Undercover Boss, Poundworld.

*Kat*

Just jumping in on this thread - wow - I can't believe they took £60 off his wages for being under...not sure how he managed to be £60 under, but wow.

I work in a supermarket and would CRY if that happened. Sometimes our tills are down, but thank god that doesnt happen.

TeaCake

If till shortages came out of my wages there would be no way I would let anyone else run my cash box while I was on break / lunch. I would demand the box be locked in the cash office. The only job that ive had where the worker was responsible for cash shortages was a waitressing job and the money was in a bumbag and kept on you at all times.

robpw2

i would suggest if the till was £60.00 down someone had not counted it properly before they went out on the shop floor

roddydogs

The Funniest thing was when the boss was shocked at the "carp" bit he then said "All our stock is quality" Ha Ha, its at least 50% Carp.
Ps wont they be undercut by all the 99p stores?

donnajunkie

TeaCake wrote: »

If till shortages came out of my wages there would be no way I would let anyone else run my cash box while I was on break / lunch. I would demand the box be locked in the cash office. The only job that ive had where the worker was responsible for cash shortages was a waitressing job and the money was in a bumbag and kept on you at all times.

if i got a job somewhere like that as soon as i found out about it i would be starting to try and get another job somewhere else.

flying_swallow

yvonne13 wrote: »

I knew that guy wasn't going to get sacked. Instead they send him on holiday.

Lets see if I get a holiday if I do the same.

QUOTE=yvonne13;45992563]I knew that guy wasn't going to get sacked. Instead they send him on holiday.

Lets see if I get a holiday if I do the same.[/QUOTE]

(My first post!) Had to register after seeing this comment to let you know that he was sacked as soon as he came back from his holiday without even being allowed back to work.

I work for Poundworld and this was leaked out last week after the show was aired - though obviously they tried to keep a lid on it! Surprised the guy didn't go to the newspapers. I would have. It was probably their intention to sack him all along, but they wanted a nice 'caring' ending for the cameras.

Absolutely disgusting and shambolic company to work for - what was filmed doesn't even get across half of what goes on. Dark lady seems to have picked up on some things on the other thread mentioned earlier which makes me glad that customers are seeing what is "normal practice". You can only imagine what goes on behind the scenes!

Considering the show must have been filmed around 4 months ago, nothing seems to have been done in the way of improvement. People I work with understand that the pay is minimum wage due to the nature of the job but turn up every day and give it their full commitment, often working late into the night to get the stock on the shelves exactly how the company says it should be (yes really, there are guidelines on this). We are lucky to have a really good team of people, many of whom are single parents who are hit hard by having to pay back any till shortages. I have to make up wages which they get paid in cash at the end of every week (no proper payroll department so management have to do this), and it's not a nice feeling at all, docking pay when you know that they have put the hard work and hours in. You may think that it's easy work, but some are on a till 8 hours a day with only a 30mins break and are handling 500+ transactions. You make one small mistake and it can be the equivalent of paying back what you would have earned in 1 or 2 hours. It is legal to do this for retail workers as long as it's in the job terms & conditions but it does equate to people working for less than minimum wage when all is done and worked out.

Maybe other people would have something positive to say about working for Poundworld, but I've found that employees are treated with complete contempt. As an employer, they demand loyalty and commitment from those who work there, but give absolutely nothing in return. In fact, they even have it more or less written into your employment contract that they will demote or dismiss anybody who, for whatever reason, is no longer capable of working at the same pace/level as they previously were. In what is a very physically demanding environment, I read this as a free pass for them to sack anybody getting older or who has any injuries / physical fitness problems. Funnily enough, they didn't show anything about that on the programme... It all seemed a bit of a jolly for the Directors to get some "good publicity" for the company and more cash in their pockets.

TeaCake

I am really gutted for him While talking carp about your company products on camera is never the best career move the whole thing probably put the fear of god (or at least management) in to him to do his job without moaning at work again.

dark_lady

flying_swallow wrote: »

QUOTE=yvonne13;45992563]I knew that guy wasn't going to get sacked. Instead they send him on holiday.

Lets see if I get a holiday if I do the same.

(My first post!) Had to register after seeing this comment to let you know that he was sacked as soon as he came back from his holiday without even being allowed back to work.

I work for Poundworld and this was leaked out last week after the show was aired - though obviously they tried to keep a lid on it! Surprised the guy didn't go to the newspapers. I would have. It was probably their intention to sack him all along, but they wanted a nice 'caring' ending for the cameras.

Absolutely disgusting and shambolic company to work for - what was filmed doesn't even get across half of what goes on. Dark lady seems to have picked up on some things on the other thread mentioned earlier which makes me glad that customers are seeing what is "normal practice". You can only imagine what goes on behind the scenes!

Considering the show must have been filmed around 4 months ago, nothing seems to have been done in the way of improvement. People I work with understand that the pay is minimum wage due to the nature of the job but turn up every day and give it their full commitment, often working late into the night to get the stock on the shelves exactly how the company says it should be (yes really, there are guidelines on this). We are lucky to have a really good team of people, many of whom are single parents who are hit hard by having to pay back any till shortages. I have to make up wages which they get paid in cash at the end of every week (no proper payroll department so management have to do this), and it's not a nice feeling at all, docking pay when you know that they have put the hard work and hours in. You may think that it's easy work, but some are on a till 8 hours a day with only a 30mins break and are handling 500+ transactions. You make one small mistake and it can be the equivalent of paying back what you would have earned in 1 or 2 hours. It is legal to do this for retail workers as long as it's in the job terms & conditions but it does equate to people working for less than minimum wage when all is done and worked out.

Maybe other people would have something positive to say about working for Poundworld, but I've found that employees are treated with complete contempt. As an employer, they demand loyalty and commitment from those who work there, but give absolutely nothing in return. In fact, they even have it more or less written into your employment contract that they will demote or dismiss anybody who, for whatever reason, is no longer capable of working at the same pace/level as they previously were. In what is a very physically demanding environment, I read this as a free pass for them to sack anybody getting older or who has any injuries / physical fitness problems. Funnily enough, they didn't show anything about that on the programme... It all seemed a bit of a jolly for the Directors to get some "good publicity" for the company and more cash in their pockets.[/QUOTE]
When i wrote my original thread "Overheard at Poundworld today" back in February i was PMed by someone asking which store it was.
Taking a rough guess i reckon this was around the time Undercover Boss was being filmed and i now think it was management who contacted me asking which store it was so that they then could avoid going to the Braintree store.
Did the lift in that other store ever get fixed? Did the staff room ever get sorted out? I am beyond disgusted with Poundworld. The fact that they pay minimum wage and then dock your pay over a till mistake or over forgetting to clock in, KNOWING DAMN WELL that they can rely on their workers getting tax credits to support their poor business practices and exploitation, makes them far worse ANY unemployed person (whether they are claiming through no fault of their own or whether they are one of the "workshy" Poundworld are far worse culprits for taking advantage of the system and taking advantage of their workers. If that guy DOES decide to go to the press may i suggest Penmann and Sommerlad from the Daily Mirror. They have a real bee in their bonnet about employment practices.

HW_blondie

@ Dark Lady I assume you work at the High Wycombe branch?

I also heard through the grapevine that the "holiday" was just tickets to a theme park - do you know if that's true?

I also swear that I keep seeing the guy who was offered an IT job at head office still at the branck - can you confirm this. From memory I also think that this was the same guy who was threatened with a gun and no-one from head office came to see him and he was expected to go in the next day.

Looks to me like they treat their srore management as badly as shop floor staff.

BillTrac

Don't think it was Dark Lady who worked at Poundworld, it was flying swallow