Failing company hindered by archaic and bullying managerial approach
My typical day at work normally involves trying to produce the full range of our department's products (pizzas, sandwiches and salads) for our customers whilst remaining a fully legal (in accordance with Food safety and Trading Standards legislation) business operation.
As well as sometimes producing all the items myself (as at times I am the only member of staff present. On some occasions I sometimes have the luxury of a second pair of hands), a large part of my role involves code-checking our products to ensure all our products are legally safe to produce and sell to our customers. This is a very important and time-consuming task, and one which requires the utmost attention everyday.
I am also required to attend a daily meeting to discuss waste and markdowns, availability and general operations within our store. This meeting is a largely unproductive and waste of time and resources, as around ten members of staff are present and often offer up as little as a minute of information each. Arguably, up to 20 productive hours a week are lost on these meetings. Most of the time talk turns to specific details about things which has absolutely nothing to do with my department, and so I am forced to listen to information that means nothing to me when in my mind I know I have so much work I could be productively doing instead. These meetings often descend into a blaming exercise from our duty manager (who themselves are of course never liable for any issues in the sto
ConsTerrible approach to staff, lack of resources to do job satisfactorily, ignorance of work-life balance, outdated approach to management and business
overall you get some good benefit from working for Morrisons plc, from a staff discount to sharesaving scheme and a company pention but it seems to be overshadowed by the poor perfomance of either the company or the store you work at.
From My experience the Job is just like every other job you'd expect in the field. Very little difference in the way things work, except the things that personify corporate greed and political internal strife.
Promotions internally are 'who you know' rather than 'what you know', usually outsourced to others coming from different companies into this one, not only will they prefer to hire others rather than promote from within but also give them more of a salary increase for doing so. This in turn usually leaves current staff disillusioned as to their promotion prospects and these outside staff getting a pay rise and then looking for another job afew months down the line. Also, in order to be put in for promotion you need the 'blessing' of someone higher than yourself, which almost never happens, beyond working with your line manager you don't interact with anyone else.
Then it comes to problem solving; managers, by and large, hate confrontation. They would much rather escalate a problem than deal with it in its infancy, what was a minor disagreement is suddenly blown up to the head of HR or to an investigation into behavior. Which then brings me to another point; you can be as bad at your job as you can be, make up medical problems, be slow, s
ProsGreat discounts, bonus' and generous pension schemes
ConsPoor planning, unprofessional management, lack of support in both promotion and problematic situations.
I took a job at Morrisons due to being made redundant because of Covid-19. The job was offered on a temp but with the option of becoming permenant after the 3 month probationary period, with full training and flexible hours.
I was contracted to 15 hours a week with the option of overtime if it is available. I double checked if this was compulsary overtime or voluntary overtime, was told it was voluntary. So far I have done nothing but work 6 out of 7 days, over 50+ hours a week (without signing to say I am happy to work more than 48hrs a week) - this is because you are not asked if you would like overtime, you're just put down for more hours. You're also told you will get a rota for 4 weeks and if this needs to change you will ne notified - you are never notified, they change your days of work and hours daily and weekly without notifying you even if its a change for the next day.
You end up with no work life balance becuase you're always at work and if you do tell them you're not able to do overtime you're made to feel like you won't have a job the next day.
You do not get rest breaks like you will at other places of work (20min for over 6 hours) for example; if you work anywhere from 4hrs to 7.5 hours you will only recieve a 15min unpaid break and unless you leave the store it's not even guarenteed you will be left alone during that short break.
They do not train you as they state, you're shown very quickly how to do something once and if you do it wrong, they will get
Proscollegues, pay, discount
ConsPoor Management, Hours all over the place, Poor training, Poor communication, Favouritism/Nepotism at its finest
Woeful Experience - only apply if you're desperate.
Affected by the pandemic, I started my job as a delivery driver for Morrisons a few months ago. I'd always worked for smaller companies but thought that working for a national supermarket chain would be very organised and supportive of their workforce - not here I'm afraid.
A typical day would have you starting at your delegated time, before spending half an hour hunting for missing crates, pestering management to sort things out for you, manually loading your vans (which are hire vans which are all faulty in some way, flat tyre/broken mirror/faulty engine that keeps going into limp home mode/low brake pressure).
It's back-breaking work because they do not have the stacking slot system that the other major supermarket delivery vans have - and then delivering to customers by carrying every single crate to them manually because you are not provided a sack trolley (I have now injured my back twice because of this).
The vans are also bottom spec which means they also have no assists such as parking sensors or reversing cameras, which are necessary when trying to park down the narrow roads of Westcliff-on-Sea where finding a gap will be few and far between.
Although we are told that our own branded vans are on order, we still do not have an ETA on when they'll arrive. But you would have thought that a company as big as Morrisons would put more budget to more reliable vans and equipment to hold us out in the meantime - the current offerings are rubbish.
Hours have recently be
ProsThe people you work with
ConsDisorganised, huge delays, customers end up taking out their frustration on you when you aren't able to help being late
First things first. Artical 10 of the humans right act: Freedom of expression. This is not a hate speech towards the company this is simply my views of expression!. I'm just exercising my human right!
