This retail manager penned a strongly worded note to her staffers, but perhaps she didn’t think through the implications of telling them they could be “promoted to customer.”
It’s no secret that the holiday season is a stressful one for retail workers at stores of all sizes. I know what you’re thinking: of course it’s stressful when everyone is piled in to get their gifts before the holidays. Yes, customers are a huge part of why working retail is the worst. But in these modern days, and for the last few decades, there’s been an outsized interest in getting customers to sign up for email programs. This is what the manager in this story is upset about, and the pressure that bosses like her place on employees is enormous.
This manager seems to be under pressure from her boss, but the way she’s insisting that her employees follow suit is rather off-putting! Commenters agreed that this style of communication wouldn’t help anyone. Instead of threatening to promote their workers to customers, maybe they could make some kind of incentive program instead. Like, maybe you still need to get 5 sign-ups per shift, but if you get 50 sign-ups in a month, you get a gift card or something. That would probably never happen, knowing how stingy many owners are, but I just think it would work to raise morale and give the workers something to look forward to… rather than just daydreaming about the day they finally promote themselves to customer.
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