Just a little info in case you were wondering. My dear little RGIS blog has been updated to include some advertising (see links at the top of each page). This has caused the "archives" section of my blog to change locations. The archives used to appear near the top, on the right hand side. You can still view each and every post here (lucky you!), but you have to do some scrolling. You can find them all the way down near the bottom of each page, on the right hand side. Depending on which page you're currently on, and depending on what Blogger feels like doing on any particular day, the archives will be listed by either titles or by which months the posts were published in, or sometimes both. To view the earliest posts, the ones from the very beginning, just click on the last post listed, the one at the very bottom of the list. Keep doing this until you reach the first post, which is titled "Coming Soon To A Blog Near You". Happy reading!
BTW, about the advertising. If you've enjoyed reading this blog, and want to show your support for it, please take a moment to click on one of the ad links at the top of the page. If you do so it will be most appreciated by me. If you haven't enjoyed reading this blog, well then, what are you doing here? Go away. Now. Scram! Beat it! Take a hike! ;)
114 comments:
Misfit, have you found another job in the time since you quit RGIS? If so, do you like it more or less than doing inventory? I've responded to many of your stories and almost feel like I know you so I'm interested in what life is like after RGIS. One more question which I'm sure I already know the answer to but I'll ask anyway: Would you ever return to RGIS if unable to find other employment or something else didn't work out? Many people do come back mainly because nobody else will hire them or additional income.
anon. at 10:29 pm: Hi! Thanks for reading my blog. Yes, I did leave RGIS some time ago, and have found another job, quite a nice one in fact. I'm an office manager for a small dermatology office. I like the regular hours (no more double and triple shifts!), not to mention the great benefits. I like it a lot more than doing inventory, so I'm not sorry that I left. But you know, I have to admit that now that I'm gone from RGIS, I do kind of miss the crazy things that went on, and the nutty people that worked there. I mean, I don't miss experiencing them, but I do miss observing and writing about them. That part was the best.
And yet...no no no! I would never return to RGIS, not ever. I think I would rather take a job mopping up in a peep show than having to go back to work at RGIS. It took a long time to get those "beep" and "buzz" sounds that the audit machines made out of my dreams/nightmares. Plus, working for RGIS really played havoc with my sleeping habits. It's been several years now since I worked as an auditor, and I still don't sleep very well.
But I know what you mean about people returning. During the time I worked for RGIS I saw quite a few people go, come back, go and return again. I always felt those people to be rather pitiable because it was obvious to me (as it is to you) that no one else would hire them.
Thanks again so much for reading my blog, and leaving your comments. I really appreciate it.
I found out this week that RGIS corporate now has a "1 no show = you're fired" policy that is being implemented. I imagine that will cut its U. S. workforce in half. Add to that they are also adding on a "no more than 3 sick days a year" policy that will reduce their work force to maybe 2 people in the entire nation.
I predict troublesome times for RGIS. I just hope I'm out of it before the real shitstorms come in.
Hey, Misfit. So glad everything worked out so well for you. I spent 4 years as a TL and another 4 as an AM. I left 11 years ago, and I still have "flashbacks" everytime I walk into any Home Depot, or walk by one particular Victoria Sercret and I know what you mean about those "beeps" in your sleep. I used to wake my husband up in the middle of the night (on those nights I managed to make it home) yelling "HIT CLEAR!! HIT CLEAR!!" in my sleep. I, too, have leaned to function in the absence of daily crisis and chaos, although I believe I have some of those symtoms that some may associate with Post-tramatic Strees Disorder! I still get that feeling of impending doom every year when people start hanging their Christmas lights, and I still have occasional nighmares.
Although I've only read a few of your stories (so far), you bring back January memories that only someone else who's been there can truly relate with.
Best of luck to you!!
anon. at 7:59 am: Thank you so much! I hope everything worked out well for you also. Well, you're not working for RGIS anymore so of course things worked out well, right? :) Did you miss RGIS when you left? Were there any aspects of your job as a TL or manager that you missed when you left?
PTSD! That is so appropriate for what we went through working for RGIS. Too funny. And I know what you mean about going into stores now. I cringe whenever I have to stop in a Long's Drugs. They usually have merchandise out in front of their store (plants and patio furniture) so I look for RGIS area tags on them. If I don't see any then I know it's safe to shop there! For obvious reasons I do NOT want to run into any burgundy polos in any store. Ever.
anon. at 7:54 pm: Oh, I think we've all heard that one before, right? I remember in my district they put out their own little sheet of rules that said something like: 1 no show, reprimand. 2 no shows, suspension. 3 no shows, termination. The managers said that they were really "cracking down" on no shows and late arrivals. Everyone had to sign their names and turn in a copy of this set of "rules". Of course it was all bullshit and no one followed the "rules". And as always the managers never fired anyone.
Maybe RGIS thinks that because this latest set of "rules" is coming from corporate HQ, then it will really mean something. Hah! How many of you believe that?
http://cgi.ebay.com/RGIS-Burgundy-Polo-Style-Shirt-Size-XL-with-Grayn-White_W0QQitemZ250086423571QQcategoryZ15687QQcmdZViewItem
RGIS Burgundy Polo Style Shirt Size XL with Grayn White
Buy It Now price: US $3.99
Can you believe this??? FOUR dollars. You ever try to get a new shirt out of these people?
http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=193673
News Release
Thursday 22 March 2007, 17:41 GMT
Thursday 22 March 2007 Date
INDUSTRY topic
RGIS Holdings LLC company
The Blackstone Group Has Acquired a Controlling Interest in RGIS
AUBURN HILLS, Michigan, March 22 /PRNewswire/ --
RGIS Holdings LLC, the world's largest inventory and retail services company, has announced today that an affiliate of The Blackstone Group has agreed to purchase a controlling interest in the company. The terms of the transaction are not disclosed.
The current RGIS ownership group will retain a significant stake in RGIS post-close. Goldman, Sachs & Co. has committed to provide bank debt and mezzanine financing.
"We are excited to work with our new partners at Blackstone to continue to realize and expand upon the vision that in almost 50 years has made RGIS the world leader in its market segments with operations in over 25 countries. We were first approached by Blackstone late last year, and from the outset we decided that partnering with them would provide us with important advantages that would enable us to fully realize our potential," said CEO Paul Street.
"RGIS has a tremendous franchise and great growth prospects," said Ben Jenkins, Senior Managing Director of The Blackstone Group. "We are delighted to partner with the strong management team to extend the Company's outstanding track record of quality, reliability and innovation."
Retail Grocery Inventory Services was founded in 1958, offering grocery stores an accurate and economical alternative to in-house inventories. Within a few years, the business expanded throughout the Midwest and started conducting counts in other retail environments throughout the U.S. Today, RGIS has become the largest inventory and retail services company in the world, serving local businesses as well as Global 500 and Fortune 500 companies. Annually RGIS provides over 450,000 counts or more than 1,225 counts per day for retail clients such as Wal-Mart, CVS, Home Depot, and Target.
The transaction is subject to satisfaction of customary conditions and is expected to close in the first half of 2007.
About RGIS
RGIS is the global leader in inventory and retail services, with substantial reach through 400 offices across North America, South America, Australia, Asia and Europe and employs more than 40,000 trained personnel. RGIS has nearly 50 years of experience and a track record of excellence in delivering inventory services to retailers. Further information is available at http://www.rgisinv.com.
About The Blackstone Group
The Blackstone Group is a leading global alternative asset manager and provider of financial advisory services. The Blackstone Group is one of the largest independent alternative asset managers in the world. Its alternative asset management businesses include the management of corporate private equity funds, real estate opportunity funds, funds of hedge funds, mezzanine funds, senior debt funds, proprietary hedge funds and closed-end mutual funds. The Blackstone Group also provides various financial advisory services, including mergers and acquisitions advisory, restructuring and reorganization advisory and fund placement services.
Web site: http://www.rgisinv.com
Distributed by PR Newswire on behalf of RGIS Holdings LLC
PR Newswire Europe Ltd.
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Tel : +44 (0)20 7490 8111
Fax : +44 (0)20 7490 1255
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Terms and conditions of use apply.
Hey Misfit. found ur blog. Well i am still working for RGIS in the Lubbock,tx office.where we have two different offices. One the local team and the other is the Wal-mart team, which is where i am. since i left the local to go to wal-mart, life with RGIS is so much better. work only 3 or 4 days a week. But i still cant find a job that will pay me what RGIS is paying me right now which is 15 bucks an hr as a TL. which im getting another raise. But for me i wont go back to local team because of the insane hrs that are pulled.. But glad u made it out of RGIS alive. Btw we have new machines now which are a pain to use.. stupid built in laser dont help.. but with RGIS u just have to find the right office to be in to have fun. again proud u made it out alive..
The no show policy apparantly goes into effect March 31st.
1 no show = Termination
3 Tardy = 1 no show = Termination
Also going into effect March 31st is an updated EAPH(expected average per hour) program. Highlights of this include a decrease in pay if you do not meet aph expectations. Also, team leaders can get there pay lowered if there team doesnt meet expectations. I'm sure they will jump on every chance at lowering someones pay and not notice when someone is due for a raise.
The company that I loved working for has really gone down hill. And I have been an employee for a long time. I see the same attitude among fellow auditors.
It wasn't always like this. Maybe it's just the district I work for.
They are trying to push us higher paid old timers out the door. Now, there are stores where auditors over 11 dollars are not permitted to work. I see drastically reduced hours now. I see stores filled with only 8 dollar people (That's our entry pay here.) I see 8 dollar people that get scheduled in the morning and evening the same day while a higher paid auditor, available the same day, gets the day off.
And now this. There will be favoritism when it comes to the 1 no show thing. There will be people that dont get fired from it. There sure as hell will be people getting more than 3 tardies and not getting fired.
Thank you for keeping track of this blog and posting our comments Misfit.
Misfit, lol. You are so right about the no show policy. I have been working for years and have been asked to sign a version of this policy on several occasions.
I just got mine in the mail. The catch phrase on it is this "deemed to be a no show at the discretion of your DM". LOL LOL sound familiar??
anon. at 6:48 pm: "At the discretion of the DM." Oh that's droll. Of course we know what that means right? At least, I know what that would have meant in my district. It would've meant that the DM's buddies would have skated on every late arrival and no show while the rest of us would gotten written up. Because as we all know, few if any people ever get fired from RGIS, since they're so hard up for auditors.
anon at Sun 8:43 am: You're so welcome! And thank you for reading my blog and posting your comments here. I hope people will continue to do so. Who knows, I might actually come up with another post!
anon. at Sun March 25 8:18 am: How in the world does RGIS expect to keep any auditors if they continue to treat them this way? What happened to loyalty to the auditors that have stuck with the company for so long (I mean, long enough for them to get enough puny raises to push their pay level to $11.00 +)? That really is terrible, if it's a company-wide thing. Of course it's terrible too if it's only in one district. You're right, this company has really gone downhill.
And you're dead-on about the favoritism thing. That definitely is not a single-district problem; that's company-wide.
James: Thanks for the kind words, and I hope you continue to read and enjoy my blog, and to leave your comments here as well.
Wow, I've never heard of or seen the newest audit machines that you describe. Built in lasers, hmm? That sounds interesting. But trust RGIS equipment not to work smoothly, right?
anon. at Sat 3/24 at 9:44 am: Hmm, interesting. But most inportantly, I wonder what this will mean for the auditors?
anon. at Sat. 3/24 9:33 am: That's too funny, someone selling a RGIS shirt on Ebay. I wonder if they have any bids on it yet? :)
I know, in my dist. it too was difficult trying to get an extra shirt out of those guys. What, did they only want us to have one, not wash it for a week and have us all smell like gross Mondo?
Misfit: They are phasing in the new Audit 50i machines division by division.
I seen a photo of them once back in the prototype stages and lets just say I am excited to try them out when they hit the Northwest division and get back to you on them :)
Funny blog, please add to it.
D74 Chicagoland here.
Its March and we are on our 4th DM this year.
When I worked in San Diego I had one shirt for a year - what a laugh. When I came to Tucson, the Secretary gave me three - but they give out used shirts!!!!! I had to sew up the holes in one before I wore it.
I am the auditor that was stuck in a van for three hours in shithole Noglaes while we waited for our AM. Well, we found a box of new shirts in the back of the van (All of a sudden I had new shirts_HEHEHE) When I left I turned in the old ones and kept a couple of new ones for old times sake (Halloween???)
Anonymous at 8:18....we just received that no show policy and the new EAPH form also. I can't believe anyone is actually signing those forms. In our District, they have sent us the EAPH forms to sign on 4 different occasions with so-called deadlines as to when they have to be signed. Thus far, the majority of the people in our District have refused to sign them whenever they were mailed. This form is telling you that they can reduce your pay and you are actually agreeing to it by signing.
