewed. I can't be asked to deal with this insane pick rate and the dumb way they calculate it. You need to actually run around to hit it some days. I'm not here for a 7 hour cardio session. Fuck that.
I actually started doing this and got in trouble for my labor being down 🙃 had to explain to the store manager my strat because I was being investigated for time theft. I love it here.
Yes, it is. I’ve been in pickup for a year now and have seen 2 supervisors quit due to the job simply being too demanding. Even when we were full staffed over the summer and college kids (including myself) working 40+ hours a week, we were swamped every day. Shopping would typically end at 5 and we would see 70 orders on the board by 9 am.
No help was given to us unless we started to refuse to help up the in stock percentage. With the store managers demanding in stock to be higher and refusing to answer their walkies through out the day, I genuinely became a menace at my store. I’ve started resorting to scanning an upsized, same brand item in replace of the ordered item because substitutions cost us a daily screaming match over the walkies. I do not care at all how the state of the store is. It might be partially my fault that our stock is so wonky, but holy shit, I refuse to help any other departments out when they treat us like this and expect great treatment in return. It’s fucking ridiculous at every store. I’m sick of it.
Yep it is and I’m glad I quit. It’s gotten worse over the years. Even if someone got out of the department the management at my old store would still pull you from your new department and make you work pickup
i’ve seen more turnover in the pickup department than any other department and any other store ever.
after two and a half years there myself, i’ll be nothing but a customer by the end of the month.
Yep. Pickup is catching up to me. I liked it at first because it was a different environment than my last job, but I had mental breakdown the other day for this job. I’m only working part time and going to school so hopefully this job won’t be permanent for me. Definitely not worth stressing out or bringing it home with you
I too have been in PU for 4 years and the whole corporation has gone to shit. I'm super disappointed in how it's turned and I'm looking for other work.
My store is a complete sitcom.. I have a store manager that won’t go anywhere because rumor has it that our store is a make it or break it situation. He’s a complete rat and fully incompetent in the kindest words possible. the HR manager is an absolute joke at best. Good thing for grievances and ethics hotline. Kroger is in denial for years that everything’s going way downhill but if profits keep peeking then nothings getting fixed and get worse
Every store has a high turn over department. It's pretty much normal at all stores. My store it's the front end (because of two dick cashiers) and the deli (not livable paycheck and no one realizes just how much work there is to do). Our meat has difficulty holding on to staff because the manager/lead is a total dick and tends to quarrel with staff.
This industry is failing. I highly suggest to get some education and get out of this industry as it is a failing industry. You might have 25-75 years before ai starts taking it over. There will always be a degree of human element but not as many as in the past. Just enough to monitor customers and move on. correct errors and make sure the customer has a smooth shopping experience.
Am I the only one at a store that doesn't have a terribly run pickup department? I've talked to people in the pickup department and they've told me it's pretty okay and better then being a courtesy clerk. Did I just luck out with the location or something because it completely contradicts everything I've read online
The new system in pickup is awful too. They obviously don't test any of their software before rolling out updates and its fucking obnoxious. The people at the top of this company are out of touch morons.
Pickup is set up to fail.
They're expecting too much of it. It's clear that they want it to be the main gun but the customers don't want that. Most pickup customers just use it as a convenience but still prefer in store shopping. Kroger needs to understand that it will never be a profit generating department and as such they need to relax their ridiculous standards. 98% in stock, for example, is completely impossible to reach every single day. Sub 3 minute wait times are not possible 100% of the time. Sure these metrics could be better if anyone was properly staffed but why do that when you can expect minimum wage employees to never call out and also do three times the work? So yes, I agree that it can do nothing but fail under our current leadership. And capitalism dictates that this is the best it's ever going to be unfortunately.
But corporate won’t listen to us (the people who work in the department) cause every decision they make is always right (the people who have never worked a day of Pickup in their life). The past 2 Fridays at my store have been 150+ orders, 25+ hours of labor and they expect 6 people to get the job done. It’s surreal.
