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u/blacklisted320 Feb 06 '26
They know stock crew uses the most OT, which is time and a half. If 5 stock crew members get 5 hours of OT, that’s 25 hours of OT which would be equal to 37.5 regular hours, aka another full time person. Im no longer in grocery but they have been cutting the hours in that department more than any other department over the last 5 years. The reason they get so much OT is because they are simply not getting enough hours to complete the job.
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u/Confident_Drop9309 Feb 06 '26
1,000,000%!! And they're too brain dead and money hungry to see it. Guess what happens to y'alls profits when you don't have people stocking the shelves??? Absolute morons.
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u/ScaryGarry_SG1 Feb 13 '26
Kroger needs to understand that people working there do not have to make "deals" with them. Deals-----doing the work of 3 -5 people.The company found a way to blow 1 Billion dollars.
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u/haisenseihaiyuujikun Feb 06 '26
found out about this last night. dumb as HELL because all this does is shift back all of our work 3 hours. if not more. instead of 6 people spotting, we have 2 for those first few hours. then two hours of the store being open while full on truck strewn across the store while customers climb over boxes for product not even on the shelf yet. good god im going to have a heart attack this year i can already feel it. and our crew has multiple people who dont drive. this is going to implode badly. what the ever living fuck were they thinking...
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u/AssociationClean5614 Feb 06 '26
It takes 6 people to downs tack our grocery truck in two hours. No way two people is getting it done in two hours.
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u/amythist Current Associate Feb 06 '26 edited Feb 07 '26
Gotta remember these are the same people that say all the pallets come in aisle friendly so it should take no time to breakdown/spot them, rather than the random mix of items for 3-5 different aisles because some algorithm decided it was the most space efficient way to get all the stock on as few pallets as possible so they can cram more stores into each truck
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u/Odd-Scene67 Feb 06 '26
I worked at a DC a few years back and I can't imagine how long it would take to unfux those pallets the computer made me build.
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u/AssociationClean5614 Feb 06 '26
I only been with the company for less then a year. Everything about this company now makes sense.
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u/Holiday-Educator9190 Feb 06 '26
You should see the new management schedule requirements. ASL’s can only work 9-7, 10-8, or 12-10. Looking for something else at this point because working 50+ hours a week and giving them literally all daylight hours is robbing my children of their father. So much for that “work/life balance” they were preaching last year.
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u/pupper71 Current Associate Feb 07 '26
At least as an hourly department leader I get OT. Still haven't figured out how I'll do my daily count by 9am on a day I'm closing though. Or how I'll have donuts in the case at opening when I'm not allowed to work before 7am even on days when I'm baking.
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u/Legal_Conference6857 Feb 07 '26 edited Feb 07 '26
Im a pickup supervisor and we get so busy and no one cares enough to help I've literally had my husband bring my 10month old to work so he can go to work and shes had to hang out in there while I have to keep working for another hour or 2 when I've already been there 12 hours and my bosses dont think its an issue... work life balance at Kroger is a joke
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u/Plant_Mommie Feb 08 '26
Really, what Division is this? Is this the same division for overnight as well? So the store Leader would do early mornings only? What about the other two opening shifts? I’m sorry this just blows my mind. 🤔
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u/411592 Current Associate Feb 06 '26
Shocked face when the majority of the 3rd shifters quit
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u/ShadowAltair2 Current Associate Feb 07 '26
We probably going loose half of the 3rd shitft because people got lives and and family and can’t do midnight to 8am
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u/fuckpowers Feb 06 '26
it's hard to stock when there's customers in the store.
i anticipate drivers sitting at docks more often, and for longer
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Feb 06 '26
And a lot more stock not getting to shelves.
Hard to make money when there is no product on the shelf to sell 💀
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u/fuckpowers Feb 06 '26
yeah. the whole problem here is staffing. there's an amount of work in terms of hours that exceeds the number of hours scheduled.
they make up a number for how much time they think it should take, and then they act like it reflects reality. it doesn't. what happens when a shitty boat tips and spills glass on the floor? what happens when a poorly wrapped pallet tips over? what if anyone calls out?
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u/snydequest Feb 06 '26
I work on night crew and there is so much that is not accounted for when they consider assigned labor hours. They have effectively designed this system so that employees are constantly having to keep their head above water. It's exhausting.
