Unfortunately, despite my glowing opinions of the company, I'm seeing toxic policy changes and management tactics being encouraged that are starting to make life more and more stressful for the employees who earn you your success, a lot of which are recent changes.
1. In early 2017, some stores started to test a new, much more rigid attendance policy which replaced an admittedly far more relaxed version. Under the old policy, you had up to 9 absences in a year until termination, and vacation/sick leave were offered to help ease that a bit. Tardy policy was originally very lax too. 9 times within 60 days would be what it takes to be terminated. I confess, there was definitely some abuse of this under the old system, but the system worked for decades and made it clear that they took care of their people and would only fire those who truly deserved it.
Now, a new policy has been implemented. 6 tardies in a year, and you're gone. Not 60 days. Also, 6 absences and you're gone. I actually think the former is much worse than the latter, because a tardy can often happen for reasons that are beyond the control of even the most responsible employee, with some people having long and rough commutes to work here. 9 in 60 days was too lenient, but 6 in a year will lead to the loss of talent the company desperately needs. Sick days also count against you even if you have absence pay. In fact, under the new policy, you are required to use that pay any time you do not make it in. Meaning they now steal your vacation time if you get sick too, this was added as a last minute way to screw people over and it was a step too far. Penalize and threaten us if you will, but don't force people to be sick for desperately needed vacation time.
2. The above wouldn't be so bad, and is still manageable... if the scheduling system hadn't been changed. It used to be that people within departments were allowed to work with management to help write a fair and balanced schedule. It wasn't perfect, but it worked pretty well. Most full timers got about 40 hours a week and 5 hours of unpaid lunch (45 hours max), with 9 hour days rotating in either closes, midshifts, or openings. It was still retail hours, and you'd still work nights and weekends, but you could build a life around it with a little bit of planning. Shifts at least started and ended at set times.
That is no longer guaranteed.
Now the new system auto-schedules you to work even more unconventional shifts. Sometimes, you'll get a very short day, but more often than not, you get even longer days. Multiple 10 hour days in a week are now common, and can be utterly exhausting. What used to be a 7:00-4:00PM is now a 7-5 or 5:30 even! You lose nearly your entire day! 1-11, 11-9, 9-7 are becoming more frequent as well. Weekend shifts are also becoming almost the expected norm. Getting a Saturday off is becoming very rare, while stores are actually being overstaffed some weekends, and understaffed during the week. The system is putting less people on the floor than we need to get good quality sales/customer service and so people are creating less profit than they actually could under the old system, while also getting stressed/burned out, and losing valuable time with family/friends.
3. Micromanagement tactics are becoming more and more commonly taught and encouraged. Too many employees get moved around too quickly, and turnover seems to be increasing. You can be a super star employee one month, but if you struggle for even a week, you start getting lectures about being moved around to what are obviously implied to be less desirable positions. No one is going to hit a home run every time. Sales skills are indeed important and useful, but there's a lot about the business no salesman, manager, or advertiser will be able to control. Even a perfect presentation won't stop a customer who is dead set on buying only the advertised doorbuster product while skipping every single one of the addons.
Store rankings are being heavily promoted over actual profit, which is very, very dumb. Management is constantly trying to beat out every other store in the chain and remain within the coveted "top 5", not earn profit over cost of operations. (which is what REALLY indicates how healthy a chain/store is doing) Friendly competition is fine, but when you start punishing people or demeaning a store not because they failed to create loyal customers or generate profit (remember, your pay is directly tied to your performance. If you earn the company money, you get paid well. If you don't, you lose money fast. Those who earn are doing so because they earn MicroCenter money, period), but because they didn't get you into the top 10 store ranking on some stupid chart, your priorities are messed up and need to be seriously rethought. A bottom ranking store could actually be earning good income for the company, but the entire store gets berated because they aren't hitting an arbitrary and ever shifting goal.