I've kept my identity hidden as I know ill be probably be punished in some way etc. Overall the staff I work with is amazing, helpful, always willing to have a good laugh etc through the night theres always a good atmosphere.
I feel sorry for the night managers, as they are under immense pressure (probably unfairly) every night. To have the shop floor cleared by opening time although the main manager never takes reality into account. Ie because under the covid world we are opening an hour earlier than normal (rightly so for key workers) but managers think its possible to have twice of much of delivery done an hour short etc. Think they expect we can run into a phone booth tear open our shirts & have a big 'S' on our chests (superman).
In the induction they say "we are a family here, we all have shared responsibilities" wich is a massive lie from day one I seen first hand that the night staff have different rules to day staff, (nothing against day staff such amazing people, always friendly) the excuse we are given is "there's not enough staff on days" so apparently that means nights have to do immensely more! Id love to do some research on how other morrisons are managed etc.
Night staff have 1 hour & 30 mins unpaid break, we are not allowed out of the building on this b
ProsPhysical work, pay, good atmosphere with other members of staff!
A typical day at Morrison's starts by setting up the butchery counter. I delegate jobs to other workers on the department, such as the rotation of stock in the fridges or packing food products, and cleaning.
I check the delivery and dispatch notes for the day to ensure that we have all of the stock available. Once the counter and meat aisle are set up for the day ahead I do a check of all of the products to make sure that the dates are rotated correctly, and that there is full availability before the store opens.
During the day I count the stock levels of all of the products, this generates the product order for the next day. I rotate the products to ensure that the oldest dates are at the front of the other products to ensure that they are sold first to minimise losses. If there are any products that need to be wasted I dispose of them in the correct manner, as they are an animal bi- product.
Throughout the day I maintain a clean working environment using detergents and sterilising agents. Whilst cleaning and handling the food products I wear the correct personal protective equipment for the situation, such as heavy duty gloves, or when cutting meat chain mail gloves.
I serve customers on the counter. I weigh, cut and package meat products. It very important to have good hygiene and to thoroughly clean all of the equipment that is used throughout the day.
I enjoy the face to face time I have with the customers. I am a friendly person and I love to help the customer, an
I started working at Morrison's 15 years ago, at that time it was Safeway and had just been bought out as i took a job there so i watched it transition. I enjoyed working there for the first few years, then the indirect bullying started. management didn't care and no matter what i was determined to rise above it. so from part time cafe assistant to department manager of several departments I proved my worth. But 12 hour days aren't enough anymore. it was common to work up to 16 hours and as a salaried manager you did this for "free."
Hours are constantly being reduced despite numerous "restructures to put hours into the right place." but the hours never seem to turn up and what hours there are, are monopolised by the store manager and people team not to help struggling departments, but to make certain departments look good for "royal visits."
Area managers are on another planet, they walk into a store expecting everything to be perfect and if it isn't you will get chewed up for it. expected to work up 8 pallets of delivery and set up an entire department in under an hour by yourself as you won't have the hours to rota staff in to help.
The only management position I walked away from after being offered was Admin manager, I was promised full and comprehensive training so i could succeed in my role... I had 3 hours with the outgoing Admin manager to go over "basics." then was left to fend for myself, but of course still expected to do the entire role as if i had been d
ProsPay depending on role is good for this sector
ConsStupidly long hours, a culture of fantasy where everyone ignores the real issues
I have enjoyed working for Morrisons developing life skills such as customer service, communication, team work, working alone and structure.
I have done numerous of tasks during my time their stocking shelves, relays, helping customers, reducing prices, and coding. I did night shifts for 3.5 years which involved restocking the shelves to full capacity, unloading wagons aiding with delivery, reloading wagons with empty pallets, tidying the warehouse and making sure the store was presentable for the following day. I work days now where my day consists of speaking to department manager who issues me tasks for the day which may include; restocking fresh Products (Bread, Milk, Yogurts, cooked meats, ready meals, pies, cakes and sandwich fillers), starting to completion of a relay moving products to another destination within the store, keeping the shop floor tidy throughout the day to Managers standards, coding Fresh products (short life, long life) ensuring there is no out of date products, reducing the price of products which are near their display date. I do all these tasks while helping to fulfil customer requirements whether it is to locate an item for them, filling out special orders or answering any questions they may have.
Management in Morrisons aren't very good when it comes to communicating with their staff. There are a couple of managers who are great they help the staff to complete tasks if they are struggling but some tell you one thing and another tells you a
ProsEarly Shifts, Good Breaks, Never have nothing to do, Paid every 4 weeks.
ConsLong hours, late shifts, lack of communication, salary.
**DISCLAIMER**
I was a temporary worker at Morrisons during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Keep that in mind.
The actual staff who work there are generally always lovely. The management is where it suffers.
