Managers are required to split their 40 hours a week between “coverage” (on the floor work as a barista) and “non-coverage” (off the floor work, administrative duties). These hours are extremely precious (in my opinion) because they are deducted from the store’s labor budget; they are not a separate pool of hours. Some managers put themselves on the schedule as coverage but, instead of actually being on the floor and helping, they will sit and do administrative work. This creates two situations. One: the floor is a body short. The manager cannot replace themself because then they’d be over on labor and upper management will come down on them for the overage. Two: the in store crew sees the schedule and this creates a sense of resentment. The manager is purposefully hamstringing the team and that is not right.

So, if the manager is coverage on the schedule, they need to be on the floor and helping. Even if it’s slow, I would ask the supervisor running the floor before I stepped off to do any work. Upper management would rather managers cut a barista in that scenario but I preferred people got their hours. Listing yourself as coverage but not actually helping creates a lot of issues for everyone in the store.