Poll of the Day > Why do employers cut hours even when they are understaffed?

(+) Yeah! (+)

?

What?

The answer is obviously going to vary employer to employer.

I have never worked at a place that cut hours while being understaffed. It's either understaffed and everyone gets a bunch of hours or get overstaffed and cut hours.

I can't figure out if they can't understand why places are cutting business hours to cut down on the amount of shifts they have to run or if they are talking about some specific situation we can't possibly begin to respond to without knowing more than "?"

There is also the possibility it's just nonsense as well.

Because they think it's the best way to maximize their profits in that situation. Exactly why they think that is going to vary from situation to situation, including the possible answer of "because they're dumb and don't understand how to handle the problem," but the bottom line is the bottom line of their thought process.

^ Right. For those who don't see it naturally by now, most businesses care far more for making money than they do providing good service. Good service is only provided if that's what needed to make money (usually in situations where there is good competition).

I wouldn't necessarily say "most businesses," since there are tons of small businesses run by people that are genuinely passionate about what they do and want to do it well, but certainly most (if not all) of the more successful larger businesses, which will represent the majority of day-to-day commerce for most people. Customer service is simply a means to an end, for those businesses. If it were found that kicking customers in the balls on their way into the store increased the amount they spent, Walmart would be buying steel-toed boots for their greeters.

Founders are often idealistic to a degree, yes, so small businesses are more likely to have good customer service. Buut if it comes down to a choice between making money and cutting service theyre all going to cut service. Fortunately thats not always the choice, but still: among businesses that are larger than one family i I dont have a problem with most.

Bad scheduling. Throw everyone on the bust time even if it is not busy enough to need everyone there and then have no one on the slow periods even though shit still needs to get done.

Incompetence/inefficiency

Or maybe some corporate conspiracy idk

Again, it's always going to vary.

In the case of a lot of mom & pops, it's often that they can't afford to pay for the extra hours. In those cases, the owners work longer hours. CT repealing its blue laws meant a lot of owners had to work an extra 10-12 hours each week because the hours of operation had to increase (since otherwise they'd lose their customer-base) but the sales stayed roughly the same. Keep in mind that a many small businesses are scraping by or underwater, which can happen for any number of reasons.

For a lot of corporations, managers are given a budget and they're trying to manage their budget as best they can. This often means that salaried managers are stuck working a lot of unpaid overtime when they can't get their workforce to actually do their jobs in the allotted hours (because, in all honesty, a lot of people just don't work very hard). If they have to go over their budget, the managers get disciplined or fired. And that budget, including hours, can be decided by any number of factors, although major corporations will have some kind of formula.

In other cases, they aren't so much "understaffed," the business is just managed poorly. And that can come to any number of inefficiencies, whether employees are poorly trained, the workers aren't right for the job, the workers might not be putting in effort, the normal protocols don't work, etc.

And then you can have inexperienced management and management that's too far removed from the day-to-day to understand normal operations. And, at the executive level, you might see people appointed who've never worked in that industry before where the board of directors looked at their success in a different field and thought it'd be transferrable when it might not be (or they might've succeeded in the previous role through conditions they don't have or -- in extreme cases -- through no efforts of their own)

Fedex is doing exactly this. We are understaffed and yet they don't let us take anymore hours in QA.

Because businessmen are abusive idiots. You cut hours and demand the remaining staff work harder; that way you make more money.

"Because work harder, peasant scum. I can't make profits go up every year if you aren't willing to do the job of 3 people. You don't have a choice, complain and get replaced."

Keeping a thumb on the workers also keeps them from thinking they're too important or have any stock in their situation, even if you lose money, so in the end you keep your system of oppression going. Gotta keep that replacement rate high, it's part of the business model.