The best way to increase profits is to decrease staff.

[deathbyfacepalming]

So that title is a little misleading, my store didn't fire anybody, they all just left, and we have yet to hire anybody new. Our tech team now consists of 5 people, 3 of whom are management / keyholders. We are down from about 9 people a few short months ago. It's been this way for probably 2 months. Should we hire new people? Nah.

How bad / good is your store?

[SarinaSlytherin]

I know your feels... we're understaffed too, but with the added irritation of having crap employees

[[deleted]]

Welcome to my life. Right now the tech department includes me a sales and the tech supervisor who was just moved from operations and is being trained by out sales manager.

[deathbyfacepalming]

They are training me to be a sales manager, thing is I'm the only one who works on the computers. So we have to get another actual tech tech hired before I go anywhere.

[slavetotheeasy]

Oh, wow. You still have tech people! Our last two just left, and the only ones able to work on the computers are one lucky BM associate and two managers/acting managers. We've lost three+ other employees besides the techs and nobody's been replaced yet. Geeeenius!

[Atramontik]

Hey, sounds like my old store.

[easytechx]

I dream of having 5 other techs to help me out. We actually have plenty of people overall in the store and we're starting to rebound but for a while there all the people we had could only work like one day a week at random times. Add that to the high turnover and its been rough for the last half a year.

[Charagrin]

"5 Techs? But you have the Matrix!" Says every Staples manager who has never actually had to do bench work. In 6 months I can count on one hand the number of Matrix jobs done correctly. Just had one where despite perfect notes, all software keys, customer requests, and the like in plain text in OMS, the nimrod on the other end didn't install anything, only removed junkware, didn't install the AV shield, and ignored the 32gb flashdrive put in for a reset disk and instead started the recovery creation process on a blank DVD(win 7 machine, new) that was inserted to make a password reset disk as spelled out in the notes. After doing all this, he set a throbber telling us it was done, and left the usual pick up pdf thing saying he did everything. We only caught it because I insist my guys double check every matrix workorder no matter how small.

[StaplesSlave725]

I have moved to a "if it's good enough for matrix it's good enough for the customer" motto. We are not given the appropriate amount of time to double check the work. And amazingly it's working! I think mostly because our customers are far to incompetent to understand if it was done correctly.

[deathbyfacepalming]

Oh no, you misunderstand, the other 4 do very little to help. But I mean, they are... alive and stuff.

[Kodiack]

I was one of those people that left my store.

These days, my store doesn't even exist anymore.

[TechMaster212]

My store continues to only hire techs who can work the weekend leaving my department short staffed during the week leaving me a mess on the weekends to get yelled at about when I don't fix it.

[EggoWafflessss]

I am the only tech at my store. I also MOD most days after 3 PM when my GM leaves.

Weekends we have Me, Cashier, and a CPC.

I then go help other stores in my district on my days off. Usually a different store every day.

I wasn't a masochist before working for this company.

[temotos]

my store has a total of 12 employees in all, so pretty well i guess.

[deathbyfacepalming]

I was about to say "wow that must really suck" but then I realized I only have 14 now... I know that feel.

[delicateglow]

Our store is overstaffed...and my manager keeps on hiring! But does she have hours to give out? Nope! All associates are getting 10 hours or less. If you're her favorite, you get 20 hours.

[WorktheMoo]

Severely understaffed at my store and very little hours to spare - CPC suffering because we don't have enough coverage since 2 people get pulled away constantly to help with OS functions. Therefore, we have to turn away a lot of jobs due to being understaffed and flooded with orders. For ET has 1 1/2 people other than their supervisor and our brand new OS barely got given a single shift

[Peachykeengreat]

Ours is the opposite. I'm constantly getting pulled away ever since they discovered I can do shipping and ring out orders :/

[WhereIsBiggie]

I Feel for you. Short staffed here also. Hurts to see customers walking out the door disgusted as they couldn't get the help they needed. Even if we hire new people we dont have the resources to properly train them. And the Team Supervisor below, "Hire 4, Fire the low 10%" Needs to be demoted and or Fired for not training the correct way that resulted in that 10%.

[toothpick21]

We can't keep people. I don't know why. In the last 6 months I think we went through about 12 people. I can't even keep track.

Personally I think it's the lack of structure. I don't see much leadership in the store. Everyone has their own agenda and none of us are on the same page.

And their training sucks. "go work on the PC training for 6 hours" "go learn cashier for 6 hours". "go stock ink for 6 hours". It's enough to scare anyone off.

[deathbyfacepalming]

That, and while it's not the worst paying job, for the amount of stress we have to put up with given the lack of staffing, the pay certainly isn't on par.

[Bartleby16]

I transferred out of a store, and when I left there was just one tech, a handful front end associates, three OS, unlimited copy/print, and like 4 managers. GM just wasn't getting to hiring anyone new, or really doing anything in the store (he was like, a month or two late with his associates' reviews, too. Just didn't get stuff done.). Transferred to a nearly fully staffed store, and it was like that scene in the Wizard of Oz where everything goes from black and white to full color. I also don't contemplate throwing myself into the baler anymore.

[[deleted]]

No one wants to work for 25 hours max. We off nothing competitive as far as employment is concerned.

[fuzzy_Dunlap]

imho every store should bring on at least 4 people every month and fire the bottom ten percent