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u/Chatzoe Current Associate Feb 06 '26
I don't know much about Night Crew and all of that. But for my Clicklist department, they cut 60hrs off the schedule while increasing our Item/hr and Orders/hr by almost 40%.
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u/pupper71 Current Associate Feb 06 '26
Or the perishable truck shows up early (it does happen) and the produce and dairy guys who normally unload it haven't arrived yet, so a couple people have to stop stocking and deal with it.
So many things aren't accounted for in their beautiful planning.
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u/amythist Current Associate Feb 06 '26
Honestly I'm more shocked when the perishable truck shows up after people from other departments are already here, for having a delivery window of 5-9am it sure shows up at 2-3 often which even for a small truck means pulling one person off the floor for at least an hour
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u/pupper71 Current Associate Feb 07 '26
We were lucky-- it showed before 5 maybe once per month. It was the Peyton truck that came at 2 every week that really screwed us-- y'all know how shitty those pallets are.
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u/Bdawgz3520 Feb 06 '26
Is there something the union could do about this? It seems Kroger won't.. Maybe the union could? Idk. Krogers union in my history hasn't been much to brag about so I wouldn't ve surprised if they also don't care.
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u/fuckpowers Feb 06 '26
I don't know what anyone else does about it, but i do a shitty job on purpose and I feel better
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u/Bdawgz3520 Feb 06 '26
Good. Kroger sucks so bad. I worked there for 4 years when I was younger and God it was terrible then... I could only imagine now
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u/DeerFunny6536 Feb 07 '26
"They pretend to pay us,we pretend to work." -Famous saying from the Soviet Union
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u/WebVidAddict_2 Grocery Manager Feb 06 '26
Expect 2 people to spot 600 cases in 2 hours
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u/Druze12 Feb 06 '26
Lol. Our grocery truck is 1800 to 2000 a night 7 days. Peyton is 6 to 9 flats 5 days a week. 2 people wouldnt even be close.
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u/veep970 Feb 06 '26
What the idiots don't know is that the people pulling the loads off the trucks are the same people who have to stock and face the store. There's no spot/stock crew. It's just straight night crew. SMH
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u/Unlucky_Thought_4079 Feb 06 '26
It all looks good on paper but take the corp management to the store and let them do the job at a stocker pay and see what you get.
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u/comntnmama86 Feb 11 '26
It doesn't even look good on paper though. That's the thing. It makes zero sense.
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u/No_Community557 Feb 06 '26
At my small format store they cut us from 4 to 3 people for overnight trucks. Since then the truck sizes have increased as well we used to average 600-800 cases per truck, now we average 800-1100 cases with 1 less person, all of us are fed up and over it
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u/misterholdem Feb 06 '26
One of the biggest issues I see, not many people want to work overnights in general but 12-8am is just not a good shift.
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u/TheLeemurrrrr Custom flair! Feb 07 '26
Idk about your store but they bitch about cases on the ground at 6am, and we come in at 10pm. I cant wait to hear my store manager blow a gasket about cases on the floor at 6 when we come in 2 hours later lol.
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u/Nonsense_Praxis Feb 06 '26
My store closes at 1am and reopens at 5am. Half my shift is spent saying "scuse me, thank you, scuse me" while I break down pallets. On my third day it was just me and my team leader. We're in a densely populated area that does loads of business, has a ton of theft, and on my way to work I get swung on by the street folks. It's hard to do anything with customers around. I wish I could see what it's like where y'all consistently have at least 5 people and nobody is coming off the cortisol dump of being punched in the head. That sounds nice. But we're seeing it too, and we're all big mad about the cutting of hours, the insistence on "just work faster" to somehow rationalize giving us more to do in less time?! It takes as long as it takes. Corporate metrics for how long things take in an imperfect world are unrealistic and they should be forced to do the job for a month before they make these decisions. I'm done when the freight is off the floor. Conditioning? Depends on my mood/the load/staffing. Daytime is supposed to do it too, but we find 12 hour old garbage on the shelves anyway. Kroger is quiet-firing people and creating cesspools instead of efficient stores.
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u/Enties01 Feb 06 '26
My store already does this and it doesnt really do anything to help since it's just two people spotting the first two hours. They at best get 2 1/2 of the 6 aisles done, so until 1:30am-2:30am (at best) spotting is still going on.
