The lead up to Guy Fawkes night has been tough. This is due to the fact that the law has changed form being able to buy fireworks at aged sixteen years to age eighteen. This also applies to the purchase of tobacco products.

Of course this does not stop some who are patently under age attempting to buy such products. If we judged someone who looks as if they are under the legal age, we are obliged to request some form of confirming identification**

When you have to see christmas products for three months, you tend to get a bit frazzled by it! But hopefully by the time christmas arrives we will be full of good cheer an somewhat forgiving of this.

 

 

Today we discussed a number of things:

1. Shall we have a christmas party?
2. Staff Hygiene
3. Eid
4. Quiznight
5. In Store Demonstration

Xmas Party

After some discussion, it was decided to hold a New Years party instead of christmas, which would likely be themed. It was agreed that many staff would be far to pre-occupied with family commitments, prior to xmas and thus a bash at this time would not be practical or well attended.

Staff Hygiene

It had been noted that a number of colleagues are not washing their hands, particularly after visiting the Rest Rooms. It was decided that if any colleague was observed not doing this, it was to be reported to the Personnel Manager to be dealt with, forthwith.

This is particularly pertinent to Counter Staff.

Eid

Many staff were disappointed at the number of colleagues who did not show up for work because of Eid. It was then proposed that all colleagues who celebrated this festival, should book this time off as holidays, similar to all other religious denominations are required to do.

Some members of the staff council, attempted to oppose this (for obvious reasons, since such a move would impact on them directly). However, many other members of the Council pointed out that they had to book all religious holidays off, for example:

• Maunday Thursday
• Good Friday
• Holy Saturday
• Easter Sunday
• Christmas
• Diwali
• Thanksgiving

and so the list went on.

The primary concern regarding Eid, was that the date upon which the point would fall, is not set and therefore predictable, making staff scheduling virtually impossible, as the recent episode amply demonstrated, with between 15 to 20 staff not turning up for two days and not having prior booked this.

This latter impacted heavily on the stores' function and required immense compensation from other staff to fill-in.

The Quiz Night

A Suggestion was put forward for a quiz night. Each department representative has been asked to canvas the opinions of their departmental colleagues, as to what format this might take.

In Store Demonstration

The store manager announced that their wll be a number of in store own branded demonstrations taking place in the run up to the all imporatnt christmas sales period. He suggested we should familiarise ourselves with these products so that we feel cnfident when recommending them to our customers.

 

 

I guess its part of my job specification, but I had to endure a customer taking out all of his frustrations on me today.

It started by my asking did he need any help, since he was wondering around the aisle looking somewhat confused "If I need help, I'd ask", he cried. So I immediately beat a hasty retreat and left him alone.

Five minutes later, he came looking for me saying: "you offered me help, well help me with this....". He then launched into a litany of matters he felt unhappy about throughout the store. It was all I could do to listen intently, offer to provide answers about product availability, delivery dates, locations etc.

But I had to draw the line at taking responsibility for how certain foods tasted or worse still the relative merits and demerits of washing powder performance! Realising that this man was on a mission, I politely as possible pointed out that there were customer care lines with the majority of products, which offered advice free of charge.

He became a little calmer, but went away muttering to himself about how unhelpful some people can be.....what's a girl to do!?

Today I had to issue a Red Observation to a member of staff (never a very pleasant experience for both receiver and giver):

What is an:"Observation"	Each member of staff has to be observed every four weeks in rotation. This is to ensure they are delivering the best possible services to our customers. There are ten different criteria they must fulfill. Should they fail one out of the ten tests - this is considered a "Red Observation" .

Short of staff today due to it being Eid (an islamic festival). So lots of code two's being called just about non stop and all day.

Friday is as you would expect one of the busiest days of the food shopping week, with lots of big trolley shops. I don't know how we did it it but I do how we did it!

You just get on with it and yes there is increasing "unrest" about the "favouritism" shown to religious minorities which means that everyone else has to fill in the gaps. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

Customer had a relatively serious accident on a spillage (yoghurt)...First Aider did not arrive for over 15 minutes. The customer reamrked that it was lucky she as not experiencing a heart attack!

Check colleague became quite abusive, since she did not like where she was placed within the check out space she was allocated!

She was referred to Personnel for further discipline and a note indicating the subject matter of the incident will be placed on file.

A generally mad day, being pulled from one end of the store to the other....

At last the postal strike is over (for now, because are still grubling). You may well ask why I am so happy for this occurence?

Well, besides not receiving any post like the rest of the country, we have received no Bullion**

What is :"Bullion"	Coins distributed to the cashiers for there daily use. Yes, our service is delivered by Royal Mail!

Thus we have been limited in the Bullion we have been able to distribute to our Checkout staff.

I can tell you we have had to be creative by robbing Peter to pay Paul, especially where our £1 coins have been concerned! Still the Postal Workers will have had a nice day off (oh except the ones who have a second job at our store.

They have had lots of overtime in the last few days......!!! Any one spot the coincidence?!

Seven Checkout Operators called in sick, so that meant we had to constantly call Code Two**

What is a: "Code Two"	This means all Till trained staff from the shop floor and managers to report to the front end. We only use this service when we are short of Cashiers and the shop is overly busy with customers. The idea being that taking money is the greatest priority at these times. This is also known as a "A Service Call To All Code Blue"

The role of an MCM Champion in a large retail store is to ensure that all colleagues are delivering great service to every customer throughout the opening times

My working day begins at 8am. I go directly to the shop floor to prepare my parperwork. My first duty is to prepare observations to be carried out on all checkout staff and colleagues

Note:	Every person who works within the store has an observation carried out on them every four week period. This is to ensure that they are delivering great service to all customers.

Another part of my duties is to walk around the shop at least twice on every shift as though as I was customer seeing if:

• I can travel through the isles
• there is good product availability an that re-stocking is up to date
• all colleagues are assisting customers to an accepted store wide standard

In between all this, I deal with customer queries which can range from :

• out-of-stock queries
• complaints regarding the shop
• overcharging at the front end
• cashiers not requesting store cards
• any general comment relating to cashier conduct