You get poor quality workers when you make the majority of them have to work a second job, since you don't give them full time hours or benefits. Retail often can have 100% turnover or more in the span of a year because of this. The average retail job works their employees part time, from 15 or less hours to near full time, on a schedule which changes from week to week. Sometimes even keyholding staff are worked like this.
You don't create employees loyal to your store when you do this, and especially if they also have to work an additional 5 or more hour shift before showing up at your job. Then you also get into tiny payroll budgets overall, preventing the store from hiring enough people to meet needs. So your 15 an hour worker can't clean the store, because he is on register all day, and he can't work extra hours because there is no budget. Or he does work them, but he has to take the next day off because he can't go over his schedule.
These things among others create a culture where all you can do is punch in, survive the shift, and go home. You can't do a good job because the district managers don't want you to do a good job. they want you to meet their metrics, and most of it is about money and budget. They don't care much about clean stores, since they visit your store maybe once every few months. They do care that you spend more than your payroll, no matter whether you needed to or not.
But I used to brush all Walmart workers with the same crusty paint brush (bought at Wally).
Sure, i'd rather still be earning 6 figures. But when we did we all knew it could not last. What do you do? Leave early when the golden handcuffs are attached?
Retail is my second job. What you describe is very spot on true.
Yet probably the surprisingly largest difference is my lack of awareness prior to Wally that people did not have a supportive and wealthy home life. My retail peers suffer from lives I could not even imagine. Most of this group have no possible way of seeing parent(s) show them how to have a professional life. To excel. To build wealth. To dream big. That's the difference. Where my retail peers come from. Just as my sister in law would not be seen in a Walmart, my fellow co workers don't like to shop at the mall and enter macys or Lord and Taylor. Sears is ok.
You get poor quality workers when you make the majority of them have to work a second job, since you don't give them full time hours or benefits. Retail often can have 100% turnover or more in the span of a year because of this. The average retail job works their employees part time, from 15 or less hours to near full time, on a schedule which changes from week to week. Sometimes even keyholding staff are worked like this.
You don't create employees loyal to your store when you do this, and especially if they also have to work an additional 5 or more hour shift before showing up at your job. Then you also get into tiny payroll budgets overall, preventing the store from hiring enough people to meet needs. So your 15 an hour worker can't clean the store, because he is on register all day, and he can't work extra hours because there is no budget. Or he does work them, but he has to take the next day off because he can't go over his schedule.
These things among others create a culture where all you can do is punch in, survive the shift, and go home. You can't do a good job because the district managers don't want you to do a good job. they want you to meet their metrics, and most of it is about money and budget. They don't care much about clean stores, since they visit your store maybe once every few months. They do care that you spend more than your payroll, no matter whether you needed to or not.
Honestly, retail sucks.