A few people have taken the form to an attorney and his advice was "don't sign it". In our District, we are not ever provided with what our EAPH should be in any store. Yet, 50 stores later, people are receiving letters that their pays will be cut because they did not meet their EAPH 100 percent. Which is what, for instance? If you don't tell them, how can they meet it? There is a sentence at the beginning of this form that says "your supervisor in every inventory should be able to tell you your expected EAPH". Yet, I have never been in a store where anyone could tell me. Also, I run a lot of stores. No one has ever provided me with a list of what everyone's EAPH should be in those stores so I could tell them.
That was the attorney's problem with the form. If they are not giving you the "goal", then they can't after 50 stores say, "oops...you didn't reach your goal." He said that they can be challenged legally with cutting pays without giving people exactly what their EAPH should be. Maybe there are Districts out there who are actually providing it, but ours is definitely not. Also, many people in our District have started getting the dreaded EAPH review for 50 stores. So far, everyone who has gotten one is being told they did not meet their EAPH. Some have been told their pays will be cut by as much as 2.00 an hour unless they meet it within the next 30 days or 10 stores. Again, meet it?? What exactly is it?? We have one team leader here who is running very large stores that managers would normally run because we are 2 AM's short. She has an 'ace grocery team'. She just got a letter yesterday that her pay will be cut if her teams' EAPH does not improve. So thank you so much for running those larger stores for us and taking on more responsibility with no incentive such as bonuses.
Your reward....we will cut your pay unless your teams EAPH increases in the next 10 stores.
One of the people on my team got one of those letters on Friday.
She is my best counter. She has been around for many years, can really key, and is excellent at scanning. She is always one of the highest counters in my stores.
She is not what I would say is overpaid after so many years. She makes 11.25 an hour. Her letter said she has not met her EAPH so her pay will be cut by 45 cents an hour. What hurt her is that she was running flows in larger stores in January with 20 new people in them. They were always asking her questions and stopping her from counting. She also is always available to stay and pull tags just to get a few extra hours because she is a single mother. Her thanks.....we are cutting your pay. There is absolutely nothing in this system that allows for pulling tags, working on the portable, etc. It is all about averages. As a result, you are seeing more cherry picking than ever before, and batching so as to raise the almighty EAPH. There is no more team work. It is all about the individual and their EAPH. This is what the famous EAPH system is all about.
anon. at 3/27 11:57 am: Goodness, with all of this nonsense that RGIS is trying to pull lately, how are they keeping ANY of their auditors? Or any of their employees, for that matter.
Good for the people that contacted an attorney regarding the EAPH form. Did the managers find out about it, I wonder?
The situations that you described sound just horrible. RGIS certainly sounds like it's really going downhill even faster than I thought. It sounds even worse now than it was when I was working for them. And that was pretty bad!
How I would love to hear that an entire district's worth of auditors and Team Leaders just quit en masse. That would show them!
anon. at 3/27 9:24 am: Loved the shirt story. When they gave me my first shirt our AAM told me to add a capful of vinegar to the wash because the lovely burgundy color might bleed all over the rest of your laundry. Cheap fabrics will do that!
A box full of new polos...score! How many did you take? I would have helped myself to half a dozen or so. Actually, that's how many I still have, even though I left RGIS a long time ago. I still have my leather belt and tag bags too. The policy is that you're supposed to turn them in when you leave the company but screw that.
Thanks D74! I stopped writing original posts because I had just run out of stories about my district. But I'm combing through the cobwebs in my memory trying to find a few more good ones. If I do find some you'll see them in this blog! :)
Agent Skelly (March 26): Yes, please let me know how the new audits do. I'm curious about them. Where is the laser part of it?
anon at Tue Mar 27, 11:57:00 AM 2007:
Everything you say is so true. I refuse to sign these forms. I'm not signing any form that says they can lower my pay. I worked damned hard to get my raises. I have flashbacks of stores I was in over 24 hours, stores I went to on my days off, Januarys of never ending morning to night shifts with no days off.
Now if I don't cherry pick over the next couple months I can lose what I RIGHTFULLY and PAINFULLY earned?
There is a reason some easy to count stores will have lower than average EAPH. It's because of the crap areas in them such as accessories or what have you. Someone has to do them and someone will not be making average in the store.
My district has been so chatty the last week about this stupid new system and how it WON'T work. Unless their only goal is to get rid of auditors and team leaders.
Over the last year we have lost many of our old old time teamleaders and auditors. The ones that have been around over 10 years.
Why would they all leave now? They stuck through a lot of stuff over the years. Why would they all leave now? MAYBE RGIS IS DOING SOMETHING WRONG! WISE UP IDIOTS! Who the hell is going to count in your stores.
Misfit: Love the blog. You surely get a lot of people that view it even though you stopped updating it. Perhaps some of your readers can submit stories to you and you can approve a couple for a couple updates. This blog has been a magnet to disgruntled auditors everywhere. I'd hate to see it die out.
anon. at 3/27/07, 7:21 pm: Thanks so much for your kind words about my blog! I've had so much fun writing it, and even more fun enjoying the reactions and comments to it. And even though I haven't had any new, real posts lately...this blog will never die! I'll always continue to read and publish comments, and leave comments of my own. And who knows? Maybe I'll come up with a brand new post someday soon...
Regarding the whole EAPH thing, does anyone know if WIS has the same thing going on in their company? I wonder.
I signed the paper for the EAPH. Why? I know for fact I am hitting all my EAPH targets so its no problem for me.
And FYI, to those who complain about this system, this performance-based raise system was actually demanded by auditors I know for a fact in the Northeast division back in 2005 and thats why its going live.
Also, people forget this is the first nationwide field implementation of the system and I can guarantee any problems will be addressed when HQ gets feedback after a bit from the new system.
misfit on 3/26:I only got two shirts cause they were all big sizes. Only 2 size medium. As it is, they go way past my butt so it looks like you have a diaper on when you tuck em in. I would chop off about 5 inches with a rotary cutter then sew them with binding. When I turned in a shirt like this, my Cali.DM whinned and sniveled like crazy. He said no one else could wear it. So I said throw it away!!!! (Like I gave a shit).
After I got the new ones I left the holey ones hanging in my closet and never wore them, but turned them in when I left. Some other poor sucker is probably wearing 'em now.
Here's another laugh re clothing: All the women auditors buy pants at the thrift stores cause we won't crawl around on the floor in nice dockers or lees ($5 used pants are fine). The thrift store had red RGIS shirts for sale for $4.00!! HA - they should be free.
Looks like S&P lowered their credit rating AGAIN...
http://www.alacrastore.com/storecontent/spcred/568867
RGIS Inventory Specialists 'B+' CCR On Watch Neg After Blackstone Affiliate Deal Announced
Mar 23, 2007
NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) March ##, ####--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today it placed its ratings, including the '##' corporate rating, on Auburn Hills, Mich.ûbased RGIS Inventory Specialists on CreditWatch with negative implications. This rating action follows the announcement that an affiliate of the Blackstone Group has agreed to purchase a majority equity stake in the company. Goldman, Sachs&Co. has committed to provide bank debt and mezzanine financing. "Although specific terms have not been disclosed," said Standard&Poor's credit analyst Charles Pinson-Rose, "we believe that the transaction will most likely result in increased debt leverage and weakened cash flow protection ratios." The current ratings are based on inconsistent operating performance and a highly leveraged capital
Agentskelly....really?? Spoken like an auditor with no extra responsibilities, like running a team, etc. or like a member of upper management. How in the world can you guarantee that HQ will address anything about the EAPH? As far as the Northeast Division asking for this...wrong!!!
Maybe a few auditors in your former District did, but I am in the Northeast Division and no one at our end ever asked for this. Why would we? How fair do you think it is for team leaders who run stores, and hit their own EAPH all the time have their raises based on the EAPH of the 10 or more people on their team? How would you like to be running large manager type stores and have them tell you your pay is going down because the rest of your team is not hitting their EAPH 100 percent of the time? How about the people who are consistently giving the worst areas in stores by managers?
What happens to those people? Do you think that is fair? Yeah, you probably would because this is what this EAPH system has done. Taken the team work out of the job and made it each man for himself. and, obviously, your District is providing you with your EAPH for every store but ours isn't. And, if you know your EAPH then perhaps you can tell us the formula they use to figure it out. Because it is a formula that changes your EAPH in every store. Please explain to us what goes into determining the EAPH.
exauditor: The "thrift store pants" thing is an excellent idea. You're right, why ruin a nice pair of pants crawling around a Home Depot? :)
Does RGIS still sell pants? I remember when I was still working for them they had pants for sale in their newsletter. Cheapo quality for around $15.00 or so.
Lol! Did you see the burgundy RGIS polo on sale on Ebay? I haven't checked lately to see if anyone's bidding on it.
Misfit, 3/30/07: I just checked out the ebay shirt- it is described as "gently used" HA. There are no RGIS items that are used gently. I wonder who sweat on it, wiped their face on it, coughed, sneezed, etc. The price is $3.99 but SHIPPING is $4.50. No bids cause it is "buy now".
The talk re: Going into a store when an inventory is on is hilarious. RGIS did all the OSCO conversions to CVS here in Tucson. I walked into one not realizing and could not get out of there fast enough. I did look around and not see one face I recognized. I think the last 6 months have caused a mass exodus. The voters of AZ approved a minimum wage this year. RGIS always paid federal minimum wage for travel ($5.15/hr) so now they have to pay about $1.50/hr more. Contacts have told me that this district gave no raises due to this additional cost. No Kiddin???
Eaph...what a joke!!!!! One of the people in our District just got a review letter. "You have not met your EAPH. Unless you meet it in the next 10 stores or 30 days, your pay will be decreased to reflect that. Your hourly pay decrease will be 5 cents." This is not a joke. That is the letter she received. They have got to be kidding!!!!! 5 cents?? Has this company sunk so low that they need her 5 cents that badly?? If she works 40 hours, they will be saving 2.00. Give me a break.
exauditor: Lol! That's exactly what I do when I see RGIS shirts and yellow tags, walking into a Long's Drugs. You never saw anyone execute a turn-around so fast. However, I AM curious to see the new audit machines, the ones with the built-in lasers.
anon. at 4/2/07, 11:21 am: Five cents? How ridiculous. I don't think I've ever heard of a company that does this, except for RGIS. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Why oh why are people staying with this company? I liked the counting aspect of the auditor's job but there's no way in hell I would stay there now, were I still with them. Run! Run for your lives!
The new machines with the built in lasers are out in some areas. They are due to be in my District this month. They do have some problems. My AM has seen them and tried them. They are very awkward to use in tight spaces. Instead of trying to get a laser in a tight space, you are trying to fit a hand held machine. They do have the port to connect the regular lasers though. And, they are going to be difficult in keying inventories. My AM has been around for over 20 years and can really key. His fingers are too big for this keypad. He said that when he put his finger on the 5, it also touched the 4 and 6. He said the fast keyers will see a major difference in the EAPH with these. The biggest problem with them is that they use rechargeable batteries. My AM sees major problems with that in busy times.
Often, you come home from an inventory after midnight and you have to be in a store at 6 a.m. You have to remember to charge the batteries before you go to bed. And, will that be enough time to recharge them fully. They come with one extra set of batteries that you should keep charged. But in stores that go on all day, they will probably need both sets. That will mean battery chargers will need to be brought to all inventories. In our District, they are keeping the blue audits for financial inventories as they realize the new equipment will slow down the inventories. The new machines can also be worn on a belt but were more designed to be hand held. We don't know how many we will be receiving but it is not the number they originally said we would. We are a huge District as they merged another District with us. The company that made our equipment for years has parted ways with RGIS and have now started their own inventory service. They are PICS Inventory. So, they obviously have the same technology as us. We are hearing that they are recruiting DM's and AM's that have left RGIS. I would keep my eye on this company being the next big inventory service. We, in our District, find it really interesting that they put out a new EAPH form to sign just before they brought in new equipment that they know will slow people down a bit. Coincidence?
I don't think so.
04/03/07 at 8:40 am: Interesting information. I didn't realise that the keypads would be smaller too. I too agree that it's sounds like it's going to be difficult for some to keep up their averages on those machines. And in regards to your last statement regarding the new machines and the whole EAPH controversy: I was just thinking the same thing while I was reading your post!
This will be death to fast keyers. I spent too many years using a calculator on a desk and could never get speed with the keyboard laying vertical. Its like the keys are in a different place. I often wished for a machine with a keyboard that would tilt up or down so it could be horizontal.
You know, I wasn't going to respond anymore talk about the APH goals, but you know what, I will.
First of all...the people who say they do not know there store's APH for whatever reason need to think here.
If its a UPC Scan grocery store, anything above 2500 will be fine usually.
Hardlines is usually 2500 to 3000, but just to be safe, aim for 3000.
Softlines is usually either 700 or 800, but again aim for 800 just to be safe.
If you do that, you will be fine.
As for the new audits, they have not showed up here at D408, yet, but a birdie has told me that the integrated laser is for auto-scan inventories such as in softlines.
And FYI, Misfit, I need to talk to you in private....I have something interesting to tell you.
Oh, another thing...
