Pay on different shifts

Joined
Aug 7, 2017
Messages
30
We recently had an all team member meeting and at the end someone asked when we would get a raise being that we hadn't had one in 2 years. We were told that they don't see a raise coming any time soon. What I find odd though is I work B1, all the other shifts in the past year got raises in shift differential and pay but we never got an increase. On top of this I work inbound and found out from my OM that we do 70% of the total production for the week, while the rest of the shifts combine for 30%. They always blame it on staffing but then flex majority of them home. When we come in on Tuesday we are told there plans on 12 hour shifts were only 30,000-40,000 while ours is 60,000-70,000 on a 10 hour shift. I've brought this up to the PC's but they don't care. How is it in your DC?
 
You're explaining all the reasons why there is a shift differential. The point of paying people more hourly for those shifts is so that they will stay and support those shifts and despite being offered more money people still don't want to stay and are still going to B1.

B1 has always had a higher headcount because people always want to go there because its a better schedule. And because it has a higher head count it will always push more freight. That's the trade off. A better work-life balance for less pay.

In exchange the other keys have less people and in order to try and encourage them to stay to keep a balanced operation they offer more money. And if they're still struggling to keep people then clearly its still not enough.

If you want more money job change to one of those shifts.
 
The B keys and specifically B1 in my DC is understaffed for that exact reason. They mandatory flex down the A keys on their scheduled shifts and then had to call OT to get help for the B keys. I promise you no one was laughing despite how amusing it is.
 
The B keys and specifically B1 in my DC is understaffed for that exact reason. They mandatory flex down the A keys on their scheduled shifts and then had to call OT to get help for the B keys. I promise you no one was laughing despite how amusing it is.
They called ot, or they flexed up tm’s that were previously mando flexed down.


They may have raised the shift differential pay, but they did not raise the base pay. You can’t get upset because they raised differential pay, as you have the option of going to a different shift if you wish.

Are you saying b keys do 70% of the work, or b1 specifically? Because if it’s the latter that is wrong.

Also, remember that if you are capped on the progression scale and haven’t gotten a raise for the past year, you get a payout. And from what I saw it was some folks actually got more than I did for my sti!
 
B1 specifically does 70%.
You're explaining all the reasons why there is a shift differential. The point of paying people more hourly for those shifts is so that they will stay and support those shifts and despite being offered more money people still don't want to stay and are still going to B1.

B1 has always had a higher headcount because people always want to go there because its a better schedule. And because it has a higher head count it will always push more freight. That's the trade off. A better work-life balance for less pay.

In exchange the other keys have less people and in order to try and encourage them to stay to keep a balanced operation they offer more money. And if they're still struggling to keep people then clearly its still not enough.

If you want more money job change to one of those shifts.
How is that a better work life balance for B1? We work 4 days and have 3 off while the weekend works 3 days and has 4 off. Sounds like the weekly shifts do more, so they should get paid more, I have kids that I get on the weekends so I don't really have the option to go back to a weekend key. What's the point of having a weekend shift then if they can't keep people, they don't do much so lets pay them more haha
 
I have kids that I get on the weekends so I don't really have the option to go back to a weekend key.
This is the definition of work/life balance! A B2 TM might not see their kid(s) or spouse for 4+ days of the week even when they live together. A1/A2 TMs essentially don’t exist for 3 days (work, sleep, wake, repeat). That is a lack of work/life balance! And having your kids on the weekend doesn’t rule out B2, which is the highest paid shift overall. All of the other keys make pretty even money annually if you do the math.

B1 doesn’t work harder than anyone else. B1 inbound usually receives more than anyone because they work ~20 easy ass live trailers every day so all of the other shifts have to work the garbage ass consolidators, so if anything, they work less.
 
You do more work because that's when the work is there to do. If they are trying to pull the drops clean every day, and the biggest drops are during the week, then most of the work will be done then. It's not because the b keys are amazing, it's that way because that's when the store demands materializes. If the a keys average 60k warehouse drops and the b keys average 80k, you are going to have 70% more work to do because of that alone. The teams aren't 70% more productive though, they are just bigger. Doing more with more doesn't get you paid more too.
 