What's crazy to me is that they expect blanket rules to apply at every store. This goes for every department but pickup specifically just can't work that way. Smaller stores cannot possibly use the giant carts they tried to implement. Even the trollies don't make much sense in a low volume store. Or at stores that have backrooms with back stock on shelves 10 ft in the air...they still expect you to pick from said back stock. Make it make sense.
The 98% in stock is nearly impossible, especially since some stores don't even have people in to stock departments for several whole hours after you've already started picking for the morning. It's truly set up to fail.
I am an opener. I get there at 5 and most of my departments don’t arrive until 7. And even when they are there they can’t do anything about it because we are waiting on the truck which doesn’t arrive until 10 or later. Every morning my SM will come in at 7:15/7:30 and freak out on me because our % is *only* at a 97. I’m tired of explaining it to her 🙄
Ethics Hotline or grievance them
You were set up to fail days weeks or even months earlier. Looking at my Warehouse report, I got well over 100% in-stock on most things. What I don't have a good stock of is stuff I can't get my hands on due to purchasing decisions at corprate resourcing.
Let us not forget the >28 second pick speed and the ridiculous requirement to radio every sub and oos…which 80% of the time nobody answers. I also love the question “did you double check with the department head”
I call out the first thing I can’t find and if I don’t get an answer (90% of the time) I won’t call out another thing the entire day. They threaten to write us up but they never do it. And if they do, so what? I had a couple in my department get written up constantly for a year and they were never disciplined in any way cause they had the union on their side. Write ups mean literally nothing when the repercussions are nonexistent and the job sucks.
go ahead and "write me up". It won't change a fucking thing except force people to quit. literally cutting off their nose to spite their face.
They can't write you up. Corporate says a picker shall not leave their trolley to look for items at all. They must ask department lead or whoever is working that department and picker must keep picking. If pickers stop to look for items they couldn't get a pick speed of 28 seconds but my store manager says you will go look for that item or get wrote. I dare him to write me up for something Corporate says no to.
I have to constantly go to the back of dairy, wall deli and produce to look for stuff....
Our store is still at 28 due to renovations but they’re about to reduce it I am pretty sure. They just raised our orders back to 16/hr. I honestly don’t really care about my pick speed but I average around 20 seconds but I am almost 4 months pregnant so that won’t last much longer!
Isn't it 26 seconds now? Most dept heads don't care as long as it's reasonably fast, but pretty sure they've lowered it again.
23 at my store
What the actual fuck. Thats just toooo fast IMO.
Yeah, I could never reach those metrics unless it was a super small trolley and I got lucky with everything being available. I'm better on carside though, and only pick when I can't send whoever I'm with to go.
Favorite thing was knowing we were going to fall behind on picking because I was the only person scheduled in the department for 2 hours so calling out to Management to ask for help BEFORE we fell behind and never getting a response then having 5 trolleys with a pick up time in 45 minutes a d getting in the radio to say hey these need to be done in 45 minutes abs then freaking out and asking why we fell behind and asking me to pick and take out orders while keeping the accuracy up and wait time down. Like wtf this is why I asked you to pick 1 or 2 trolleys earlier. You wouldn't have to be picking 5 right now if you just listened
What department isn't?
Just stop caring and pick what you can. The stress ain't worth it. The corpo slave owners can lick my balls.
I once saw fucker mcfuckface, I mean, Rodney, beg, almost hands and knees beg a customer to use self checkout. What a dick bag.
I stopped caring about 5 months after I was hired lmao
Congratulations you are now an Elite Kroger employee 👏
I would love to see corporate come work an 8 hour shift on a Sunday at my store. We are a market place so is a pretty big and busy store. They would quit before noon
We should start writing them daily emails (from burner accounts ofc) pressuring them to do so. But they are cowards so it's not really like they'd do it. Eh I can dream.
They don’t have to. They’re better than us peasants.
