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New Attendance Policy = Fate Worse Than Death

Fri, 06/11/2004 - 23:48 — OntheSpotter

Beware, Fellow Unionizers!

There is trouble brewing...if you find that your GM and managers are huddled in an office, with the door closed, and worried looks belie their normally smug countenance - it may be from the new attendance policy which will fall upon us sometime next month! It will fall like a mighty limb of deadwood poplar onto the newborns of Borders employees, who lay in the cradle of naivity and VOE. Little do we know what awaits us.
This may be disguised as a result of our beloved surveys.
Oh, how we love them so!
But you watch. Your peers will be dropping like flies when this new policy becomes active and formal.
All too soon. All TOO soon.

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Sun, 06/13/2004 - 01:34 — abbath

Do tell.

Sun, 06/13/2004 - 21:24 — NoCoHo

All I've heard is that twelve occurrences in a year get you terminated unless some of them are covered by something like disability or FMLA. Apparently, GM's will no longer have discretion to excuse things they think are allowable.

Anybody know anything definite?

Mon, 06/14/2004 - 02:38 — redheadpixie

Instead of occurances dropping in the normal 30 days, they now accumilate for 12 months. However, I was told that it was much more difficult to receive a PIN, but that after you do, its very easy to end up out on your butt.

Apparently the reasoning behind this was to get rid of the very limited PTers who work only (i.e.:) once a week, but show up late everytime; who you would not be able to terminate due to the 30-day cycle clearing their occurances.

This may sound wrong, but I honestly don't think that openers should fall into this policy, or at least get more than the 5 minute to clock in. On a number of occasions I have gotten to work on-time, but it can take someone up to those five minutes to walk out of the office and come unlock the door for me, because no one cares about letting people into the store. People in the office figure someone on the floor will get it, and people on the floor figure that someone has got to be closer to the door than they are. Its ridiculous. I got a verbal warning, and I can assure you that half of those occurances were due to someone being too damned lazy to open the door.

Mon, 06/14/2004 - 22:01 — NoCoHo

Quote:
This may sound wrong, but I honestly don't think that openers should fall into this policy, or at least get more than the 5 minute to clock in. On a number of occasions I have gotten to work on-time, but it can take someone up to those five minutes to walk out of the office and come unlock the door for me, because no one cares about letting people into the store. People in the office figure someone on the floor will get it, and people on the floor figure that someone has got to be closer to the door than they are. Its ridiculous. I got a verbal warning, and I can assure you that half of those occurances were due to someone being too damned lazy to open the door.

Yeah, RHP, I've had that problem myself. Add the 3-4 times that happened this past winter to things like the morning I got caught behind a wreck with no way to get past until it was cleared making me more than 30 minutes late, being sick on occasion, plumbing failures and the like, and I could be on a PIN easily in 6 months or less with very little wiggle room beyond.

It's one thing to get to work 20-30 minutes early just in case something unforeseen happens on the way to work when you know you can get into the store. It's quite another to have to do that when you're IPT and there isn't anyone in the store yet.

Tue, 06/15/2004 - 01:18 — abbath

Does anyone know if the Borders stores that have unions and or contracts will have to go along with this new rule?

Tue, 06/15/2004 - 14:20 — withrow

[quote:5bf1949e63="redheadpixie"] nces.
On a number of occasions I have gotten to work on-time, but it can take someone up to those five minutes to walk out of the office and come unlock the door for me, because no one cares about letting people into the store. People in the office figure someone on the floor will get it, and people on the floor figure that someone has got to be closer to the door than they are. Its ridiculous. I got a verbal warning, and I can assure you that half of those occurances were due to someone being too damned lazy to open the door.

This is worth documenting, then. When you get to the front door, glance at your watch and if you're late because someone didn't open the door quickly, write it down with the date and time and how long it took.

Tue, 06/15/2004 - 16:34 — slingblade

Simple solution? Write down the time you got to the store and don't punch in. Instead, immediately inform the floor manager to make a note on the schedule the door was not opened for you until X number of minutes after you got there and put that reason on your missed punched form.

If the manager brings this up to you, stress the unfairness of getting occurances under the current conditions. ask him if it seems fair to him and what his solution to the problem is or how you should document you were there on time in the future. See what he says. Report back!

Tue, 06/15/2004 - 20:07 — NoCoHo

It costs me some cell phone minutes, but after the first time that happened (in the middle of winter, of course), I rang the bell, knocked loudly on our usual door, and then if I didn't see someone coming to let me in within a reasonable amount of time, got on my cell phone to call so that the opening manasupe knew I was out there.

I sure hope that method continues to result in my being excused for such instances with this new policy.

I think managers should be held to the same standard. If it's inexcusable for hourly employees to arrive more than 5 minutes late because they just didn't get going early enough or didn't allow enough time for unforeseen delays, then it should be the same for managers. Our clocking in late because the keyholder was late isn't a rare occurrence at all at my store.

Wed, 06/16/2004 - 19:59 — NoCoHo

[quote:a97a28177e="redheadpixie"]Instead of occurances dropping in the normal 30 days, they now accumilate for 12 months. However, I was told that it was much more difficult to receive a PIN, but that after you do, its very easy to end up out on your butt.

Whoever told you that it's more difficult to get a PIN on a rotation system was full of it, RHP, or else doesn't understand how the annual drop off works.

The truly nasty portion of the new policy is the rotation. That feature makes it very easy to get a PIN if you don't keep a running total of exactly how many occurrences you have since each one drops off your total on the anniversary of your having gotten it instead of your EVER having a clean slate again (unless you can manage perfect attendance long enough for every one to drop off, that is.)

Thu, 06/17/2004 - 03:58 — Lola

I saw the memo on this today. Occurrences do accumulate for 12 months, but you don't get a PIN until you have accrued 6 occurrences. There are still the same stages: verbal, written, final, and termination. The only differences are that now it has gone from 3 occurrences to 6 before action is taken, and it takes 12 months for the occurrences to be erased. What was funny in the memo was that it referenced the value of employment surveys saying something like '84% of employees think it's important that disruptive employees are dealt with, but only 46% of those employees are satisfied with this aspect.' So apparently, the only disruptive employees are the ones that show up late?

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