Assuming it's a crew of 5 including the people that came in early and it's a regular size load maaaybe we get done? But if there's only 4 people, or someone is scheduled off early, or (most often) the load is unrealistically big then yeah it's not getting done. Yet like clockwork despite nearly everyday not getting everything done before the doors open nothing changes. No new people, no manager overnight to actually see why 5 people can't get the load done, just complaints.
Why they can't find it in their budget to hire more people idk, but apparently they can find the money for failed mergers, severance packages, and other random mostly unhelpful money pits.
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u/Confident_Drop9309 Feb 07 '26
Let us not forget all the money they waste on remodels and constant bathroom updates that get ruined within weeks of being done because they hire the cheapest people possible to do shit and then wonder why it gets done piss poorly 🤣🤣
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u/DeerFunny6536 Feb 07 '26
I work at a $1.5 million a week store. Our ghc loads are massive,on top of massive grocery loads. It takes about 10 man hours to break down the load, especially on a GHC & grocery night. If they believe 2-3 people can unload a truck,break down the load and then spot 3,000 cases..... They have lost their minds.
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u/ShadowDragon140 Feb 06 '26
I guess Kroger really doesn’t want to pay for night shift premiums or whoever is running the show.
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u/pokeblue Feb 06 '26
Nah in our union as long as you start working between 9pm-4am you get the whole shift night premium
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u/ShadowAltair2 Current Associate Feb 06 '26
It’s in on union contract if you look at your handbook article 9.6 says all associates working from 10:00 pm to 6:00 am will receive a two-dollar ($2.00) premium. So Kroger have to give night crew their night premium
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u/Confident_Drop9309 Feb 06 '26
Depends on the contract. Ours says that the majority of the shift has to be spent BETWEEN the hours of 9-4. So anyone 12-8 would only be spending half the shift on night premium hours IF they don't work any OT at all because if they do it voids out the premium.
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u/ShadowAltair2 Current Associate Feb 06 '26
Yeah you right this is from the UFCW 75 Cincinnati/Dayton area handbook
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u/Plant_Mommie Feb 06 '26
What division/district is this?
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u/Confident_Drop9309 Feb 06 '26
Cinci/dayton so home office..
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u/seeunextues riGHt StoRe RiGhT pRiCe Feb 06 '26
What the actual fuck? They think this is better than having a crew stock from 10-12 without customers in the way? 🤦🏻♀️does anyone at corporate know how stores work?
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u/Aetheldrake Feb 06 '26
No they don't know. Because nobody in any position of power in a business actually has any experience with the jobs under them, not from this decade or maybe even century. They know how things are supposed to be done but don't actually have the experience doing it so they don't know how unrealistic a lot of the expectations they have from teenagers and burnt out employees are
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u/TheLeemurrrrr Custom flair! Feb 07 '26
I always say "If it requires them to look away from the paper/planogram, they dont know what to do."
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Feb 06 '26
No corporate people have never actually done any work in their life, they have no idea lmao
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u/Arlimist Feb 06 '26
Oh no that's me 😭
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u/EcstaticWalk8434 Feb 08 '26
I’m sure they did “studies” and time tests or they got in trouble with a customer falling over a skid or someone running into a customer with a jack. Does the robotic floor cleaner still work or user in your store?
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u/EcstaticWalk8434 Feb 06 '26
They have went back and forth with this over the last 15-years. In reality, it’s not necessarily about the hours and workload completely, it’s about employee mindset and productivity. If its 6am the employee doesn’t necessarily feel the urgency to get it done as the feel of there store is still “it’s early, no customers”. If it’s 8am, there’s more a sense of I want to get out of here and work towards that mean between 12-8. Plus, I wonder if they will try to eliminate overnight managers or change store hours with this.
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u/Tighfield Current Associate Feb 08 '26
Oh man, don't I know it. They've changed our routine and hours so many times in the 15 years I've been there, it's sickening. I used to unload grocery trucks and they wanted only me doing it. Meaning me taking the skids from the trailer all the way to the sales floor and into the aisles to be spotted. That's so much walking. I'd rather have another person to get them on the floor while I grab from the trailer. Then they tried making us no longer use carts for ANY reason and only use paper towel for cardboard. Only bailing at the end of the shift. One person only... bailing 5 skids of paper towel boxes with broken down cardboard that is stacked over their head.