Another auditor I know who barely remembers them switching to using a "machine" remembers people whining about the machines as well as the similar points people here are making about the EAPH, but even worse, they used the stupid argument of "I am faster with paper and pencil than a machine!"
And to guy who mentioned PICS inventory....you are talking about AST, the maker of the Audit 12s and lower, right?
exauditor: That was always one of my "goals" when I was an auditor: to be able to key as fast sitting down with audit machine on tabletop as I could standing with the machine hanging off my belt. When I was a newbie I used to watch the vets key in sheets of pre-counted merchandise in stores. They would always have this blase attitude as they sat at a small card table, with sheets in one hand and the machine on the table. They never looked at the machine, just the printed sheets. It looked so cool to me and I thought to myself, "I want to be able to do that!"
When news of the Top Gun contest came around one year our managers were desperate for people in our district to try out for it (no one was interested because no one from our district had won in years) so they even asked me, a quasi-newbie to try out for it. They said I would get some good experience trying out that year and then maybe next year I might have a chance to win. They loaned me an audit machine to take home (one of the old green ones) and a copy of the Liberty House test (which would be used in the actual contest) so that I could practice. I practiced at home sitting at my desk and lo and behold, I could key tabletop style!
Oh, and the contest? I won! Screw the managers and their "Oh, maybe next year you might have a chance."
AgentSkelly: Pencil and paper? Lol, when was that, the Dark Ages? I think in one of the RGIS newsletters one old-timer talked about some old audit machines that were so large the auditors had to tote them around in shopping carts.
AgentSkelly (and everyone): If anyone has anything confidential that they want to discuss with me (you know, for my eyes only!) please feel free to post it here. Just make sure you note on the post that it's confidential, and NOT to be published. Since I've enabled comment moderation on this blog no posts get published until I've had a chance to read and approve them first. I promise not to publish your comments here if you want to keep them private. You can include your email address or some other internet address where I can contact you if necessary.
Thanks everyone for reading and posting!
Nice try Agenskelly. But you are talking about the old APH system and not the EAPH. The EAPH is different for everyone in all stores. It is a formula that involves the rate charged to the store and your hourly rate. So, my EAPH in a store would probably be very different than yours. And if my EAPH is for instance 900 in softlines in a certain store yours could be 700 because of the difference in our hourly rate. It used to be the way you describe in the past but it isn't anymore. That is why I asked you to describe the formula since you were guaranteeing that HQ would address it. However, you are obviously not even aware of the formula they use. And, since the EAPH of each auditor changes in every store, that is what they are supposed to be telling you in every store and they are not. And since it has always been company policy to not tell the auditors what they are charging for an inventory and they do not even tell the team leaders running the stores, then you can't figure it yourself. However, once they know who is scheduled in a store, they also know those auditors rate of pay, and the rate to the store. It would just be a simple matter to include in the packages that : Auditor A...you EAPH for this store is 500, B yours is 600, etc
I discussed this exact matter with my Ops manager, and he said that spreadsheets should be included in every store package with the EAPH for each auditor on it so they can be told their goal. Our District is not doing it. I take it yours isn't either because you are talking APH and not EAPH (earned average per hour).
We had one of our first runs of raises and pay decrease warnings. Everyone gets a letter with them stating not to talk about theirs with other employees. But obviously a lot do anyway.
One of our employees, no joke, got a 1 penny raise.
What an insult, ha!
anon. at 4/5/07, 4:49 am: A one-cent raise? That is insulting! And mean too. Could it have been a mistake? If not, then I've said it before and I'll say it again: RGIS sucks!
I`ve been following this blog for the past year, and I would like to ask some questions about this EAPH system.I`m interested if anyone has any REAL answers.I`ve been with RGIS for more than a decade, serving as a team leader for most of this time;I`m not some naieve newhire.I`m very familiar with billing rates and all the cheating methods that RGIS employs.However, since I run a honest store,I am not on the best of terms with my local management.My first question,and the most important, is how can RGIS fairly evaluate anyone`s APH? A lot of stores have both a auto quantity and a multiple quantity program. The multiple quantity program, even if used by as few as one or two auditors, will significantly raise the overall APH for the entire store.People working only with the auto quantity program will APPEAR to have below average APH`s for the store, because those few auditors on the multiple quantity program have raised the OVERALL APH.For example,let`s say the average APH for auto quantity is 500 pieces per hour, and for multiple qty is 3,000 pcs an hour. Those few people doing the mult. qty prelists or stockroom are going to jack up the overall store average to maybe 800 pcs/hr or more.Some poor auditor busting his/her butt counting 700 pcs/hr on auto qty will appear to have a below average APH.If everyone`s APH is evaluated against the APH for the whole store,90% of the auditors( the ones on auto quantity) will look to be below average; only the few on the multiple program will come out with APH,s above the store average.I would also like to point out that people involved in the stockroom count in any given store are more likely to have higher APH`s than those doing the salesfloor only.This is because many stores have a higher proportion of merchandise in the stockroom; also sometimes the only multiple quantity program used for the store is in the stockroom only.( Note to rookies: It`s always an advantage to your APH to work the stockroom time, provided there is a multiple quantity program allowed!)
I keep hearing that everyone`s APH`s with be compared only to those making the same pay.My next question is how can people be fairly evaluated when there is rampant nepotism and favortism in the RGIS ranks? I have witnessed numerous occasions where the DM or AM have given the areas with the highest APH potential to a relative or "pet" auditor, and the crappy hard-to-count/low piece count areas to good auditors that they personally don`t like.Lately, I have seen top auditors being sent to terrible areas, condeming them to a poor APH for that store.
I myself experienced this recently: A OPS manager went out of his way to pull me out of HABA and into the furniture( sku check hell) area of a large store.A hour and a half , and only 700 pieces later, my APH had dropped from about 3000 per hour to under 2000 per hour, effectively ruining my APH for the day.I know that this was no coincidence.We`ve had a lot of long, drawn out inventories lately.Strange as this may seem, it appears RGIS has been putting a higher priority on sabotaging veteran auditor`s APH`s than running an efficient store!I wonder if many of us veterans are being "set up" in this manner for a pay reduction.
I certainly see abuses in a APH system where people are pitted against others in the same pay bracket.I know in a grocery store some folks will now get stuck with dairy. deli, produce, coffin coolers, etc.all the time while the management`s friends and relatives get to count the wine, HABA, and Tobacco! Who is going to insure that all auditors get an equal opportunity to count the big dollar items?
The other way people will be abused--I have not heard how this issue will be addressed--is the store wrap up.A person`s good store APH can be easily ruined by keeping the auditor late for either yellow/area tag pulling or doing recounts, or equipment roundup.It is not uncommon for a wrap up to go a hour or two. If some poor auditor is standing around or pulling yellows, his/her APH is ZERO, he/she is taking a big APH hit.If a manager wants to ruin someone`s APH, he/she just needs to hold that auditor "hostage" for the store wrap up.In my district, the friends and relatives of the manager nearly always are allowed to go home early, avoiding this problem, while others like myself seem to be kept at the store, with their APH clock still ticking.
It was for sure not a mistake. The few I talked to one got a 12 cent raise and the others 10 cent or lower. With the lowest being Mr Penny as he is now know as. This also was his first raise in his 2 years working with us.
It's hard to want to do well in stores when you don't feel appreciated.
RGIS would do well to stop seeing us as just numbers with dollar signs in their eyes.
We have spreadsheets (if you can call it a spreadsheet when it only has two columns) in our district showing us our EAPH for most stores. I guess the secretary forgets (or, since her hours are cut, doesn't have time) and it doesn't always make it in the packet, but it's usually there showing the goal that is indeed different per store. The other day in a Homeland, I finished off the sheet -- and not in a good way (well below the starting wage): guess I won't be doing both of the damn dollar aisles next time. Of course, today I had to do a "Special Project" (literally what it was called in Oracle) counting Wal-Mart magazines and the EAPH even for $19.75 was easily attainable, even running the store. It all seems like a crap-shoot.
Although, if you really want to make sure you hit your EAPH, there's a little trick that I've heard of, and it works best in multi-district stores:
Grab a bunch of machines, set the program, put your ID in the machine and hand it to someone (probably someone new, so they won't change it). Even if they're terrible at counting, when you have 4 people counting for you, it'll add up.
(I actually heard that from a manager friend who used to work for WIS and had seen someone do it, though of course it was slightly different for WIS than for RGIS.)
Regarding the new audits, our Ops manager said they let people of varying levels of experience with the company (several years, few years, no years) and they "loved it". But I had the same questions about the batteries and about where to hang it for auto-1. I'm more leery about the idea that they'd be able to see information coming in as it was counted. While that information may be inaccurate, I heard it was a possibility with the new machines, and it sounds very Big Brother-ish.
Still planning on getting back to you on the driver business.
-Oklahoma
Misfit, that 1 cent raise is probably not a mistake as they are not rounding the numbers anymore.
For instance, my husband as a team leader, just got 27 cents. He has an extremely productive team. The EAPH of team leaders is not taken into account. It is based on their teams EAPH. Some in our District have gotten letters that their pays could be reduced by 8 cents. Some have gotten letters that their pays are going up by 5 cents. Insulting? you bet it is.
Misfit, I've been reading your blog for a very long time. It was brought to my attention by one of my team leaders. I have not posted before but I feel the need to post now as it applies to the Eaph. I am an AM. I have read the different posts about it. First of all, the Eaph is based on a formula that takes into account several factors such as hourly rate, and charge to the customer.
For team leaders, the formula is more complex involving the Eaph of everyone on their respective teams.
We at a management level, are not happy with this new system. I agree that it has taken out the 'favoritism' aspect of pay increases where some got raises that were not necessarily deserved in the past. But, now, it has gone too far in the other direction. It is only taking averages into consideration. Before, when reviewing people for raises, other things such as dependability came into play. Every District has people who may not be the fastest counters or the slowest. Those middle of the road people who you know when you schedule them that they will be there.
Those people you know you can call at 6 am or 10 p.m. if you are stuck in a store and they will get out of their warm, comfortable beds and come to help you. With the old system, you could take that into consideration for pay increases. Not anymore. People have become obsessed with checking their averages on their machines, and it is promoting cherry picking, batching and hacking. The minute a store is done, people are running for their coats and going out the door because they do not want to stay to pull tags, etc. because their Eaph will go down. And, the people who are hitting their Eaph are often creating problems in stores with their batching, etc. that the people running the stores are staying behind to fix for hours after the inventory is complete.
We always tell our team leaders, especially females, to keep someone with them at the end of the inventory so they are not walking through dark lots or parking garages by themselves. They are having a problem getting people to stay now when in the past, someone was always willing and didn't mind the extra hour or so of pay. Now, if they stay behind, their Eaph is going down because they are still on the clock and they do not want to get a letter telling them their pay will decrease hourly for doing this favor. See what I mean? This system is a problem in many ways. And, the safety factor for a company so concerned with safety in stores, becomes a problem because of averages. We realize at some point that we are going to lose very valuable people, I mean those team leaders who run a lot of stores for us. Those people who have been around a long time and their hourly rates have gone to a higher level. However, since the team leaders increases are based on everyone on their team, most will face pay decreases in time. We hire new people all the time and put them on these teams. obviously, those people may not be hitting their Eaph in every store just starting out. And, the burden falls on the team leader's shoulders. How long are the people who take on the extra responsibilities going to stay if their pays start going backwards?
We see this as a problem that will evolve, yet we have absolutely no say in the matter either.
To the person who posted to strive for certain numbers in stores and everything should be ok: wrong advice since everyone's average is now based on their own hourly pay.
800 in a scanning inventory might be OK or great for some. It might be too low for others.
It is a system that is good for new people coming in the door whose Eaph is low. They can get some fairly good increases if they are good at the job. However, please keep in mind that every time someone gets a raise, their Eaph goes up to reflect that. You get a raise, you need to count more. If you don't, your pay is going down.
Sorry this is so long, but I felt they system needed some
explanation and to let everyone know that most managers are not crazy about it because it is too one sided with averages and has no room for anything else. In most stores lately, I have been pulling all the tags myself because I have a hard time getting people to stay with this Eaph thing, and secondly, I do not want people who are just getting their averages to have their pays adjusted down because they stayed behind.
OTL: Thanks for reading my blog, and leaving your comments. I hope you'll continue to do so. Scroll down a few comments below yours and you'll see a very interesting post from an AM also regarding EAPHs. It's nice to get a viewpoint on this matter from a manager, especially one who might share your point of view.
OTL, I liked your comment about RGIS' "cheating methods". That sounds awfully familiar to me. I really had to keep careful track of my hours when I worked for RGIS; I mean like an eagle eye was required when you looked over your paycheck.
OTL, you sound really frustrated with everything that's going on right now concerning your RGIS job. I hope you find some answers here from other people's comments, and too I hope that commenting here will be a sort of catharsis for you. God knows it sounds like good auditors and TLs and managers need someplace to vent their frustration and communicate with others regarding all things RGIS, and I am more than delighted to provide a place where everyone can do just that.
anon. at 4/5/07, 9:34 pm: Mr. Penny! Love that nickname! Poor guy.