Last edited:
You do more work because that's when the work is there to do. If they are trying to pull the drops clean every day, and the biggest drops are during the week, then most of the work will be done then. It's not because the b keys are amazing, it's that way because that's when the store demands materializes. If the a keys average 60k warehouse drops and the b keys average 80k, you are going to have 70% more work to do because of that alone. The teams aren't 70% more productive though, they are just bigger. Doing more with more doesn't get you paid more too.
So you are ok with a company like this having there team members work harder for less pay? I'm really trying to understand your logic. We have pretty close to equivalent staffing throughout, however they constantly flex home night shifts more than us. Granted at one time we were more of a veteran team, but the past few years have seen many more new hires on our key. B1 inbound went from 40ish to 120 team members, but now we are back down to around 50 or so.
 
There's several different issues at play. I'm incredibly skeptical that you are actually working harder.

Larger drops come with increased density, increased density allows you to do more with less effort. Even without factoring that in, are you personally doing more than a comparable team member working on a different shift. If you are, have you looked at why? If you are working harder, are you cherry picking your work, is your OM/LWW team cherry picking your work? Is the freight mix presented to you on the days you work the same as the freight mix that the A keys or nights work?

Are you exceeding plans on your shift, shorting the next shift work and that's why they are sending the night shifts home? Are you doing 70% of the work because you should, or because management is running amok looking for attaboys and chasing bonuses? Do you look at DPM or TBF on a regular basis to confirm what you are being told? Is what you are being told accurate?

I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm just saying that without a better picture of what's going on, it's hard to say if it's right or wrong. Our building can run out of balance at times, but it's generally due to a perfectly acceptable reason. For awhile days were focusing on drops pulling 60-70% of the available work to keep inbound going with space to receive while second shift was focusing on consolidation to make room to keep cramming stuff in the building. They had more time due to less evening lives, so the imbalance in productive work that shows up in plans made sense due to the increase in non-prod work being done to pave the way for the productive work.
 
They called ot, or they flexed up tm’s that were previously mando flexed down.
No I quite litteraly mean they did not have enough TMs that signed back up so the B key TMs that signed up for OT were working 50 hours while the A keys were downstaffed.
 
I wont speak to working harder or whatnot but our building absolutely saves favorable freight for the overnight keys and forces the dayshift to work the less favorable freight as a strategy. I have screenshots of the Gemba board where the specify that as a cause of increased average age of freight.

It is also well known that B1 specifically has the most oversight by management and as a result gets held to the highest standard. This has improved in recent years with things like on-key seniors and weekend/night roles for certain management roles.
 
I wont speak to working harder or whatnot but our building absolutely saves favorable freight for the overnight keys and forces the dayshift to work the less favorable freight as a strategy. I have screenshots of the Gemba board where the specify that as a cause of increased average age of freight.

It is also well known that B1 specifically has the most oversight by management and as a result gets held to the highest standard. This has improved in recent years with things like on-key seniors and weekend/night roles for certain management roles.

Ehh everybody is going to think the key they are on works harder. Is it true though? The old heads are all on B1, so in a way they should probably do more, and are also paid more (think about it, seniority gets more vacation which is pay, everybody topped out where newer employees are not, and even things like we have a grandfathered pension system that new ppl (iin the last 7 yrs I think?) dont get, that worth about $1 an hr according to my calculations).

here it's just a different culture on b1. the employees are a lot more entrenched and have a lot more power. the b1 packers though, they get it done. they make 100% and stop. on other keys it's all over the place, maybe make 70 or maybe 110 and either way dont stop. etc. for a while they actually had a rule on b1, max of 4 packers per feeder. which other keys were at up to 6. when complaints were lodged about the unfairness of this, reply from om was "I dont control what other keys do, we are at 6". LOL, oh so typical response.
 
I worked A2 Inbound couple years back and I hated it with all my being. That extra two hours was nearly traumatic especially on Mondays when I would have to stay up after work so I could drop my kids off to school. Everyone comes in thinking, "Well, at least we get four days off." It's true, but you will be sleeping the entire Tuesday off and maybe a large portion of your Wednesday to recover. Your circadian rhythm is always bouncing back and forth, which I have no doubts will have long term health repercussion if you do it long enough.

You will miss out on all the family function or get-together with your friends since normal people go on outings on the weekends.

The personnel turnover was actually insane. After a year there was only 7-10 people who were still there when I had transferred. It really takes special type of people to stay on that shift. Some nightcrawlers love that shift and it works perfectly for them.

My experience in A2 was definitely something that made me say, "OK, that was actually awful. They can have that extra money, I want out." If you don't believe me, try it out yourself and I will almost guarantee you will say the same thing within a month. Or be one of the few exception who end up loving it.

I also remember they were working some gnarly freight. ART trailers with 500 different DPCI, not a single flow label to be seen. Trailers with two different appointments. Yikes.
 
