At my office we regularly have a large queue when we shut the door in the evening, and could be still serving up to 30 mins later. This has not been helped by the new Specials/Recordeds process, and our recent Duty Review.
The Counter Staff and us Managers, not to mention customers are less than happy with the situation, and when approached the local CWU were less than helpful, so my question is does anybody else suffer with this? and has anything been done, tried etc to alleviate the problem?
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'Late' Customers
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bigjames
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billyhayes
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'Late' Customers
Same here. Although not as late as 30 mins. The one thing we did locally was put a notice on the window that said all specials have to be in at 5.15 latest. This is pretty accurate as our postman/van driver is hardcore 318 and will not wait about for anything, good on him. 
This gee'd 'em up mostly, apart from the wonkas that wont leave their shop/business until 5.28 then join the queue as our door is shutting.
When you say the CWU won't help. What do you want them to do? Our office rep said that at 5.30 we should stop serving as we get 5 mins to put our till away and overtime is not mandatory. Our managers responded by saying that we 'have a duty of care' to serve who is in the queue no matter if it is 5.45. I think they are bullshitting to be honest as they would just get it in the neck from the 'non job' above them.
So can anyone give us the definitive answer, what happens after 5.30 and there are still customers in the queue. Please don't just say "Because you have to" as that is a cop out and as far as I know it's not in BOSA, where else is it written?
This gee'd 'em up mostly, apart from the wonkas that wont leave their shop/business until 5.28 then join the queue as our door is shutting.
When you say the CWU won't help. What do you want them to do? Our office rep said that at 5.30 we should stop serving as we get 5 mins to put our till away and overtime is not mandatory. Our managers responded by saying that we 'have a duty of care' to serve who is in the queue no matter if it is 5.45. I think they are bullshitting to be honest as they would just get it in the neck from the 'non job' above them.
So can anyone give us the definitive answer, what happens after 5.30 and there are still customers in the queue. Please don't just say "Because you have to" as that is a cop out and as far as I know it's not in BOSA, where else is it written?
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.
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Joseph Goebbels
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bigjames
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- Location: Within the M25
'Late' Customers
When you say the CWU won't help. What do you want them to do?
In essence their suggestion was for the staff to complete timesheets and then give me 6 weeks notice when they want the time back. I pointed out that they would only be inconveniencing our office, not the business as a whole, and they just told me it had worked in other offices. I fail to see how their suggestion would convince anyone outside of the office that we need more staff at closing time, but I could be wrong.
We have tried to arrange different cut-off times for Specials, but we close later than most offices so our problem is made worse by customers coming to us because they know we are still open, and just changing the cut-off time may not be enough. These customers are also often office junior types who just get sent down by their boss. We have spoken to a few of them about coming in earlier, and they would love to, but it is not up to them!
Our office CWU rep did threaten a walk-out at 5 minutes past closing, but he has since resigned and walked away, so there isn't even an office rep now. We had a couple of Area type reps at a recent WTLL, and when the staff asked them what they should do, they just kept repeating - 'Overtime is voluntary', which is as I said before - unhelpful!
I would also like to see a definitive policy as to what is supposed to happen with such a problem. When the BOSA agreement was rolled out to us managers, we were told that on the odd occasion when a few customers are in the office after we shut it would be in the 'spirit' of the agreement to claim that time back at a later date, it obviously didn't mean it to be a daily occurrence!
In essence their suggestion was for the staff to complete timesheets and then give me 6 weeks notice when they want the time back. I pointed out that they would only be inconveniencing our office, not the business as a whole, and they just told me it had worked in other offices. I fail to see how their suggestion would convince anyone outside of the office that we need more staff at closing time, but I could be wrong.
We have tried to arrange different cut-off times for Specials, but we close later than most offices so our problem is made worse by customers coming to us because they know we are still open, and just changing the cut-off time may not be enough. These customers are also often office junior types who just get sent down by their boss. We have spoken to a few of them about coming in earlier, and they would love to, but it is not up to them!
Our office CWU rep did threaten a walk-out at 5 minutes past closing, but he has since resigned and walked away, so there isn't even an office rep now. We had a couple of Area type reps at a recent WTLL, and when the staff asked them what they should do, they just kept repeating - 'Overtime is voluntary', which is as I said before - unhelpful!
I would also like to see a definitive policy as to what is supposed to happen with such a problem. When the BOSA agreement was rolled out to us managers, we were told that on the odd occasion when a few customers are in the office after we shut it would be in the 'spirit' of the agreement to claim that time back at a later date, it obviously didn't mean it to be a daily occurrence!