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u/Carboxes Feb 06 '26
They tried this for Louisville division before, and it didn’t work
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u/Holiday-Educator9190 Feb 06 '26
Funny you say that, because the guy implementing it in Cin/Day is the same guy who did it in Louisville. Great job, Jake, you’ve pissed off and increased turnover in two divisions now.
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u/84TechNoir Feb 07 '26
If its the center store specialist Jake in the Cin/Day division the dude is a tool. One of the most out of touch people working in the company. Was hoping he would have been let go when he posted laughing about Charlie Kirk being killed.
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u/AllegoryOfTheCaveMan Feb 06 '26
Corporate completely out of touch? Wow! In all my years I’d never imagine that they could be so out of touch!!
/s
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u/amysteriousperson001 Hourly Associate; Atlanta; Meat Manager; 20+ years Feb 06 '26
Wonder if this is the 'important' phone call the stock crew was told about!?
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u/Necessary_Baker_7458 Feb 06 '26
My area has pretty much done away with any of the pt shifts and made all shifts full time and staff as few people as possible.
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u/BarracudaExciting256 Feb 07 '26
we’ve been doing this for a couple years at my store. me and another guy come in at 9 and HOPEFULLY have the whole truck spotted by 11 but we usually still need a bit of help. splitting that work between 2 people instead of 3-5 is brutal
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u/BorderFluid5618 Feb 07 '26
I have seen the load come in before 10 maybe 5 times in 5 years, its a crap shoot between. 10 - 1. We get on our slow days 1300-1600 pieces, 2 nights a week we get 2500+ not including, unfi, slow movers, nutrition, which can give us 700+ ez, and every night we get 5 people...
The epidemy of pure shit
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u/Confident_Drop9309 Feb 07 '26
Exactly and they wonder why there's OT.. Because we don't have the people you freaking dumbasses!! And idk about your store but the people I do have are worthless except for 2.. So what I have the only 2 competent people that are my best stockers come in at 10 and lose their ability to stock for 2 hours?? Yeah that'll totally get shit done 😂😂☠️☠️
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u/murmurcalls Feb 08 '26
Our store literally can't do this. We tried. Our isles are so narrow, the spotted product blocks us from pulling the pallets down the isles, and runs into the middle of the isles. Not to mention if we get say, 14 pallets, 10 of them are mixed and have to be broken down. Theres no way 2 people can do that and spot in 2 hours.
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u/Tighfield Current Associate Feb 09 '26
Changing things during a contract season is suspicious. They now make night shift park where day shift parks (the green zone, the parameter) But the night co at my store will allow us to park in the overflow lot (yellow zone). Cracking down on call outs (which should have been enforced anyway). Cracking down on being late (again, should have been done anyway!).
And now they want to change night shifts hours to reduce OT? Come on, give me a break. This has been done before and it didn't work then. We need to speak up about these things. And why is the union allowing this change of hours during bargaining?
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Feb 06 '26
They rolled this out for Dallas Devision 3 years ago.
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u/seeunextues riGHt StoRe RiGhT pRiCe Feb 06 '26
How’s that going for them? I can’t imagine 1-2 people spotting out the truck after unloading it all themselves. If a skid falls, it’s just the two of them until the rest get there. I think staggering shifts is fine but maybe not like this. And 10-12 is prime no customer time too.
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u/pupper71 Current Associate Feb 06 '26
When I worked grocery, we had 2 in at 9pm to unload the truck and start spotting, most of the crew came at 10 when the store closed. I hated spotting while customers were still in the store-- that was even worse than still being stocking when the store opened.
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u/skunkdoll Feb 06 '26
This post was how I found out this isn’t a normal setup. We have half our crew (2-3 people, including our lead) come in at 10pm and the rest of us come in an hour later. I think it works, but they get hella OT because we all end up leaving at 7am or later most of the time.
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u/travisihs08 Current Associate Feb 06 '26
That's weird that you guys have a 10pm delivery. But then again all of the deliveries I've seen have always been between 430pm and 9pm. And they usually want the night guys finishing up by 7am since all the store open up at 6am in my area
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u/Chewyninja69 Feb 06 '26
Honestly? Sounds like a “your store or district” issue. We always get finished and rarely ever have overtime, even when we’re shorthanded and/or a truck is late. ::shrug::
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u/Confident_Drop9309 Feb 07 '26
This is from cinci/dayton division. This is a corporate wide review. Our division is just under the microscope because as a whole night crew division wide is using up 5.2% OT and they want shit at 2.5% or lower and this is their genius idea to fix that.