You have little to no say over your hours, you will be randomly assigned the amount of hours you work and when and when you work them with 0 flexibility. I appreciate that they go off of what you state in the interviews regarding availability but if something changes or you find those hours uncomfortable or unreasonable for your situation, management are completely inflexible regarding them. My contract hours were 10 hours a week and I was told to expect around 20-25. I instead was given between 30-40 hours a week with no say whatsoever. I'd often be working back to back shifts, with a shift ending at 10pm at night, and the next starting as early as 5am the next day.
Your comfort and such are not taken into consideration very often while at work. They regularly have staff sitting around doing nothing for hours especially during the late hours of the day. I personally have been stood marshalling outside for 8 hours when there were already security guards outside to do that job.
Additionally in my case, communication from management was very poor. I signed on to be a part of the click and collect department which wasn't even running when we started, and it never did because they ran out of funding for it. We received little communication from management re
ProsColleague Discounts, Occasional Free Food, Free Hot Drinks, Easy and Simple Work, Great Colleagues
ConsVery Random Hours, Poor Communication, Disconnected Management, Staff Canteen Closes at 2pm
I only worked at Morrisons head office for a short time on a temporary contract.
During my time there, I found there to be a case of too many chiefs and not enough Indians.
Their initial training days for new starters is very good.
You learn a lot about the company background and brand values.
I did however find that the integration of new starters from these training days, into the role itself was very confused and also not planned very well.
I was introduced to my department, and the team I would be working in. The first few days went well and I was made to feel welcome, however after that, I was soon left to work independently, which I'm more than capable of doing, but on things that I had not been thoroughly trained on, or trained on at all for that matter!
If mistakes were made (no matter how small i.e.: a spelling error in an internal email to a co-worker!) I was quickly disciplined for this and was left feeling very confused and un-supported!
I can honestly say that I always put 100% into every role and company I work in. I have never been dismissed, and am very rarely ill and have excellent time-keeping, but this company knocked my confidence and made me feel inadequate.
I found my team treat me as a hindrance, and gave very little time to assisting me with training. There was also a case of bullying (which I have never been a victim of in any other employment) which some of my co-workers (from another team) also picked up on quite early.
T
ProsFlexible working hours, good freshment and dining facilities
i still currently work for this company and i have been here for just over 2 years, which is not a relatively long time. but in these two years iv'e never been more stressed and unhappy at work. managers treat you with no respect, especially personnel who are supposed to be there for the employees. our store in particular has the biggest backstabbers in the country and its like they enjoy stressing staff out. Managers never back us up or care what we have to say. in my 2 years here all it has been is aggro and stress over days off, my contracted hours and holidays. they claim to be so good at employee relations but in my two years we have had 3 personnel managers that were forced to leave due to too many grievances against them from staff, we have also had multiple members of staff leave because they were being bullied by their line manager or a duty manager. the way we are spoken to by management is also disgusting. they think because we are paid a decent hourly rate that they can do or say whatever they want to us. i was off sick for months due to work related stress and bullying. they made me ill and still continued to call my house to see when i was coming back. i have been looking for jobs for a few months now as i can't take much more of this. i have never been so unfairly treated in a workplace in all my life. everyone in my store is miserable because of the workload forced on us and the treatment of staff. one of my personnel managers went behind my back to stop me do
ProsDiscount cards
Consshort breaks, lack of care from hierarchy, cutting hours, no respect
Questions and answers about WM Morrisons Supermarkets
How did you feel about telling people you worked at Wm Morrisons Supermarkets?
Asked 21 Mar 2017
Working for Morrisons ,I would tell people don't work for an anti trade union company ashamed .
Answered 5 Mar 2022
I’d rather tell people I’m a dole dosser Who fleeces the government for everything I can than tell people I work for morrisons
Answered 23 Sept 2020
What is the interview process like at Wm Morrisons Supermarkets?
Asked 14 Mar 2017
I applied for the job on a Friday and the next day I was emailed to come in for an interview on Monday. My interview was with the services manager. She started it off by telling me about herself and her role. Then she asked me about myself, my hobbies, if I have worked at a supermarket before, what kind of role I would like, my availability and if I had any questions.
Answered 12 May 2022
Interview consisted of can you read and write? YES. When can you take up the Job offer.
Answered 25 Jan 2022
How are the working hours at Wm Morrisons Supermarkets?
Asked 25 Mar 2017
If your face fits you will be given set hours to work monday to friday. Early morning starts to early afternoon finishes. If your face doesnt fit you will be given all late finishes and all the weekends
Answered 3 Apr 2022
10 hour shifts and hard work for little reward, and spoken to in a derogatory manner.dont bother.
Answered 25 Mar 2022
Why did you leave your job at Morrison's Supermarket?
Asked 23 Mar 2017
NO trade union recognition
Answered 18 Feb 2022
Because regional manager Ivo didn't like me sticking up for staff and was not happy about it.
Answered 11 Aug 2020
If you were in charge, what would you do to make Wm Morrisons Supermarkets a better place to work?
Asked 13 Oct 2018
To make sure it's a better place to work tell CEO to recognise the trade union for improvement of salary.
Answered 5 Mar 2022
I would remove regional manager Ivo from Morrisons, then you would have happy staff which equals happy working and happy customers