Your comment about how it's hard to want to do well in stores when you're not feeling appreciated by RGIS is dead on. The powers at be at RGIS however don't seem to feel that way. It seems that they think this EAPH thing is the way to reward "good" counters, but judging from the comments here few people agree with that. Say hi to Mr. Penny for me.
Oklahoma: Interesting, devious little trick there you described! Programming your ID into other people's machines. I wonder what would happen if someone got caught doing that? Would they be fired on the spot (a rarity for RGIS, right?), or would they be rewarded for their cleverness? Hmm... It's interesting too, that you mentioned WIS. I wonder if they're having the same problems regarding EAPHs and things like that.
anon. at 4/6/07, 8:50 am: 27 cents, 8 cents, 5 cents, it just all sounds so bizarre. Your husband must be so frustrated! And judging from a lot of the comments left here he's definitely not the only one. I still can't believe that with all the shoddy treatment that RGIS has been showing their employees they're still managing to hang onto people, that people are still willing to work for them. How do they do it? Maybe you can tell me why your husband continues to work for RGIS? Does he really like the job that much? Or is he too starting to experience RGIS burnout? I wouldn't blame him if he was.
AM at 4/6/07, 9:35 am: Thank you so much for leaving your comment here regarding the whole EAPH controversy. It's nice whenever we can get the viewpoint from someone in district management. You sound like a very caring and concerned manager, and I'm sorry to say that in my experience with RGIS that was a rarity indeed. I liked what you wrote about those auditors who you know you can call at the last minute and who will fill in for you in a pinch, and you wanting to reward them with raises based on that but now you're unable to do so. Sounds so frustrating, frustrating being a word that I find myself using in describing how it seems everyone's feeling regarding this EAPH thing. The EAPH sounds like a big disaster all the way around.
AM, it was nice to read too that you have a concern with female employees who are running stores late into the night. We had one manager who always made sure that female auditors and TLs had escorts to the parking lots late at night, but unfortunately he turned out to be a perv himself and was fired. Ironic, isn't it? And he was the only one who thought about things like that. No one else in my district could have cared less about female auditors alone in mall parking lots at 2:30 am.
Thanks again for leaving your comments.
to the AM who posted: my AM feels the same way. He said running stores is not fun anymore. Every store has good and bad areas to count. Now, when you try to assign the bad areas, every one is mouthing off and refusing to count them. He is extremely fair and tries to mix up who gets those areas. Another problem he has is trying to get someone to do recounts. There are stores with outside auditors requiring someone to just go with them and do recounts. Someone has to stop counting and do these recounts. That person's eaph is going down the whole time. Nothing in the system for that either. Now, no one wants to do recounts because they do not want to get a letter decreasing their pays.
To the team leader who posted...the only people in a store who should have the same eaph are those making the same exact hourly pay. It isn't the stores APH that really matters but the auditors' personal eaph. And, yes, the favoritism is still appearing in our District too. People are being given high quantity or dollar areas to insure meeting their eaph by some of our managers too. Mine is fair but the others are not always.
Regarding the cheating method of concurrently using audits with the same ID number : That`s a variation of an old manager trick I first saw many years ago in grocery stores.The AM or DM would give unsuspecting auditors an audit with the header--usually the managers, or a favorite auditor-- already enterd in.Of course the result was zero dollars per hour for the auditor , instead the APH being credited to the manager or pet.This was in the days when it was still OK for managers to count. Some auditors, including myself, got wise to this and would do a contol 8 minus and re-enter the header.
I also want to say something about a TL`s pay being related to his APH of his/her team.That has to be the most unfair aspect of this EAPH system. I work in a very urban part of a large RGIS district.The local economy here is quite good, consequently we have an extremely difficult time attracting and keeping anyone on my team, despite one of the highest starting pay rates in all of RGIS.Our employee turnover has to be 200 or 300% here; we cycle through at least several generations of newhires in any given year.Many of the ones that stick are unreliable losers that would have a hard time holding a "real" regular job.I have people that have been around for years that look like slobs and smell like Mondo, others that are probable alcoholics or drug users, the occasional gang member or ex con,plus the usual compliment of incompetents, some of whom, after a year or two on a job, still don`t know how to turn on a machine or take readings.It`s rare to have everyone show up as scheduled; absenteeism usually runs 10 to 50%.I`ve constantly lobbied for better training and discipline;the management does not address any of these problems becuse we are so shorthanded.They will take any kind of body to count in a store( as long as they aren`t running it).
I spend a lot of time fixing stupid mistakes that should not happen, and apolgizing to the store.I often do not have the luxury of having other grayshirts to help me research and correct problems that managers have.It is really embarassing to run a high end store with some of the above mentioned people.
And now, they are going to make me the scapegoat for my team.I do not have any conrol over hiring.Or training, which is often very abbreviated and substandard .I also do not do the scheduling--we have central scheduling.Since I happen to live in this team`s boundaries, I get this sad sack crew often.I bust my ass to pull off successful inventories, and get better than average PIQA`s.I`ve never been late to, or canceled out of a store I was running.Yet,I haven`t had a raise in more than two years, and now my pay can be cut because of this contrived system. Not very fair, in my opinion.I know there are a lot of others in my position, and I hear that lots of TL`s are quitting because of this situation.
I was just wondering if any of the other team leaders do what I do. When I learned that my APH didn't matter at all anymore I started counting under my team members employee numbers if one of them was in a store I was in. I figured that at least this way, what I count does count towards my raise. It may unfairly inflate that person's average, but I have a fairly slow team. It may not work, but it can't hurt to try.
Now they are taking away the 90-day review test, the one in which you get a pay increase if you pass it. New policy is that auditors who have reached the 90-day point(these days not that many) will be reviewed based on EAPH only. If they have met the EAPH, they will be given an appropriate increase. However, many managers do not provide this information so that auditors can know ahead of time what the magic number is in each store. And if auditors do 10-item searches or pull tags, and this causes their APH to fall below the goal, that's just too bad. The impression is that nothing else matters except making a profit. This will lead to big-time batching. What is the point of integrity if it is not rewarded?
The new NO SHOW policy has been revised to allow for one unexcused absence, one more will lead to termination. Yet auditors are still scheduled for back-to-back inventories(first at night, then the following morning). When this happens, the evening store is always short-staffed and lasts until dawn, so that auditors will have just enough time to get to the morning store. This is going to create major problems. It isn't fair to work people like this and expect everything to be fine because it won't be.
Bizzy:
How can they differentiate in the APH whether you were running a store, or not? If you`re like me,half the time you`re running stores and the other half the time you`re just counting.It seems like one`s APH will be just one lump sum average, which ,of course, will make you look bad because of all the stores you ran and did relatively little counting.Counting under someone else`s ID is not going to change the overall APH of any given store.A ruthless DM ( and we know there`s a lot of them out there )may use your individual zero APH for a store against you,claiming that you are lazy or inefficient, etc. Just another reason to use to deny you a raise.
Another question to ponder: What if you are not running a store but the management uses you to run the floor and answer questions from newbies, run down missing areas, etc.This can happen to any auditor, whether they are a supervisor or not.In this case your APH will take a big hit; anyone who has done this knows that it`s hard to count very much when you are constantly interrupted.When a person`s overall APH is being tallied is the DM going to say: "Don`t include that store in that person`s APH because he/she was running the floor." We all know that is not going to happen.It is going to cost you when APH/raises are calculated.So much for the "taking one for the team" theory.
Misfit, I am giving myself a name like you requested.
To O T L...boy, can I sympathize with you. I am in the same position. I have 14 people on my team and their EAPH rests on my shoulders. I have heard so many different explanations about how our EAPH falls into this, I don't know what is true anymore. My AM told me originally that our EAPH in any store doesn't count at all.
It is all about our teams EAPH. My DM told me that our EAPH is automatically zero in stores we are running with 10 people or more because they do not expect us to count in those stores, but that our EAPH counts in stores that the managers are running and we are only counting in. Now, my AM is telling me the same thing as my DM with a twist. If we are running stores that are 3-4 people, then we are expected to count at 80-90 percent of our EAPH. What are you hearing about this? My District can't seem to keep their story the same every time I ask. Also, I have an added problem that you don't have. We have gone away from centralized scheduling and are scheduling our own teams. Which means a lot more of my time is spent on scheduling, getting calls from the office asking me to add people to stores, move people to other stores, etc. But, I will probably never get a raise again or my pay will probably go down.
Why? Several people on my team have received letters that they have not met their EAPH and their pays will decrease. And, since they seem to hold the TL's responsible, then if they go down, I have to assume I will go down too. That is why I have not signed their EAPH form, nor will I.
I've been around for a lot of years, and I'm not a newbie team leader either. I have worked hard and long for the raises I have gotten. I have zero control over the kind of people they hire, yet what they count is my responsibility. My AM tells me that my teams EAPH only effects me in stores I am running. However, when I asked my Ops Manager, he said they effect me no matter what store they are in even if I'm not there. What are you hearing about that? I'm interested to see what other Districts are telling their team leaders. I've told my AM that the first time they send me a letter that my pay is going down because of my team, I am stepping down. Also, think about this a little bit. I asked my AM if his raise depends on how much all the people on his 3 teams count, and he said 'of course not'. Uh?? shouldn't it extend to them too.
If the team leaders are responsible for the people on their teams averages, shouldn't the AM's be responsible for all the people on all their teams?
As far as pulling tags, recounts, etc. it would be very easy for them to know when we stop counting to do something else. The TCA could be the answer. If the company was interested in being fair, they could write an event code into the TCA. For instance, event 2, pulling tags. Event 3, doing recounts. That would at least flag them when people actually stopped counting and started doing something else and they could figure averages on time counting instead of time in store.
That's if they really wanted to be fair.
As far as them knowing when we are running a store, or just counting, we do put our names as supervisors when we transmit.
Don't think our DM's are controlling too much of this. From what my AM tells me, our names just automatically come up for review on their computers from HQ.
@ o t l...
I don't understand your comment. I am not trying to change the overall average of the store, I am trying to change the overall average of my team. I don't care about the average of the store, I care about getting a raise. As a TL, my average is not included in that figure and therefore is not included in my raise calculations. It doesn't matter if my EAPH is zero. According to the garbage that my DM sent us about this policy I am supposed to be helping newer people, answering questions, helping the supervisor in charge and getting every auditor to increase their average. It doesn't say anything about the fact that I should be counting my butt off in stores. I do, but we have so many no-shows half the time how could I not? So I don't see why my plan doesn't work. I do count under my employee number occasionally if I forget or if none of my team members are in my store. So my average isn't absolutely zero, just not where it should be.
@ Anon at Sat Apr 07, 01:20:00 AM 2007...
I just got an e-mail from a veteran team leader in my district about the new no show policy. I quickly read the new policy as it was sitting on my DM's desk the other day when I was in the office. She sounded happy about it because we have a ton of people that are always late or no show (including ATL's). What I told her was this-nothing will ever change. We all signed a similar (but less stringent policy) before. The old policy was never enforced, why would this one be? If it is at the DM's discretion, like the old policy was, he isn't going to enforce it. Why would he start now? The people that should have gotten fired under the old policy never did and I'm sure it will be the same now.
It will give them an excuse to fire people that they don't like, which is what my DM uses it for now. He has always sent out the letters for excused and unexcused absenses and put a copy in the person's file. That way, when someone pisses him off, he can fire them under that pretense. (They only get fired if they don't show up to a store he's at.) We have people with literally hundreds of these in their files. We've got an auditor that every 4-6 months gets upset with life and noshows for 2-3 weeks straight. And she no shows whenever else she feels like it (usually a couple times a month). And she's only on time to about 1 out of every 100 stores she goes to. She's been around for about 5 years.
I just don't see how this will actually happen without oversight from above. The upper crust doesn't control or step in to what happens at the district level unless they aren't making enough money. I don't see anything changing.
TL: Thanks! I have a question: do your managers threaten anyone who doesn't sign the EAPH form? You know, something like, "Well, you'll be suspended or fired (hah!) if you don't sign this and turn it in to the office by this date." Just curious.
Bizzy, tl too:
You all are better informed about this EAPH system than I am.I am in a district out west where communication is virtually non- existant.We received a general letter about the EAPH system a few months back, but no details. We`ve never received a form to sign ( I wouldn`t sign it either).Other than one store that I wasn`t in, we haven`t seen any expected APH charts or seen our APH`s posted. As a mater of fact,I`ve seen everyone`s APH ( dollars per hour)only once ever, and that was TEN years ago.( Disgruntled Auditor: I have a nice RGIS story about that and APH pay scales, if you`re interested.)We have some very good counters(still),and I suspect that they have been greatly underpaid for years-- I don`t think any of them make more than 12 or 13 dollars an hour.I think if these people were to suddenly see their APH, it might just dawn on them how they have been screwed over for years.There would be many more disgruntled auditors then there already are.Our DM knows this, and figures his best option is to try to keep all of us in the dark.
