Fortunately, there was this revolutionary idea that Wally World had designed years prior that they have implemented called the “Grass Roots Meetings.” In these meetings, associates were given the chance to speak directly to the store manager about the problems they were encountering. I attended each of these meetings and explained and pleaded for more help in my department. It was here that I also learned of the problems with the managers.
Our store manager held these meetings for a week, and then things began to change. Several managers ended up transferring to different stores, reducing the number of managers. The store seemed to be better run, and employee morale was up. However, cogs were turning in the minds of the corporate levels.
It is a well stated fact that wally world has one of the most efficient inventory systems known to date. About a year ago, they found a way to better optimize it. I won’t go into details due to the complexity of the system (and trust me as an information systems major I can pick the system’s logical components apart piece by piece and drag it out for several pages), but what it essentially accomplishes is track each and every product. When a case is sold, the system will allow the associates to know that they can fill the shelf with their back stocked product. It also allows associates to scan a product and then give them the exact location in the backroom of where it is.
While the system is actually quite remarkable, it is not without its flaws. The problems start occurring when you realize the key problem with any information system, the fact there will be humans using it. No system created for humans is without flaws, and humans will find them all. There are countless ways of causing errors in the system, from a cashier double scanning a similar product of the same price (but not the same flavor) to an associate pulling a product from a bin without scanning it out properly or likewise forgetting to scan something in properly to the warehouse sending fewer products than their order listed.
Wal-Mart’s answer to this is to create a new line of managers, the zone managers. So now the authoritative pecking order goes from associate – department manager – zone manager – assistant manager – co-manager – store manager. The mind reels. When faced with the problem of too much bureaucracy two years before, wally world eliminated the problem by removing some of the ranks of management. Now they’ve brought the problem right back, only with three times the middle men. As anyone with any knowledge in business (or a required business administration minor) will tell you, THAT’S A RECEIPE FOR DISASTER.
One key element that almost every corporation seems to struggle with are its levels of bureaucracy. Bureaucracy, while in small amounts allows the business to be managed, what inevitably ends up happening is there becomes an overload of people. The work required is spread about amongst too many people. Lines of communication become crossed and in the mix, the messages are lost. Confusion settles in, and what happens at the top is exponentially harder for those on the bottom. Those on the bottom as a result of bureaucracy, lose their voice as their voice lacks to power to move up all the new rungs of the ladder. At least now those at the top no longer have to hear the complaints of those below them.
Let’s now leave this textbook lesson in bureaucracy and return to my store. The system has now been implemented in almost all the store (excluding the fresh departments due to the nature and perishable nature of their product, they are on a completely separate system). Each zone manager is assigned to a specific area of the store on paper anyway. The problem I at least have with the system is its speed of generating picks for areas where an item can be stocked. While it will generate them on its own, the relay speed can take hours. It’s typically much faster for an associate to manually go through the department and manually create a “pick” for each item that can be stocked on the shelf. This problem wouldn’t be a problem at all really, more of a minor inconvenience. That way the people who run the department, the associates and department manager have control over their department, they do their tasks and get what they need when they need it. Management doesn’t seem to agree with that philosophy. To make sure those in top are in control, rigid time restrictions have been put in place. From 2 PM to 4 PM each day, there are to be no picks in the system. Strange considering that’s when our business is typically picking up each day, which would make sense for there to be MORE picks in the system so the associates can fill the holes the customers are creating upon the shelves to ensure that each product stays full.
Then management does something that I have opposed at every grocery store. Managers prefer style over substance. While appearances are important, it is my personal professional belief that there needs to be something backing up an appearance. In order to make their store look good, management has started over these past few months a completely rigid time slot where from 2 PM to 3 PM all associates are to drop whatever it is they are doing and do nothing but zone the store (facing the product or pulling everything from the back to the front). NO EXCEPTIONS and that is no exaggeration. I have had managers after I have drawn them out into a verbal argument tell me that they would rather have me leave a shelf space unfilled, our ability to make a potential sale, so I can do nothing but pull product towards the front of the shelf for an hour. I have been chastised by managers for running highest demanded products in the store which are my eggs and milk when they were empty during the two to three time slots. Associates have been called out for taking their lunches during this time slot because their department was backed up with product that wasn’t ran the night before, and since they would be unable to try to catch up during 2 – 3 they decided to take their mandatory lunch hour then so they could better optimize their time. Keep in mind that this is also the hour that most department managers in the store are beginning to leave in which they must leave responsibility of the department to the associates under them. Instead of being allowed to prepare the department for the closing shifts, they are expected to waste their time making sure it looks “pretty” for the managers when they do their store inspection. I cannot recall when I joined an organization with more in common with the military than a civilian grocery store, but apparently it changed without my say, which leads right into my next source of contention.
Remember the talk about bureaucracy and its effects on organizational communication? How has that affected the grocery store? NO ONE UNDER A CO-MANAGER RANK HAS A VOICE ANYMORE. If you are not one of three managers (the store or the two co-managers) you have no voice for disagreement, none. It just gets worse as it travels down the ranks. An associate now has five managers who are capable of issuing them orders. Attempts to offer suggestions about certain orders are treated with the sickening response, “I’ll ask *insert a person of greater rank than this person* about it, but in the meantime do what you’re told.” All responsibility is lifted off that person’s shoulders they’ve given you your orders, thereby completing their job, and you are still in the same position you were before. To make matters worse, somewhere along the way, there is no longer any way of expressing your contempt for the way things are being run, because the grass roots meetings are now extinct. Cut down by the lawn mower of bureaucracy. For those who are brave enough to express their complaints to the high ranking managers have had their jobs passive-aggressively threatened:
“If you don’t like it, why don’t you just quit?”
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