Archived How much will hours drop after Christmas?

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LUR99

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I was hired in September and my hours have always been between 27-40 hours/week. How much do hours drop down after the holidays? I am a cashier/guest service desk/signing. After my 90 days, I can ask to be cross trained, will that help with hours?
 
There are several tips for getting hours when hours are low. Four that come to mind are: 1) make sure you have open availability and are willing to work any shift from open to close; 2) learn as much as you can and cross train into other areas so you can cover more positions; 3) let FRO know that they can count on you to cover when others call out and for pete's sake if they call you try not to say 'no' if you can help it; 4) keep an eye on the 'swap shift' board - sometimes people don't want to swap shifts so much as they just want to get rid of the one they have for whatever reason.

The one thing that annoys me about people during hour cut backs is those who expect to get 40 hrs a week on their own terms... they whine and complain and carry on but when FRO calls them for extra hours they always say "NO". When leadership wants them to learn something new, again they say "NO". When they are asked to open their availability, again - you guessed it - they say "NO". If you don't want to work within the system at all then in my opinion you have no right to whine about it.

Sry if I broke out in a rant >< LUR99, learning as much as you can is always a good start. :)
 
At least at my store, Service Desk is in demand so they will definitely notice less of a cut in hours. However, cashiers and other positions will definitely notice a huge cut. Being cross-trained helps, but there's only so much that you can do.
 
As a cashier, I never went below 16 hours a week. I've seen Salesfloor go as low as 8 hours a week though. Luckily I'm Service Desk now, so I'm hoping to get around 24. If not, then I plan to make use of my vacation time. So yes, hours will take a steep decline, but it doesn't last for long.
 
I suppose I forgot to answer the opening question. I can't say how low the hours in your store will go. They tell you that hours follows sales and as sales drop off so do hours. January tends to see a significant drop from the holidays and it tends to go up and down through the first half of the year. When "back to school" hits most stores start to see a slow increase that of course rises drastically towards Thanksgiving and on through Christmas... thus the huge amount of hours during this time of the year. But all stores are obviously not the same and some struggle more than others.
 
I currently have open availability and I had them put me on the list of people to call in first when someone calls out. Working a service desk shift is always at least a 6.5 hour shift. We don't have a lot of people service desk trained or willing to work service desk so that might help me somewhat.
 
Depending on your current workstation, your store demographic, etc hours may drop steeply post holiday.
If you were getting 20-30 hrs/wk you could drop to single digits.
To keep your hrs at a decent level you'll need to train in as many areas RIGHT NOW - salesfloor, cashier, carts, service desk, softlines, fitting room - anything they offer for training, TAKE IT.
Also be on your best attendance-wise, stay late or come in early if asked (when possible).
Keep a change of red & khaki on hand either in your car or your backpack (if you bike or bus).
Keep your availability wide open & your phone on, especially weekends.
Even if you can't take the shift offered when they call, thank them for calling you.
Be the person they can depend on & you can depend on getting hours.
 
I am still under my 90 days and I was told, I can't cross train unless I am pass my 90 days. I was hired as a cashier and two weeks after I started they asked me if I wanted to work at the customer service desk, I said yes and 95% of my shifts are at the service desk now. A month after I started they asked me if I wanted to learn doing the signing sunday mornings, I said yes to that as well and have been doing it since. My 90 days are up in a week or so, I will express that I am interested in being cross trained. I have grocery store experience, maybe that will help me cross train in Market? Anything but electronics because unless it's an apple product, I am totally clueless.
 
I am still under my 90 days and I was told, I can't cross train unless I am pass my 90 days. I was hired as a cashier and two weeks after I started they asked me if I wanted to work at the customer service desk, I said yes and 95% of my shifts are at the service desk now. A month after I started they asked me if I wanted to learn doing the signing sunday mornings, I said yes to that as well and have been doing it since. My 90 days are up in a week or so, I will express that I am interested in being cross trained. I have grocery store experience, maybe that will help me cross train in Market? Anything but electronics because unless it's an apple product, I am totally clueless.
I'm going to hazard a guess and say Market would be happy to have you. :) I know my Market team could use another person.
 
Either Spot loves you, or they don't.

It's that simple...

Yes, that seems to be true. I have seen a few people go who were hired after me. Spot didn't like them and reduced their hours to just a few hours so they would quit.
 
I'm assuming hours are gonna get cut pretty hard. I will use that to my advantage if I'm kept after seasonal, and take the slower times to cross train. I plan on learning Hardlines, Electronics, Food Ave., and maybe backroom.
 
When I was hired, they hired me to work 15-20 hours but I have never been below 27 hours. Hopefully Spot likes me lol.
 
In my experience hours are usually cut to about 40% of what you had during December. If your store has 10,000 hours/week in Dec, they usually go to about 4000/week Jan-March, but ASANTS.....
 
I'm assuming hours are gonna get cut pretty hard. I will use that to my advantage if I'm kept after seasonal, and take the slower times to cross train. I plan on learning Hardlines, Electronics, Food Ave., and maybe backroom.
The 'slower times' will not have the hrs available to cross train; that's why it's best to take advantage of the hrs flurry right now so you can grab swap-board shifts in different areas.
Next month the swap sheets will either be very empty or every shift snapped up & at our store call-outs weren't replaced unless it was an uber-specialized area.
 
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In my store most people who say average 35-40 hours get cut to around 25-30. Cashiers in the other hand they get cut a lot. Most cashiers for the month of Jan and feb will average about 20 hours compared to the 32 or more hours they get now.
 
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Unless we magically hire and retain a dayside BR TM soonish, I expect my hours to be ~30 hours post-holidays. We only have 3 daysiders.
 
when I was a cashier my hours never dropped. What they did at the store I worked at was get rid of most of the seasonal people. That gave more hours to the permanent cashiers.

I would have liked less hours, but I did need to keep my a g hrs up so I was able to keep the health ins.
 
I'm assuming hours are gonna get cut pretty hard. I will use that to my advantage if I'm kept after seasonal, and take the slower times to cross train. I plan on learning Hardlines, Electronics, Food Ave., and maybe backroom.

Yeah...there are no hours to cross train. In fact, hours are so badly cut, you will generally be working harder in February than you are right now when you are working, so there won't be an opportunity to cross train unless they are desperate or you get really, really lucky.
 
I'll be curious how backroom hours get handled. We get 40 hours if we want it (and even the occasional OT) and have 2 mids. I imagine we won't need 2 mids come January.
 
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