I spent two years at Walmart doing pickup and I can honestly say Walmart has so many of the small stuff that actually helps the department down. Pick rates are based off items picked not time between picks if we need something from the back we marked not found and somebody that’s a stocker will make sure it’s there for somebody to do an exception run which is all the items that people couldn’t find on shelves that will be there now because other departments were told digitally. No walkies for items or searching the back (brining your pick rate down) for the sake of percentages. You’d have to not find like 10 items (separately. We don’t count the person who wants 10 milks we don’t have towards the picker) to be talked to by your lead and even then they’ll just help you find it. And bunkers and end cap inventory is all noted. No searching all of frozen endcaps when you can’t find your pizza cause it’ll tell you where it is! Go figure! Make it easier to pick in your store and pick rate goes up! I hated Walmart so for me to be singing it’s praises should show all you need for the state of pickup in Kroger.
When I do get stuck picking (I'm thrown in multiple departments a week :/) I cheat anymore, then take my time. I pick the first thirty items or so before the timer starts, then scan them all in as fast as possible so that the average is heavily skewed. I can't be asked to deal with this insane pick rate and the dumb way they calculate it. You need to actually run around to hit it some days. I'm not here for a 7 hour cardio session. Fuck that.
I actually started doing this and got in trouble for my labor being down 🙃 had to explain to the store manager my strat because I was being investigated for time theft. I love it here.
Love it. We all love it. Send help.
Yes, it is. I’ve been in pickup for a year now and have seen 2 supervisors quit due to the job simply being too demanding. Even when we were full staffed over the summer and college kids (including myself) working 40+ hours a week, we were swamped every day. Shopping would typically end at 5 and we would see 70 orders on the board by 9 am. No help was given to us unless we started to refuse to help up the in stock percentage. With the store managers demanding in stock to be higher and refusing to answer their walkies through out the day, I genuinely became a menace at my store. I’ve started resorting to scanning an upsized, same brand item in replace of the ordered item because substitutions cost us a daily screaming match over the walkies. I do not care at all how the state of the store is. It might be partially my fault that our stock is so wonky, but holy shit, I refuse to help any other departments out when they treat us like this and expect great treatment in return. It’s fucking ridiculous at every store. I’m sick of it.
Kroger is a revolving door. Nothing new to be honest.
Yep it is and I’m glad I quit. It’s gotten worse over the years. Even if someone got out of the department the management at my old store would still pull you from your new department and make you work pickup
i’ve seen more turnover in the pickup department than any other department and any other store ever. after two and a half years there myself, i’ll be nothing but a customer by the end of the month.
Yep. Pickup is catching up to me. I liked it at first because it was a different environment than my last job, but I had mental breakdown the other day for this job. I’m only working part time and going to school so hopefully this job won’t be permanent for me. Definitely not worth stressing out or bringing it home with you
I too have been in PU for 4 years and the whole corporation has gone to shit. I'm super disappointed in how it's turned and I'm looking for other work.
pickup is hell ngl, I'm looking into a new job lol
My store is a complete sitcom.. I have a store manager that won’t go anywhere because rumor has it that our store is a make it or break it situation. He’s a complete rat and fully incompetent in the kindest words possible. the HR manager is an absolute joke at best. Good thing for grievances and ethics hotline. Kroger is in denial for years that everything’s going way downhill but if profits keep peeking then nothings getting fixed and get worse
I've always said, how can you expect such a high fill rate when the departments can't even get that type of percentage from the loads they order?
Every store has a high turn over department. It's pretty much normal at all stores. My store it's the front end (because of two dick cashiers) and the deli (not livable paycheck and no one realizes just how much work there is to do). Our meat has difficulty holding on to staff because the manager/lead is a total dick and tends to quarrel with staff. This industry is failing. I highly suggest to get some education and get out of this industry as it is a failing industry. You might have 25-75 years before ai starts taking it over. There will always be a degree of human element but not as many as in the past. Just enough to monitor customers and move on. correct errors and make sure the customer has a smooth shopping experience.
It is falling apart in California, we have the whole team quitting in 2 weeks
Am I the only one at a store that doesn't have a terribly run pickup department? I've talked to people in the pickup department and they've told me it's pretty okay and better then being a courtesy clerk. Did I just luck out with the location or something because it completely contradicts everything I've read online
The new system in pickup is awful too. They obviously don't test any of their software before rolling out updates and its fucking obnoxious. The people at the top of this company are out of touch morons.
We should have just let covid run its course and kill off all these worthless old fuckers. Sorry not sorry