It's a practice called lean staffing, which emerges from lean production. When North Americans adopted "lean production" from Japanese business practices, they drifted it and called it "lean and mean." Short-staffing to strategically capture your unworked hours is intentional.
-
-
Show this thread
-
When I worked at Starbucks in 2007, my manager had a computer program that analyzed our sales data and determined the number of hours our store needed to function smoothly. He always under-scheduled by ~7. "Why are you doing that?" "I'm supposed to. Also, it affects my bonus."
Show this thread -
I've seen so many friends cancel plans last minute because their boss called and told them to come in, or a coworker was forced to cover their own shift. My friends always felt beholden. "If I don't go in, they can't open." Businesses structure their labour like this on purpose.
Show this thread -
Lean staffing in service jobs is also tightly tied to the practice of scheduling just under the number of hours that's legally considered a full-time employee, so your employer can deny you benefits coverage. (the mechanisms vary based on local laws, but the intent carries over.)
Show this thread -
I wish I could end this by saying "so just turn down pleading demands to come in unscheduled & advocate for a minimum of 24 weekly hours every week," knowing it would work out for you. But that's likely to get you fired, or called in by your manager for an absurd "culture" talk.
Show this thread -
There are no individual solutions to the managerial tactics of lean staffing and benefit dodging in a precarious service position, only collective ones: unionizing your workplace, campaigning for new municipal bylaws, and agitating for socialist revolution. All risky. Good luck!
Show this thread -
This thread has now been quote-tweeted and echoed by baristas, servers, cooks, grocers, retail workers, veterinarians, nurses, librarians, academics, call center workers, bankers, office workers, IT, tech workers, academics, housekeepers, home care workers, and even managers.
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
As much as it hurt to close the stores, literally every. Single. Incentive built into the system rewarded me hugely for engaging in all of this behavior. There became a point for me where it was clear that my business couldn’t really survive without exploitation. That was tough.
-
Thanks for sharing this! How did you navigate those decisions? What proved to be the breaking point for you? Were there any tools you found to avoid this kind of logic along the way?
- Show replies
New conversation -
-
-
I've always wondered about this, as it happens even at places with salaried workers. There's no calling in a panic, but there is the panic when someone quits or has some life event. It's always seemed so obvious; hire an extra person so that when someone leaves, we're ok.
-
But instead, it's all hands on deck until we find a good person to hire, they start, and they're trained. And by that point, someone else might have left, which starts the cycle over again. It's madness and so stressful.
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.