Ehh everybody is going to think the key they are on works harder. Is it true though? The old heads are all on B1, so in a way they should probably do more, and are also paid more (think about it, seniority gets more vacation which is pay, everybody topped out where newer employees are not, and even things like we have a grandfathered pension system that new ppl (iin the last 7 yrs I think?) dont get, that worth about $1 an hr according to my calculations).

here it's just a different culture on b1. the employees are a lot more entrenched and have a lot more power. the b1 packers though, they get it done. they make 100% and stop. on other keys it's all over the place, maybe make 70 or maybe 110 and either way dont stop. etc. for a while they actually had a rule on b1, max of 4 packers per feeder. which other keys were at up to 6. when complaints were lodged about the unfairness of this, reply from om was "I dont control what other keys do, we are at 6". LOL, oh so typical response.
So what you're saying is a person who is 21 and has worked at the DC for 2 years lets say, shouldn't have to do as much as someone who has been here for 20 years? I believe the person who puts in 20 years deserves higher pay and less work. They literally dedicated themselves to the company so more vacation hours and higher pay is a given, they've earned it. When I started here the starting pay was $14.25, now it's around $22 at my DC, while I currently make $2 more than that. Such as joke
 
So what you're saying is a person who is 21 and has worked at the DC for 2 years lets say, shouldn't have to do as much as someone who has been here for 20 years? I believe the person who puts in 20 years deserves higher pay and less work. They literally dedicated themselves to the company so more vacation hours and higher pay is a given, they've earned it. When I started here the starting pay was $14.25, now it's around $22 at my DC, while I currently make $2 more than that. Such as joke
When someone can walk in off the street with no relevant experience and be trained to do your job in short period of time you aren't worth anything to them.
 
B1 inbound has the most staff of the other keys and gets the easiest/cherrypicked freight, having higher numbers in that case is expected. You wouldn't make those numbers if you had to work endless sterilite/pillow/cons/transfer loads like the other shifts do.

So what you're saying is a person who is 21 and has worked at the DC for 2 years lets say, shouldn't have to do as much as someone who has been here for 20 years? I believe the person who puts in 20 years deserves higher pay and less work. They literally dedicated themselves to the company so more vacation hours and higher pay is a given, they've earned it. When I started here the starting pay was $14.25, now it's around $22 at my DC, while I currently make $2 more than that. Such as joke

Target (or any other company for that matter) doesn't see it that way and doesn't really care about giving more than the bare minimum to retain people. This is menial labor and you are essentially disposable.
 
B1 inbound has the most staff of the other keys and gets the easiest/cherrypicked freight, having higher numbers in that case is expected. You wouldn't make those numbers if you had to work endless sterilite/pillow/cons/transfer loads like the other shifts do.



Target (or any other company for that matter) doesn't see it that way and doesn't really care about giving more than the bare minimum to retain people. This is menial labor and you are essentially disposable.
B1 also has all of the senior team there ensuring they do everything correct, like working the proper freight in art. I’ve looked at what other keys work and they regularly work tl’s in art with 100+ density.
 
B1 also has all of the senior team there ensuring they do everything correct, like working the proper freight in art. I’ve looked at what other keys work and they regularly work tl’s in art with 100+ density.
Didn’t the “we have all the bigwigs here” argument kinda die when they went from department SOMs to key SOMs? Who’s there on B1 that isn’t on A2 now? The SOD? Cuz both have ODs, SOMs, PCs… I guess the CI-OMs and Safety OM have more less made B1 their home, but do they even do anything? (Serious question since I’ve never heard a word from any of them regarding anything)
 
Didn’t the “we have all the bigwigs here” argument kinda die when they went from department SOMs to key SOMs? Who’s there on B1 that isn’t on A2 now? The SOD? Cuz both have ODs, SOMs, PCs… I guess the CI-OMs and Safety OM have more less made B1 their home, but do they even do anything? (Serious question since I’ve never heard a word from any of them regarding anything)
By senior team I think he meant veterans. Not senior leadership.
 
By senior team I think he meant veterans. Not senior leadership.
No I meant senior leadership. Sd/ods/senior ci/ ci’s/ icqa leaders/labor analyst/safety om/project managers/any visitor from hq/stores.

Sure, is there a “night od”? Yes but they are there typically until 8p. Everyone else listed leaves by like 6p. Depending on the som, they don’t hold the team accountable for doing the right thing because all they care about is winning or they simply don’t understand how all the departments operate.
 
Back
Top