Bizzy, I assumed that when a TL counted, his/her APH still would be counted toward the team average.To not count it at all seems especially harsh--there are some stores, especially with mainly newbies or incompetents, that my APH is more than that of two or three people combined, even with all the supervisor functions I have to do.To not count any of my counting if it`s under my own ID really makes my team efficiency look even worse--thats certainly unfair to me.Shows what little I know about this system, if that indeed is the case.
TL too, thats a great idea about RGIS having an event code in the timesheet program that would note how much time people spent in non-counting functions such as recounts, pulling yellows or collecting people.But it makes too much sense for RGIS to implement it.Plus,I`m sure the managers would be the first to abuse it to puff up or destroy someone`s APH.I can just see them adding "yellow pulling" time to a favorite, and not documenting it on someone else who they don`t like!
I definitely think that the managers` bonus checks should correspond to their employees APH`s.What`s good for the goose is good for the gander.Plus no counting (or plugging) by managers to raise their districts`APH allowed.That includes using an auditor`s ID number to count.Any manager caught counting would be instantly fired.An employee hotline or website to tattle on the managers who cheat would be nice, too.( Only in my wildest dreams.)
Bizzy: are you who I think you are? :P
I know here all the AMs still find this job fun as well I as do. Hell...I just worked 8+ hours last night and I had a blast!
Misfit, so far they have not threatened us. My District has sent out this form on 4 different occasions with different deadlines to sign it and return it. The deadlines have come and gone, people do not sign them, and we don't hear anything until they send another one out with a new deadline. Of course, there are some who have signed them. From what I can see, it is the 'pets' who are sure they will hit their EAPH because the managers will make sure of it. Or, people who are not team leaders. But, I would say more than 75 percent of the people in my District have not signed them. and, my District is huge. They recently merged another large District with us and we have about 175 people working out of our office. The catch phrase on the form is this: Your supervisor in every inventory will be able to provide you with your EAPH" They have yet to tell anyone in any store what their EAPH is. They are not putting the forms in packages. So, everyone pretty much feels this way: why should we sign a form that agrees to having our pays reduced unless we hit our EAPH when we have no idea what that EAPH should be. My AM told me today that they will start including the form with everyone's EAPH beginning on April 14 in all packages. They might try to make us sign after that. I think they knew they didn't have a leg to stand on until they provided the EAPH. We'll see if they even put them in the packages.
I am running a store on Saturday so I'll see if it is in my package.
I'll keep you updated.
The EAPH thing went into effect in November here.
I was under the impression that you can't have an APH when you're pulling tags because you're not tied to any machine. The same for if you're pre-counting something, running a store, whatever. That's what I've been told by AMs and our DM, 'cause I've probably counted in half or less than half of the stores I've been to in the past several months and instead have done portable operation (and whenever I have a live audit for additions, I've been putting in my boss's ID so that it's not tied to me while sitting there inactive). If I'm mistaken, so be it, I haven't signed the sheet and haven't even heard about it really outside the letters they send every 6 months or so.
My biggest complaint about the tie to productivity is that in some stores, such as Kohls, if the store personnel find an area that they say is off by a few pieces in an irritating area, such as lingerie, we'll just delete the area and have someone recount it. Poof, there goes 120 pieces from so-and-so's productivity in an auto-1 store. Even though they could have been right -- after all, it wasn't checked and the store's open so it could have easily have been shopped -- it's taken away from them.
Now if you're lucky enough to get a financial store that's based off of pieces per hour instead of dollars per hour, or financial-based pre-counts in a store that's evaluated on pieces per hour, you could shift decimals to increase pieces without affecting dollars (i.e. 10 X $60 becomes 100 X $6). I've actually had AMs suggest I do that to increase overall store APH to make it look better than it actually is -- I've also been told to tear off a handful of worksheets from the pad and hide them so it looks like we have more people at the store counting than we actually do (store personnel asks, crew leader checks the worksheets and explains how he/she started at WS# 301 and we have 70 worksheets gone so we have 70+, including non-counting managers, etc. when we only have 55 total). But, you know, "accuracy is our primary concern". Or at least it was -- I don't know what the new slogan is going to be.
To the person from LUBBOCK:
I'm guessing you know AM (if he's still only an AM) Richard B.? He's a good guy. He was an AAM here when I first started. I miss working with him. I don't care much for your DM Michelle, though (is she the DM? I couldn't quite figure out what district she belonged to). In fact, I found this blog while searching Google for her last name so I could have a complete complaint that I sent to corporate HR (I searched for "rgis michelle manager" and found Misfit's story about auditor Michelle having an obsession with a manager).
TL too: It may sound weird to say this but it's rather heartening to me to hear that other districts had their "pets" too. Here I was thinking it was just my own district! I guess that was rather naive thinking of me. It was so frustrating to have to deal with AM Joe's pets, or as I liked to call them "F.O.J.'s" (Friends Of Joe). These people got such preferential treatment it was sickening. Even if they were marginal counters at best they got all the plum stores, as many as they wanted. Oh, they wanted them on their paychecks but they didn't want to do the work in them. It went on and on and on, until Joe was finally! fired.
I'm glad to hear that most of the auditors in your dist. haven't signed the EAPH form. Good for them! Stick together as long as you guys can; there's strength in numbers.
G. in OK: That isn't fair, that Kohl's would make you guys recount an area if the store was open for business while that area was counted. I mean, maybe if the area was off by a big number, say like 10 pieces, but if it's off by 1 or 2 pieces then the store should understand that merchandise could have been moved or bought by the store's customers. Doesn't whoever's running the store for RGIS make a fuss about this? They should. Like you wrote, it hurts the auditor who counted that area more than anyone else.
Hey, I like the "extra worksheets" thing. Clever!
Oh no, G. in OK, it wasn't Michelle that had the obsession with a manager, it was auditor Shannon who had an obsession with Michelle's husband, who was an AM in my district.
First, let me say that I love your blog. I discovered it about a year ago, about the same time that I was promoted to AM. I only lasted 6 and a half months in that position, mostly because my back hurt from bending over and grabbing my ankles so much. And not a day goes by that I don't think about how lucky I am that I am not with that company any longer. My last day was last Oct. 13 which, oddly enough, was a Friday, and things couldn't have gone any worse. But the one nice thing about it was that at the end of the day, I was forever done with RGIS.
Now, I know that a lot of people have said this, but I swear to god, misfit, you could have worked at my district. We even had a "Mondo". This guy was 400 pounds if he was an ounce, mexican and stank like my old gym locker filled with dirty diapers. And he thought he was God's gift to the inventory business. Basically the only positive part of my experience as a manager was being able to boss this guy around. He had been with the company about 10 years at that point, and I know it pissed him off to no end seeing me promoted after only about 2 years.
But I could go on all day with the comparisons. I got out of the company right before all of these major changes took place and I could tell that it wasn't going to be pretty. And it sounds like it is worse than I thought it would be. So my advice to all of the auditors still there is "GET OUT". There are other jobs out there that don't treat you like RGIS. And the company is on the downward slide. Even if it weren't for the shady business practices and deplorable conditions, RFID is going to render the days of the physical inventory obsolete in a couple of years. You have options.
Sorry, misfit, didn't mean to get up on a soapbox in the middle of your blog. Anyway, love your site.
@o t l...
As I understand it, from the paperwork I have recieved from my DM as well as speaking to him and another DM, your average doesn't count towards your team's average at all. I was in a store last night in Skelly's old district (yes Skelly, of course I am who you think I am) and I asked his DM (who is technically mine too since our district's merger, but I still consider the person who used to be my DM my DM-he is now technically our AM) whether my average mattered at all towards my raise. He looked at me and said, "well, no. The company feels that your time could be better spent increasing auditors EAPH's than just counting." "Then why am I bothering to count? I better cool this machine down." So I wandered around and talked to people for half the night. What could he say after telling me that my average didn't matter? He just kept looking at me with this pained expression. Like he wanted to tell me to count something. I feel like this-why should I bother trying when it doesn't matter? My EAPH for the night was supposed to be something like 940/hour. I was counting a little over 1400 (we were doing kids books which I hate doing and then, even worse, those paperbacks with the barcodes on the inside cover).
I think districts might be lying about this to their TL's because the DM's don't want you to act like me. They want you to count or they feel like they are paying you for nothing. I was actually helping people as I wandered around because everyone got horrible instructions (like they weren't told about the barcodes being on the inside cover or that if there was an "x" in the ISBN that it had to be a zero, really they weren't told much of anything). My crew had a bunch of newer people that had never done a bookstore so there were plenty of questions. But our DM's want us to kill ourselves counting even if it won't help our raise. I don't usually do this (wander around and not count) but I just felt like making a point in my own way.
I think my district (the satellite office, I am not talking about the main 354 office because they are not like us at all) is more fair than others, at least from the way you guys talk. I don't understand why more people don't put up a big fuss about what people are getting away with as far as cherry picking and such. Here, for example, if you were in a clothing store and some of the store was quantity a TL would count the quantity because their average doesn't count towards their raise. If we were in a grocery store with deposits or something that was really easy to rack up (when I do the deposits at our stores, I am averaging about 60,000 pieces an hour) the TL's do it. Prelists are for TL's. Anything like that. Of course, some sections in a grocery store are easier to count than others, but not every single store "matters" is what I tell people. If you get a bad percentage in one store, you aren't going to not get a raise. Maybe you do better with clothing than grocery. We have some really bad keyers, but scanning isn't so bad for them. I try to emphasize that you'll lose some here and gain some there. I don't think the system is fair, don't get me wrong. I think it was created by our jackass know-nothing owners that have no idea what this company is about. All they see are dollar signs.
Your district can institute some sort of poilcy to keep track of who pulls tags and helps wrap-up or set-up. Here we have a coversheet (I don't know if other districts use this-its got the store name, address, managers name, pieces/dollars/average per hour, how many auditors attended, authorization numbers, etc) but we condensed some parts and added an extra space at the bottom to keep track of who pulled tags, stayed to wrap-up or was the recounter and how long they were doing those things. Of course, then the DM would have to actually look at the sheets. If I remember correctly, stores can be excluded from your raise calculations at your DM's discretion. So here, if someone was recounting for 3/4 of the day, they will have that store excluded. Or if the wrap-up took forever. Whatever the reason. Bascially, if looking at someones EAPH and my boss sees a store that they got a low percentage, he can check the coversheet to see if that person had strange duties, then not count that store towards them.
@Gray in ok...
Some people in my district are under the misunderstanding that whatever your machine says at the end of the day is your EAPH, even if you stay to pull tags or whatever. They also would wait until they physically walked to their area to program their machine because they were so convinced of this. Someone else was telling people that hitting some key combination when on lunch would stop the timer in the machine. All false. I have finally gotten rid of this rumor here. Your average is calculated in the office PC, not the audit. The average displayed on the audit is for...let's call it educational purposes. It's just to give people a rough estimate of what they are counting. The office PC uses the time you signed in and left. It doesn't take tag pulling, portable control, recounts, etc., into consideration. It doesn't matter whose number you put in, it just looks to Oracle like you counted nothing if you use someone elses number. But if you are a TL, it won't matter anyway because your average doesn't matter. So you might as well do what I do and use a team members number to give yourself a better possiblity of a raise.
@TL too...
I feel like I've already been blabbering on for too long, but one more thing. You should be able to see your EAPH sheet on the day you mentioned. I received an e-mail from my DM that said from now on I have to put those sheets in the packets every week when I make them (its been one of my jobs since our secretary was fired when the merger occured). I was suprised last night working with Skelly's old district that they actually already had them available (they never have their shit together). So it honestly should be happening. That report has been available for quite awhile now, so I don't know why they didn't start using it long ago. Noone ever has any idea of what they are supossed to be counting. Now they should.
Bizzy, the one problem I see with counting for your team members is this: everything is time stamped now. One auditor...2 machines....too many transmissions by one auditor within the same time frame in the store unless that auditor was using 2 machines at the same time. lol lol But, I agree that it would be one way to boost a slower member's EAPH which equals a raise for the team leader.
O T L, my District is being extremely vague about the whole EAPH system too. They are trying to keep everyone in the dark so they don't have a major exodus out the door especially by team leaders.
amnomore: Thank you so much for your kind words regarding my blog. I've had so much fun writing it, and it's been great fun reading everyone's comments as well. Please, you can climb up on that soapbox here anytime you want!
So Mondo has a doppelganger, lol. Actually, now that I think about it it's kind of a frightening thought. :)
I agree with your sentiments regarding continuing employment with RGIS. Run, run RGIS auditors! And don't look back!
Bizzy, couple of questions for you.
Your district seems to be explaining the Eaph for team leaders a lot more than ours is willing to talk about. Our District is telling us that our EAPH counts in stores that managers run but that it is zero in our own stores. However, our EAPH doesn't count for our raises.