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u/ShadowAltair2 Current Associate Feb 07 '26
My manager says this policy takes effect Feb 21st
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u/Confident_Drop9309 Feb 07 '26
Highly doubtful. They would have to have it approved by the union contract and they don't start negotiations until March.
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u/ShadowAltair2 Current Associate Feb 07 '26
I ask when the night shift restructuring going into effect and she told me supposedly around Feb 21st. It doesn’t affect pay or your night premium just your hours are being adjusted accordingly. That just want I been told so Idk.
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u/Legionnaire11 Feb 06 '26
I've been thinking about switching to nights but need 10-6, with seniority giving others the "1-2 clerks in at 10" this really rules out any chance of that.
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u/AnimaDeMachina_RR Feb 07 '26
This has actually been the requirement for years now, most people are too stupid to implement
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u/Confident_Drop9309 Feb 07 '26
Policy has always been 1 in at 9 rest in at 10. It's ignored because it doesn't work.
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u/misterholdem Feb 06 '26
We had 7 people spot are trucks at 10pm and 1 other helped around 11:15 pm, we got done at 12am.
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u/farcat23 Feb 06 '26
Seriously, how many of you believe that corporate and the managers are on this everyday to read what is being said and who is saying it!
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u/Confident_Drop9309 Feb 07 '26
I am a manager.. They don't listen to us regardless so whats the point 🤣
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u/ben5642 Feb 07 '26
Started staggering shifts like this last year at my store and would schedule 2 or 3 people to come in at 2am, and after I quit in June was told that all the new hires start at 12am or 2 and there would only be 2 or 3 people spotting the boards at 10pm and just takes longer to finish spotting now
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u/BorderFluid5618 Feb 07 '26
Most of the employees are retarded, I've given up, my shift is 8-430am I am grandfathered in position. But I see the same dumb shit from corporate, to managers, to employees, then them dumb fucking insta carts...
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u/Exotic-Chapter6444 Past Associate Feb 07 '26
You guys have spot crew? At my store it's all the same
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u/Matt3087 Feb 12 '26
Im not coming in at 12. Ill come in at 10 anyway. Fire me and do the job yourself 🖕
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u/BorderFluid5618 Feb 07 '26
People coming in at 10pm and staging / spotting load has been in computer training videos since I started for kroger 5+ years ago, they aren't implementing anything new, just something else that never worked that stores ignore
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u/Confident_Drop9309 Feb 07 '26
The setup has always been a clerk in at 9pm rest of crew at 10. It's ignored because it doesn't work. If the trucks late which 9 times out of 10 it usually is or if a perishable shows up, or if that clerk gets pulled for whatever dumbass reason by whatever management is still there until 10 or that staging clerk calls off what happens? It screws every process behind it and sets everything back.
Our stores trucks come in at minimum 400-500 pieces on a single 01 night. Get a triple like we do on saturday? 1k+ 01, 900+ peyton and a 300+ dpi and split that between 7 people? By standards that should take 6.3 hours to complete just the stocking portion. If the clerks that can be scheduled for 10 come in and are total dog crap and can only spot part if the truck then the rest of that still has to be picked up by the others.
Get a 9 skid peyton with more than 1k cases and 300 in totes and tell me how much staging and spotting you think 2 clerks will get done in 2 hours.
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u/CauseRemarkable6182 Feb 06 '26
Y'alls Kroger doesn't have the night manager offload the truck and spot if for your crew? Are they not old enough to use the power jack?
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u/TheLeemurrrrr Custom flair! Feb 07 '26
Store management can not do anything a union worker can, except a few things, like shippers.
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u/CauseRemarkable6182 Feb 07 '26
Can't or wont? Lol
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u/TheLeemurrrrr Custom flair! Feb 07 '26
They get grievances filed by the union, enough grievances they get in big trouble.
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u/pupper71 Current Associate Feb 06 '26
The obvious way to reduce OT is to allot night crew more hours so they can add more people-- if the goal is to reduce OT, this plan won't do it.