The left hand doesn't know what the right is doing
Pros
- Simplistic screening process means that time spent on R&S is limited. Good for candidates who don't have time for drawn out recruitment processes. - Management and staff are friendly and approachable for the most part. - The staff discount would be beneficial to those interested in NEXT products.
Cons
- Very little communication from management regarding work attire, working hours, break periods, etc. And while a company ishould display this information on the likes of a noticeboard for staff viewing, ours was blocked from view by an amount of boxes and storage equipment lying in the canteen. - Hours fluctuate wildly for part-timers. One can expect 20 hours on Sunday and on Monday find their hours cut down to 8-9 hours with no satisfactory explanation. This leaves no possibility to accurately budget for one's expenses during the period. - The store I was employed in also appeared to hire far too many temporary staff which resulted in reduced hours for all involved. It really did seem as though management favoured quantity of staff over quality of hours with regard to the seasonal budget. Needless to say you had more than a small amount of social loafing as a result. At once stage there were four people doing recovering of items in an area of the store where ONE person would struggle to find work to do for longer than an hour. - Staff morale appeared to be quite poor. The leading topic of conversation during my time there was nearly always related to staff's unhappiness with their working hours and the inflexibility of management. It struck me as ironic that while the full-timers were denied reduced working hours over Christmas, the temporary staff were having their hours continuously cut over that same period. Is the function of temporary staff not to supplement the existing workforce during seasonal periods? - Lack of communication between management and supervisors. On my first day of a 7.00 - 14.00 shift, the team leader was shocked to see so many temporary workers and mentioned repeatedly that he had no idea there were going to be so many of us working that day. He then struggled to find us all something to work on, resulting in most of us finishing up three hours before our shift was due to finish. This was not his fault, just a result of lack of basic communication between management regarding how many people would be reporting to him that day. - No furnishment of actual employment contract! This is a basic work entitlement, and the fact that NEXT chose not to provide any temporary staff with it shows a disregard on their part for an individual's basic and psychological contract needs. It also resulted in numerous part-timers querying everything from their basic pay to their work hours to their work attire. Had a contract actually been provided to individuals, it likely would have resulted in far less ambiguity. In less than two weeks, most temporary staff had joined the ranks of those openly voicing their discontent for their working hours. - The means by which the temporary staff found out they had worked their last day with NEXT was when we clocked out at the end of our shift and a message came up on the till stating "You have just completed your final day of contractual employment with NEXT. Thank you for your contribution." I later asked a member of store management if this was the case as we were told verbally that we were not due to finish for another five days, but she confirmed that what was said on the till was correct. I was grateful that the till at least had between fortright with me and had thanked me for my work.