Your District is telling you that it doesn't count at all? that sounds more like the truth because why should it count anywhere if it isn't a factor in our raises. But, I do have a question about the bookstore you were doing. Why was your EAPH even on the list if it didn't count? Maybe you can ask your DM why it would show up at all if it is zero. I am curious about why it was 940 when it doesn't count? My District would double talk their way around the question. Maybe you can get an honest answer from yours. I'll look forward to what you find out.
I agree with you that if doesn't count than why bother trying. Our District will never go to a form that has the names of people doing recounts,etc. Too much work for them!! I still think writing an event into the TCA would solve the whole problem.
Well, I`m waiting to see if we get any EAPH sheets in my next packet.
In the meantime, can anyone explain how RGIS will deal with the following huge loophole in the EAPH system.Let`s say that there are three auditors counting an identical amount per hour, say 15K dollars,and making the exact same pay.Say they all bust their asses and raise their APH to 20K per hour.Well, the way I figure it, even though they each raised their productivity 33%, their individual EAPH is still 100%, or dead average of their group.( Each person is counting 20K dollars per hour but the group average is exactly the same.)So, tell me, how are these people going to get a raise, unless somewhere along the way the average APH of everyone ,regardless of pay rate,comes into play? Is this what whoever dreamed up this EAPH scheme wants to happen: we all cancel out each other,even though overall productivity is way up, and no one gets a raise?Very sneaky and sinister! Conversely, what if those people counting 15K slowed down to 10K per hour? Their EAPH would be still 100% of their group, and theoretically their pay could not be cut--unless again the overall store APH is factored in.
Another thing I just thought of: What if each person had an unique pay rate, such as 11.63 or 13.07 or 9.61, etc. per hour.Every person would be in their own group of one--themselves!Of course, RGIS management would convieniently not tell you this! An auditor never could count more that 100% of his/her EAPH, and be eligible for a raise because he/she is competing against themselves!Maybe this is why that auditor got the one cent raise; he`s probably the only person now at that particular pay rate!
Bizzy: If your EAPH was 940 and you were doing 1400...you did your job and DM354 has nothing to complain about really as long as long as the store is done in the time frame.
The thing that people seem to forget about the EAPH as I understand is that everyone's magic number is what is used to calculate how many people needed are needed to finish a store in a certain time frame.
Bizzy: Oh sure...you old 351 always blame 354 for everything :P
And for that guy who says RFID is the wave of the future, RGIS is alredy working on that and also the fact that there's a higher failure rate for RFID than for barcodes at the retail level.
Amnomore-I laughed my ass off re: your comment about your back hurting from grabbin your ankles. I stayed a red shirt for three years cause after two weeks I figured out there was no benefit to moving up. As fast as the turnaround at RGIS is I wonder what percent of the population has worked for RGIS at some time.
And Misfit: I absolutely love this blog. It is the first one I have ever read and I think it is great!!! I wish I had found it while I still worked for RGIS. I left 6 months ago. I wouldn't have keep thinking "the whole company can't be this screwed up - it must only be my district". I don't understand why management treats their people like CRAP and then expects them to bend over backwards to accomodate the company. Apparently, RGIS thinks having unhappy employees is not a problem.
I don't think I could take a 1 or 5 cent raise. Many years ago I worked for the Pennysaver newspaper and was given a 10 cent/hour raise. (this was verbally by my manager) I think she was ready to fall off her chair when I told her to keep it - obviously the company needed it more than I did. RGIS raises are a joke.
az-exauditor: Thank you so much, and I'm so glad you've enjoyed reading my blog. I'm glad to hear that you "escaped" from RGIS! And I too used to think that it was only my district that was insane. It's been very enlightening, reading people's comments here about their own crazy districts. I wish I had started this blog while I was still working for RGIS, but oh well. At least I can be sure that the nuttiness and nutjobs of District 414 will live on for a long time to come, and people can continue to come here and read all about it. And share their experiences with RGIS as well.
I think you guys are still confused about the EAPH thing. I'll try to answer the questions that were put to me and that may clarify.
TL too...
The reason I'm on the sheet is because the sheet doesn't say "Bizzy has to count 940 pieces/hour". When you see the sheet it will make more sense but I'll explain it. The sheet is for each store (really it would be the same for any store in that chain but it does say the store number at the top). Then the sheet has a list at the bottom. It starts with the starting wage in your district and increases in 25 cent increments. So here, the starting wage is $9/hour. So it will look like this:
9.00 1000
9.25 1150
9.50 1300
9.75 1450
I just found what I make an hour on the sheet. That is why "I was on the sheet". It's not a perfect system. If you make an odd amount, like 9.15, you aren't on there but just have to shoot for between the two pay amounts. At least it will give you somewhat of an idea.
About the timestamping, I don't see how that would matter. It hasn't stopped me in the past 5 months, so I don't think it matters. I understand the timestamping feature to be more of a tool for the stores use-to know when something was counted. I don't think it effects me counting as other people. I always transmit myself at the same time I transmit everyone else.
o t l...
Your rasies aren't based on a group or the overall average of the store. It doesn't matter if you are more or less productive than other people making the exact same amount of money you do, it only matter if you beat the "magic number" the geniuses at headquarters come up with. You have to think of everyone as their own unit, responsible for their own productivity. As I explained above, you will have an amount of pieces/dollars per hour to beat based on how much you make. So it doesn't matter if a group of people count exactly the same or not. You aren't trying to beat the people that make the same amount of money you do to get a raise, you are trying to beat a magic number. It also doesn't matter if everyone in the district makes a unique amount of money or not. They all have their own number they must beat to receive a raise.
Skelly...
EAPH doesn't determine how many people are needed to complete the store in a certain timeframe. We were certainly able to determine that before this system and if it were abolished we would still be able to. I do the scheduling when Josh (our AM who used to be our DM) is away so I know how it's figured out. When you enter the employees who are scheduled for a store (we still do team scheduling here so I compile all the reports and enter the people) into Oracle an average pops up next to their name. If they have counted the store before, it may give their real average for the times they counted it in the past. Otherwise it puts a generic number based on whether your DM has flagged you as a rookie, new, average or above average. Then oracle takes the inventory level (how many pieces/dollars are supposed to be in the store) and compares it to what these people count an hour to get a completion time. Then they know if they need to add more people to get the time down to an acceptable limit.
Ok, are you guys ready for a laugh.
We just did a store today with our first look at the Eaph form. It is for a financial supermarket.
if you make
9.00 an hour, your Eaph is 17,000
dollars an hour.
and upwards from there depending on your hourly wage.
LOL LOL LOL
our starting pay here is 9.00 an hour. Don't know too many people coming in the door who can count a financial supermarket and average 17,000 an hour. a bit unrealistic, don't you think??
Bizzy, thanks for answering. I did get to see my first form and I see what you mean about it just having dollars earned versus average needed. And, you are absolutely right about EAPH having nothing to do with scheduling. They take the manhours from the previous time the store was done and what the APH for the store was and go from there. I think Skelly is confusing EAPH with APH.
Bizzy, I can see that you are knowledgeable about scheduling and EAPH. Can you answer a few more questions for me? Can you please clarify the EAPH as it applies to team leaders? Is our EAPH zero in every store? And, does our team effect us in stores when are not running? My District tells me my EAPH is zero in stores I run with 10 or more people but 80 or 90 percent in stores I run with 10 or less. They also are telling me it has to be 100 percent in manager stores. I would appreciate if you can clarify this for me. thanks
bizzy:
I`m still confused-- I think it`s a terminal case. Any way you look at it, RGIS has you screwed. Who at RGIS HDQ figures out the "magic number"? How do they arrive at that figure? They have to figure in the average APH of a store to do so, and this is where it gets scary to me.I`ve been around a very long time and I have witnessed many a financial inventory where the figures were at least partially "plugged", or made up.This is ,of course, going to raise the APH of a store, because there was no actual time spent counting to arrive at the "plugged " figures.
Here`s a hypothetical example of how the APH can be manipulated to make it virtually impossible for anyone to get a raise: Say there`s a million dollar grocery store (non-scanning)that takes 10 good auditors 5 hours to count.( 20K per hour times 10 people equals 200K per hour, times 5 hours equals 1 million dollars).What if a RGIS manager comes in and plugs $400K worth of merchandise. Don`t laugh, I`ve seen this happen many times.The result is that the store is completed in 3 hours instead of five ( 200K per hour times 3 hours for the auditors, plus the 400K plug job by the manager.)That million dollar store is now completed in about 30 man hours for an APH of something like 32 or 33 thousand dollars an hour, versus the 20 thousand dollars per hour when it was counted legitimately.Using the new store APH as a guide, RGIS HDQ would probably set these auditors` EAPH around 30 or 40 thousand dollars per hour, which is unattainable, unless they are counting wine or cigarette cartons most of the time!
I suspect that the 17K hour expectation of newbies that tl too mentioned probably was derived from a store that had been previously "plugged" in the manner I described above.
I realize that most stores are scanning inventories now,but I am certain that non-scanned items such as hefty prelists--which will still count in the overall store APH--will skewer the APH so high,that the good counters won`t be able to meet their EAPH unless they are the ones who get to count those prelists.
They are a laugh and they are completely unrealistic. It will never happen. The numbers were a joke for Family Dollar the other day too.
On the bright side, I just got a new job today. I will still work at RGIS one or two days a week because I will be making about $2/hour less. But 40 hour weeks and benefits make it worth it. And not having to worry about this policy as much (for myself anyway, my boyfriend will still be working there "full-time").
OTL, I understand what you are saying. And you are right about the APH from the last time the store was done. 15 people as a group averaged 17,100 an hour in the supermarket I referred to. They have taken that APH and made it the bottom number on the EAPH form. Thus....9.00 must count 17,100 an hour and it goes up by 500.00 for each quarter earned after that. It stops at 13.25. All the forms I have in my packages for stores I am running this week stop at 13.25 an hour. I asked my AM why and he had no answer. They have made the Eaph so high that the numbers are ridiculous to meet. My AM agrees that the bottom 17,100 includes the dollars counted by the BR person last time. The BR was all prelisted. The BR counter often counts at about 80,000 an hour because of the prelisting. As a result, it raises the overall store average. They didn't take that into effect but made that APH the bottom number with everything up from that. A lot of our markets are still financial. Now, if you have a new hire on your team that is showing some potential, it will be really hard to try to develop them for keying inventories. If, for instance, I put someone with some potential in this particular market, he will not count 17,100 at first. So, do I put him in there for him to learn, knowing I am dooming him from getting a raise? Every form I have here whether they are scanning inventories or financial have ridiculous eaph's for the starting number. They all seem to have the APH for the stores the last time they were done as the bottom eaph number. And, you are right about plugging in numbers.
I have seen it done very often in stores I have counted in where numbers were plugged in to make the stores go shorter. That will effect this eaph jazz. Also, many stores have prelists that inflate the overall APH. Yet, when you go to the store the next time, they may have a new manager who prelisted nothing. But the ApH from last time was high and now you are hung with it as your starting number for your lowest paid person. You will see how ridiculous some of the numbers are when you get your first form.
I used to be the AAM, so I am used to using the computers and still do a bunch of stuff (that I am not really supposed to be doing but that I am told to do anyway) in the office. That may be why I get better info. I also ask a lot of questions and make suggestions where I see fit.
tl too...
You have an EAPH score for every store even if you are a TL. When I saw mine in December, I was at 168%. My team was at 58-80%. 80% was the highest overall average anyone had. (So do you really think I will get a raise?) So your EAPH isn't zero, it's just not included AT ALL in the raise calucations according to the two DM's I have spoken to. Only your team's EAPH is used to determine your raise.
O T L...
I will ask my boss, but I am pretty sure it's an exact formula that they use. He wrote it for us on the board in our meeting room when we had a meeting about this. He might be mad at me for getting a new job and not tell me the answer, but we'll see.
It's not so much that the average from the last times the store was counted is the start of how much people have to count (if that makes sense, I can't think of a way to phrase that). It's more like this-each person has to make the jerks in charge a certain amount of money for them to be happy. I'm gonna guess that it's about three times what you make an hour (because they want to make 60-something percent in every store). (I think I've used an example like this before, maybe). Let's pretend you make $10/hour. You would need to be generating $30/hour to get your raise (because after paying you, they would be getting 66% for themselves). So if RGIS makes 10$/1000 pieces you count, you have to count 3000 pieces just to get 100% of your EAPH (because you'd make them $30/hour). Anything over qualifies for a raise.
That is probably really simplistic, but it's the only way I can describe it without remembering the actual formula. That is how I understand it to work. And that is why I don't think last times average really matters. If the average is super crappy from last time, they still want to make their 60-something percent. So last times average won't matter.
They could just raise the rates for customers if they are so concerned about making money. But I'm sure they don't want to piss off the customers with power to go elsewhere. They don't care what happens to us or what we think. So they will continue to take it out on the defenseless employees.
The exact formula that they are using the determine your EAPH is this-
Wage times 3.5, divided by the customers rate, then multiplied by 1000.
So it shouldn't, as I have said, have anything to do with prior store averages. It may have coincidentally happened, but will not always work that way. I know we have a pharmacy account that has a really low EAPH expectations because the rate in the store is so good.
It just seems like they are placing the burden of making more money on us, instead of on the customer. When I entered people in the computer last week for Josh's vacation, one of our stores was going to make a 27% profit, instead of the 60-something % that they like. The EAPH for that store must be astronomical, but the low percentage is not our (the auditors) fault. It is the fault of the company that does not want to charge the customer more. It's an eye glass store and I would assume a national account. I think the store is everywhere.
RGIS is crying with crocodile tears when they say they`re not making good money on a store, at least in this district.There`s been several stores over the years that the DM publicly lamented how little money RGIS was making in it, until we accidentally saw the rates and concluded us it was all a big act!We also get this "low rate" sob story at every TL meeting. I don`t think I`ve ever seen a store with a rate that RGIS would make at least a 50% profit in it.Most good auditors make for RGIS at least three if not four or five times the money they make themselves.Plus remember, RGIS is raising the customers rates nearly all the time--while they`re doing their best to decrease or at least freeze their payroll costs to us with this EAPH bullshit.
I know for a fact that they don't always make at least 50% in all stores. Our DM was having a meeting with our Ops manager over the fact that several of our weeks had such a bad percentage. We had a lot of a particular grocery store going on that week (Tops Markets, which are now closed) and the average % in those stores for our district was like 15% over a several week period. RGIS had kept lowering their rate to make the customer happy and keep them around, and my DM "got in trouble" because we were doing poorly percentage wise. The eyeglass store I saw last week must have a really terrible rate to only get a 27% too. I'm not saying all stores have bad rates, but some do. And I'm not saying the jerks in charge aren't making money hand-over-fist, because they definately are.
How did you guys see the rates? Noone here really sees them except me if I felt like bothering to look at them. My DM said TL's and auditors aren't allowed to see them. Although I guess they could be figured out using the EAPH forumla now.
bizzy:
You sometimes will see rates on the last page of the store procedures--us TL`s are not supposed to get that last page, but sometimes we accidentally do. If a manager runs the store, that rate info page is often still attached to the procedures.Also, the DM or AM`s copy of the master schedule often has the rate info on it-- If you look hard enough you can find it!
There`s two things a like to say about stores that have a low profit percentage.First, in our district, bad percentages are often a direct result of poor planning and scheduling by our DM, as well as no or poor PIV`s ( Pre Inventory Visits-- when someone from RGIS is supposed to call or visit the store to "scop out" just what kind of potential disaster we may be getting into.)For example, we just did a financial inventory that went real long because most of the crew were rookies or incompetents with no keying skills, plus a lot of merchandise was unpriced.I`m sure the percentage on that one was terrible.But if our DM had any brains, he (the DM or AM does scheduling here) would have put a grocery crew in that had the necessary 10 key skills, and smarts to make up prices when needed. The percentage would have been much better.Basically,if you put the wrong people in the wrong store, your percentages will suck. The same goes for within a store-- a wrong person in the wrong area(example: rookie in multiple qty area ) is a recipe for disaster and a lower profit margin.What I`m getting at is, in my district, many stores with poor profit percentages could have been prevented with better planning and organization.
The second thing I want to say is that stores are weighted by their size in regard to profit margin. A small eyeglass store is insignificant compared to a major retailer-- their RGIS rate may be only a couple of hundred dollars versus tens of thousands of dollars for the big store.One big store with a "sugar plum" good rate will more than cancel out all the little relatively unprofitable stores.(Of course, we still will be hearing our DM moan about all these stores that RGIS didn`t make much money in -- but he will conviently forget to mention the huge profit we made from that big store.)Here`s an example of this: I was once shown ( by a friendly manager) a RGIS weekly report which had all stores we had inventoried listed and their profit percentages, plus the district percentage for all stores
comined. The combined profit percentage was 90%, more than negating all the smaller stores with percentages in the 50 to 60% or less range!That was because that week two Home Depot stores were inventoried in our district, and their profit percentage was figured as 100 %! Home Depots were done by a special RGIS team,and apparently, each district gets a big cut of profits-- five figures--even though they spend nothing on labor.
So it just takes one good store rate to cancel out a lot of smaller marginal stores. And every district has these big stores with the big profit generating rates!
I wanted to share this with you all. See what you think. It's an e-mail I just received from my boss, word for word:
I recently got a definitive answer on the TL's EAPH cycle and wanted to share it with you. The TL's get credit for every member of their team for every event a member of their team works. For example, let's say you had 10 reliable people on your team and all 10 of them worked 5 stores in a row over the course of 5 days. Each store you would get credit for 10 events towards your team's 50 and after the 5 days, you would get reevaluated again. They recently fixed a glitch that was preventing the TL's from tracking properly but since they have fixed it, Rick and I have seen most TL's pop up for evaluation each 7-10 days. All of you should be expected to be evaluated soon and often.
Remember, always teach your team members, work with them, show them how to count faster without sacrificing accuracy, find ways to reduce everyone's downtime, acknowledge their achievements, advise them of where they stand and push them to excel.
(The end)
Anyone else hear anything about this? Think you'll actually get evaluated once a week? Has anyone here EVER been evaluated? I was told that several of our people have been evaluated and given raises several times.
No one`s heard anything out here yet.Of course, we all know what RGIS tells us and what they actually do are are often two completely different things.
Do no shows and tardies ring up as an "event" on a team record? Do they really expect us to run an inventory like a training session, especially when we are critically shorthanded? Sorry, but I`m hardly enthused about the whole matter.
Bizzy, I didn't get an email from my DM, but a phone call this week.
He explained it the exact same way as your DM. Since your team effects you no matter where they work, even if you are not in the store, you get credit for every time one of them works. Let's see.
I have 14 people on my team who are all anytime available. I have people working 7 days a week. I just quickly figured out this week's events. My people have so far given me 68 credits this week.
lol lol My DM is going to get really tired of seeing my name come up for review. I have yet to be reviewed under this system. My husband has a nights & weekend team. He just got a 23 cent raise based on the eaph of his team. My people are getting letters that their pays will decrease so I guess that pretty much leaves me out. lol lol One of my guys just got a letter that his pay would decrease by 1.98 if his eaph doesn't increase. Not only would that take him below our starting pay of 9.00 an hour, but below what the starting pay was when he got hired several years ago. He told me today he would be better off getting fired, and then rehired at 9.00 an hour. lol lol
You might be getting reviewed but just not know it because apparently that has been happening here a lot. I didn't realize that I had even been getting reviewed until my DM told me that my team sucks too much for a raise. But he did get me one anyway somehow which is good because I will never get one under the EAPH system.
OTL...
I don't know what you mean by no-shows ringing up as an event. Oracle tracks no-shows but I don't think it does it in a meaningful way. Like if I were scheduled for an inventory and didn't show up for some reason my name will pop up in red and you can't close the timesheet until you assign a reason for my not being there-excused or unexcused absence or rescheduled. I believe it only does that to make sure everyone signed in. So I don't think no-shows get rung up as an event, unless I am completely misunderstanding you.
I know what you mean about larger stores with better rates sort of canceling out smaller stores with worse rates and that does work sometimes in some districts. We have two things working against us here-one is that we have about 5 people I would call "grocery store" counters. We have a couple of newer people that will probably be good if they stick around long enough. Other than that, we have somewhat average through organizing and-dusting-the-shelves below average people. My district has very crappy counters and most of them still look at their machines 50% of the time. The second thing working against us is that we are (or were before we combined with 354) a very small district. We don't necessarily have the big stores to make up for the small ones half the time. That is why we had weeks and weeks and weeks of below 50% stores.
Bizzy:
I was being sarcastic about that "event" remark.But I swear there are many times at stores when the no shows/tardies outnumber the people who show up as scheduled.
RGIS must have a lot more competition up in your neck of the woods( Northeast?),with all those marginal stores.We get a lot of national accounts( thanks to HDQ-- no sales work on our part), which are ours to lose--which we unfortunately occasionally do.Out here, our only competition is WIS, and they are bumbling idiots like us,too.We seem to lose accounts to each other, only to get them back a few years later when the other guy screws up worse than we did previously!Our worst enemy is not the other guy, but ourselves!With proper efficient management, RGIS would have a stranglehold on the inventory business here, and would be making even more money than they already do.Instead, our operating philosophy is like that old saying:"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king!"
We just muddle onwards, steadfastingly oblivious to our own stupidity and inefficiency.
Our office just sent out letters to everyone this past week giving an update/evaluation of how we're each doing in the EAPH system. At 96% of my fairly lame pay, I'll get a 20¢ decrease.
And I got off light compared to others. I heard quite a few auditors talking about not being able to work the job at whatever pay they were threatened to be dropped down to and I guess that's what they want.
gray in ok:
Please explain to us how that 96% APH works.Is that your team or personal APH? Also, does your district document your APH percentage for EACH job, or are they just giving you a figure that they magically and mysteriously calculated, and expect you to believe.( If the figures are not documented by each job, how do you know if they are correct?)I guess now we also have to keep track of our APH, just like our hours, to make sure the management doesn`t try to pull a fast one on us!
I sense that eventually there`s going to be an even bigger class action lawsuit against RGIS over this EAPH business than there currently is over the overtime and other issues.
O T L, I think I can explain this a little bit. I just got the breakdown for my entire team for the last 6 weeks. It is the first time they sent it out so it is long. They will now be sending it out weekly. It has each member of my team listed with each store they have done in this 6 week period. I have 14 on my team. It shows the date, store worked, expected eaph for that person, what they actually averaged, and the percentage of their eaph they hit. The eaph is so high that out of 14, I have just one exceeding 100 percent right now. As the team leader, my name is listed for every date my team worked. But, it is just giving me my teams average for the day. It does not even list the stores I worked because our eaph does not count for raises. If, for instance, I had 10 people working in 2 different stores on a certain date,
it counts all their percentages, and divides it by 10. So, if 10 people hit 60 percent total, that is what appears near my name for that date. However, our eaph does not count for raises, but I notice that the team average factors in my eaph for the day into that team total. Here is an interesting thing on my team total. On one date, I had 1 person working under the eaph system and he hit 90 percent of his eaph. I had 5 people working in man hour stores, and they do not count towards eaph.
Those stores do not even appear on their list of stores. But, and this is what really gets me, they took the guy who hit 90 and divided by the 6 total who worked that day. My team average for the day: 15. Really fair, uh?? My team average for the last 6 weeks:
79.8. But, I know that in at least one store, my entire team was put in jewelry working one on one. They hit 30 percent as a group. You are right about lawsuits. I firmly believe that there will be some massive class action lawsuit that results from this. We all know how the managers show favoritism, etc. But, when it effects people's income, and thereby also effecting the team leader's income, it becomes discrimination.
Oracle keeps track of everyone's final EAPH in every store, not your DM or anyone at the office. It knows how long you were there, what you counted, how much you make an hour and how much you "should" have counted. At any time they can run a report to see how a team or specific auditor is doing. We've had people go in and demand to see the reports.
Just remember when "keeping track" that the average in your machine does not necessarily reflect your final EAPH because it doesn't reflect any waiting around you have to do at the start or end of an inventory, like if you have to wait for the last people in your car to get done counting. Or if you pull tags or anything else.
No one (that I know of) in my district has gotten a decrease in their amount of pay. We haven't even gotten letters saying that that will happen. I think my DM is somehow "pushing it off" and trying not to give people pay decreases. He got me a rasie even though my team is at about 80% TOPS. Let's put it this way-the fastest counter (besides me) on my team was at 79%. He told me that the only way people would see a pay decrease is if they are seriously terrible counters, and don't care enough to even try to do it. We have a few people that won't stop digging and rearranging shelves no matter what. They might get a decrease, but I think he's trying to get around it somehow. I think he knows people will quit when it comes down to it. He's already lost three people over this.
I'm going to guess it's personal EAPH, because my team is made up of our best counters (we reorganized teams from availability to counting ability) and I know they're counting well. That, and the fact that most of my team are "gray shirts", I see no point in having it rely on a team of, like, 3. But me seeing no point in something doesn't mean it's not the RGIS way.
And no, they definitely haven't provided me with any documented proof, so it's just another magical number.
tl too:
Are you saying that man hour stores instead of not counting at all towards your team EAPH are counted as a ZERO percent APH? I hope that was just some kind of computer error. If not, we all are going to be ripped off big time!
gray in ok:
Has the RGIS management tried to manipulate or gerrymander the teams yet? We have a couple of teams here that have no grayshirts, so how do they figure the EAPH? Also our geographical team distinctions are rather fuzzy; I can vision our DM creating a " super team " of top gun types and putting a favorite
(especially a friend or relative) in charge of it, while at the same time creating a team of primarily newhires and incompetents and putting someone on his shit list, such as yours truly here, in charge of that team!
bizzy:
Your DM sounds like a reasonable,considerate,intelligent person. If we all could be so lucky as you....
OTL, that is exactly what it did.
It counted my 5 manhour people as having a 0 eaph for the day. The stores do not appear on their individual lists, but they factored into my team average. My AM is trying to figure that one out. Also, they can't seem to answer why my eaph is factoring into my team average since it doesn't factor in for me personally.
So, if my team did really well in a store, and I was running it but didn't get to count very much,
it is dividing the whole team, me included with my small count, for my team average. So, basically, running stores is bringing down my team's average for the day. They had better figure out a way to make this system fair.
And, Bizzy, your DM does sound like a fair and decent person. Wish they were all like that but he is the exception and not the rule.
He was never this reasonable before we merged with Albany (D354). He's not really our DM anymore, he was demoted to AM. He is still our "acting" DM because we don't see our "real" DM often. He basically makes the calls in our satellite office.
I think part of it is his becoming disillusioned with this company. Before all the managers thought they'd be around forever. Now they all know people who were fired or demoted (himself included). They may have felt unexpendable before, now they know they are just like us-can be replaced at a moments notice.
I think he's also very afraid of loosing more people. Have you guys noticed anyone quitting over this yet? It's one of the reasons I got a new job. Two other people quit outright. An ATL and his girlfriend are both looking for new jobs. My boyfriend is looking as well. One of our 5 best is leaving after the summer hits (she has a new job starting then). Those are only the ones I know about, I'm sure there are others. These people are all decent counters and its going to hurt him. He needs to hang on to what he's got. We are replaceable, sure, but you will be hard pressed to find someone to replace us that can do the job like we can. And that's reliable. And, in my case, that can and will run 30 person grocery stores and pharmacies. Quality is the problem.
I have to vouch for the DM at D354...he's been around for 30 years and can solve ANY problem and keep people happy.
I also have to vouch for the DM here at D408 who is also very nice and has been around the block well for not as long, but can get anyone out of a jam.
Skelly, I was not talking about Rick I was talking about Josh. We have very limited dealings with our "main office". We were joking about writing D351 4-EVER on our arms before going down to help Albany again. We will always think of ourselves as Glens Falls and call ourselves Glens Falls no matter what the people in Albany tell us. Or the company for that matter.
Well I am of the mentality that Albany took your bags and step stools and changed the 1 to a 4 :P
Josh is alright...I know sometimes he gets sidetracked here and there and does annoy some people but he gets the job done in the right amount of time without any problems.
Though whats funny is that the equivalent of Glens Falls over here is our Salem, OR satellite office that half the time, we don't think of them as apart of D408 (even though they are) because they have a crew thats half the size of Glens Falls plus their own AM that does their own work and only calls on us when they need us to come down and help out with the really big stuff. Though...I want to say they used to be apart of the Eugene district but I'm 100% sure on that...
Interesting blog!
We share many of the same experiences.
We also went to something similar to your ACPH and EAPH. Your ecph (expected count per hour) is based on your wage. ACPH is actual count per hour.
When it's time for your review, ecph plays a big role. But we can also put in for performance increases, and counters who are performing generally get approved pretty easily.
We have noticed an increase in rgis employees coming over. One of our office's picked up nine in one week.
You're right about losing accounts...we lose one to you and we pick one up. This business is getting VERY competitive and it's only going to get more so. I think customer loyalty is getting harder to achieve.
I'll keep reading...
wis: Welcome to my blog! Any "enemy" of RGIS is a friend of mine! :-) As an employee of WIS you'll be able to offer people who read this blog an interesting viewpoint, so I hope you will continue to read and to leave your comments.
ok, I'll keep checking in.
Both companies go through so many employees...I really wonder how long it will take until there are no more people to hire...
Well, we do lose people, but if I remember right, you train one person and you break even on the cost of training for that one person after I think its 2 inventories.
Misfit:
You are missing out on these wonderful RGIS Safety Monthly Newsletters and the pearls of wisdom the company is dispensing on us.The latest just cracked me up. Our big tip this month was on "Drowsy Driving".According to the newsletter, we are supposed to "maintain a regular sleep schedule that allows for adequate rest" Also,"When the signs of fatigue begin to show, get off the road. Take a short nap in a well-lit area. Do not simply stop on the side of the road." I`m sure our DM will surely understand that when we turn down all those back to back to back jobs, we are doing it for safety considerations. Likewise, when the carpool is on its way to the 6AM store after pulling an "allnighter" at another inventory, I`m sure the AM running that second store will be sympathetic when we show up a hour or two late because we pulled off the road to take a short nap! lol!
In reality, RGIS is completely responsible for all the "drowsy driving" its employess do, and it is absurdly hypocritical of them to be preaching safety tips on that subject.
OTL: Oh, that's rich! 'Drowsy Driving' indeed! What RGIS auditor has never driven while drowsy? I guess RGIS has to put things like that in their newsletters so that they appear to be "concerned" with the safety of RGIS employees and others on the road, but you and I and everyone who's a RGIS employee knows the real truth, right? ;-)
RGIS is going down hill. I am an Auditor from D776 Norwich (eastern England) and have been working for the company for over a year. My DM is a kiss ass and spends most of his time on his blackberry playing some sort of pin ball game. Haven't seen him much as he is spending most of his time in Northampton apparently working on a case to fire the previous DM. It's hard to do in the UK but I think my DM is getting quite the kick out of it.
We have ECPH here and let me tell it is a load of shit. I know how it works though because my DM left a sheet of paper in one of our Sainsbury's (grocery store) stores and I picked it up.
Here is how it works:
Ever wonder how the billing works for an inventory? Well it's not hourly - at least not for every count. It's efficiency based and RGIS are attempting to reduce their payroll costs from 35% of the billing to 25%. If an Auditor is at 100% ECPH then he/she is costing only 25% of the billing.
The really hilarious thing here is that we keep getting shit rates from our "Director of Sales and Service" 2 Jags Parry. There isn't a chance in hell of achieving anywhere near 100 ECPH in these stores so quite rightly we don't hear about it so much.
We now have this new efficiency sheet which we use every time the OPS Manager comes by. It compares pieces counted per hour rather than value.
Speaking of the OPS Manager... He embodies everything we are ashamed about in a person from England. He's a YOB. He is loud. Every other word is a swear word. He constantly puts other people down in whatever position. He is the only Manager I know who has had the balls to say what our Director of Operations (formerly bowling alley manager) Nicola is (besides invisible).
It's not as bad here as it is in Ireland though! I did a stint there and there are loads of violations being conducted every day. But hey, It's RGIS. They have to show some sort of profit before they can sell again.
WHAT I KNOW ABOUT DECREASING EXPECTED EAPH:
There is no way of yet togo in the portable and post that they only counted a few hours and did re-counts the whole rest of the day, but there is a way to do it in Oracle in the scheduling. Say you're counting a PetSmart. You know that one guy has to do the precount verification and it will take about 2 hours (for those that don't know it's when you take a detailed print out of PetSmarts pre-counted pallets and pick everything off the pallet and make sure the sku's and quantity are correct. You must do 12 areas I think). So you can put in the schedule that Joe Smith will be doing those verifications and you can lower his expected APH to 60% or whatever you want. BUT NO ONE DOES THIS. Their excuse is "we don't know for sure that joe smith will show up". So I say "make Mary Jones do the verification, she never ever calls off".
When you go in a grocery store you pretty much know who's going to start doing all the recounts at 8am, so why not put that in the system. Heck, put 3 people down for doing recounts. If they end up not recounting but you lowered their expected APH to 50% you just gave them a great top gun type of day.
It's simple to see no salaried person cares. The pets, the relatives, and kiss asses get their raises and that's all that matters to them. I wish I had the balls and the education to quit this job and apply elsewhere making this hourly rate.
The logic behind EAPH is that as you progress as an auditor, you should be able to count faster. That makes sense, but you need a degree in calculus to figure out how they arrive at the figures. Naturally auto-scan stores are going to have lower figures than manual count stores. However, certain things should be taken into consideration. For example if you are using a tall ladder to count items on the walls, your APH will not be as high as if you worked on the ground because of the time spent coming down, moving the ladder, and climbing back up again. Also, you can't count as fast in an open store filled with customers who constantly ask where items are located or try to get at items in areas you're counting or even run you over with their carts.
The EAPH magic number for each auditor is the minimum that will allow for profit after paying the auditor. In other words, if an auditor doesn't reach the magic number, the company is losing money for their effort. If the factors that I previously mentioned, i.e. being on ladders, the store open for business are not considered, it is unfair because anybody with half a brain could assume that they have an impact on individual productivity. Every store has merchandise on its walls or on tall stockroom shelves. You think K-Mart or some other stores will risk losing profits by staying closed until the inventory is done. Absolutely not. Yet auditors pay the price with potential pay decreases. That makes no sense and really sucks!
raider hater:
I think the EAPH is not the minimum an auditor needs to count for the company to make a profit, but rather the minimum one needs to count for the company to EXCEED the minimum profit percentage goal, which I`ve heard is now something like 64%.( Apparently, HDQ recently has eliminated the 7% kickback to HDQ, and in return has upped the expected minimum profit percentage from approximately 61% to 64%.So what this means to us peons is if we don`t make our expected EAPH, then RGIS is making less than 64% profit on the store(the poor babies--the vast majority of Fortune 500 companies only make 20 to 30% profit at most). The end result is that there`s a lot of bitching and moaning working its way down the management chain, culminating with the usual exhortations for us to count faster and get those EAPH`s (profits) up!
To the person who suggested entering one's ID# into several audits and giving them to other people in order to increase APH. This would be discovered almost immediately in Sears or JCPenney because each time an item is counted, it is time stamped. This means that when something is counted the exact minute and seconds are recorded. When the inventory data is sent to HQ, they will be suspicious that one person counted in four different areas, using four different audits(the serial # for each audit is recorded whenever an auditor transmits to the RAY)at the exact same time.
The whole idea of doing this is fishy, not to mention requires too much effort. First, you have to get a different worksheet for each audit, in order to prevent a duplicate WS# in the portable. Then it could backfire if one of more of these auditors transmit to the RAY and accidentally select the CLOSE option, then have to get new machines which unless you are aware of, they will find someone else to help them program by putting in their correct ID#. As well as new worksheets. You could claim to have closed out audits by mistake, but several times in one inventory? Even a new hire wouldn't do that.
Another reason is that with the new TCA system which transmits with the inventory data to HQ, somewhere down the road, a DM or Ops manager will want to know why there were several auditors who were on the clock but didn't count during the entire inventory. That is when it will really unravel and the perpetrator will be found out and most likely fired because what they are doing is considered fraud.
This job is whack, but so easy I just stick with it, haha
Working for RGIS in Sioux Falls, SD...
The work conditions are terrible. We recently got a new Area Manager, and unfortunately he isn't well liked among the employees. RGIS seems to have a knack for hiring phony people to work in upper management.
I have not worked for RGIS very long, but I have worked there long enough to see a few different things happen. Not too long ago there was an incident where one young man who was on a long drive in one of the company vehicles got sick and "projectile vomited" all over the people sitting in front of him. Since "accuracy is our first priority," and the customer's needs need to be met with a "sense of urgency" they were not able to stop for long to clean up the mess, and people had to actually GO to the store with vomit on their clothes and in their shoes and work like this. They were not able to clean up the mess in the van very well,I think it covered two or three places in the van. They just kind of tried to wipe it up with a few paper towels but people still had to sit on those areas and continue going to jobs in the van with the "crusted over vomit" (and the smell of someone else's puke) until about a month and a half later they FINALLY went and got the van detailed and the odor and crusty texture were properly cleaned.
My point is, if you value your employees, why would you subject them to something that would make YOU uncomfortable? This is a company that rents vehicles regularly. It's not like they couldn't have taken care of the mess in the one van and just replaced it with another for a few days. I feel it's more of a matter of things not "directly" affecting them, and not feeling any "sense of urgency" toward the proper handling of those things.
Similarly, anyone who has worked for RGIS for any length of time knows that while keeping the vans in gas and in clean outside appearances is one thing, actually taking care of them is entirely another. It bothers many people that we are required to go on long four hour (or more drives) when the vehicles are less than roadworthy (bald tires, brakes squealing, etc.) we live in a place with extreme climates--namely LONG, COLD winters. We deserve to have traction... I realize that Lowe's is a big account for RGIS but, is it worth risking your life to get there? I'm starting to ask myself these questions... I'd be interested to know what other people think about this or if it happens like this in other districts.
Lastly, us South Dakota people got the short end of the stick as far as breaks go. We live in a "right to work state," and here, there is no law requiring any employer to give you any sort of break. So what happens to us most of the time is they work us for say, six hours or so and then give us lunch or send us home and keep the grey shirts and top guns.
Sioux Falls: OMG, that's horrible! Going to work with crusted-over vomit on your RGIS polos. You poor guys! Your AM or DM or whoever was running that inventory should have seen to it that you guys were given the proper time and facilities to clean up. And to leave the van in that manner for over a month...gross!
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