The other day I stood politely waiting for two employees to finish talking their date drama so I could ask them where an item was located. They saw me standing there and just continued with their conversation for several minutes. When they got finished one of them kind of turned their back to me while the other one took my question. They really did not want to be bothered by the their customer.

I'm a white male and I find this happens often in stores.

Anonymous wrote:Adding a note, we have a daily checklist. When you await a customer, you are supposed to clean the facility, follow up with other customers, review inventory, etc. So there is a significant amount of work which can be done. The reason why I pose this question is because it is a low paying job ($12 per hour). I should have asked whether it's a norm for low wage workers to constantly spend their time on the phone.

You set the policy, but if your policy was not clear then it's up to you to clarify it. If no additional work was in need of being done, then her idle time will be spent somehow. If you want to keep employees busy, identify specific things that they should be doing. "Clean the facility" and "Review Inventory" sounds like meaningless things that only need to be done periodically. When you hire someone, especially a low wage worker, you are paying for them to be present and the ability to direct them to do some work for you. It you don't give them enough work, that's on you.

Anonymous wrote:As a consumer, I observe this frequently. It bothers me. If two colleagues are in conversation and a customer walks in- one employee tenda to notice and acts accordingly..... on the phone this is not the case (perhaps more engrosssing?).

I have often felt I was interrupted the person’s viewing, texting, readin, chatting to pay for a item. Or it takes longer.

I don’t envy most employers as folks seem o engage this way often - hourly, service and even professionals.

The other day I was in line at a fast-food restaurant and when it came time to pay, I had to wait for the cashier to finish replying to a text from her father. And the cashier didn't even hide it, she told me all about what he was asking her and why she was replying. It didn't even occur to her that she should stop paying attention to her phone while working, or even worse while working the front line.

If you did not give direction for down time between customers, then the fault is on you, OP.

Perhaps you should develop an employee policies and procedures manual and have every employee read and sign off on it in the future?

I would talk to this employee and direct but would not fire. This is on you.

I work at a helpdesk, and our work is probably 90% inbound. How busy we are varies a lot and it is a given that videos, reading, gaming etc are fine when we have slow time. Sometimes I track issues I have worked on and escalated to see how they have been handled or otherwise do things directly that further inform my skills, or pull up optional corporate training (we're supposed to do a certain amount per year based on our own preference besides required training), but otherwise I read (not into videos or gaming that much) online or a book. I'm familiar with the "if you have time to lean, you have time to clean" concept, but cleaning stuff that is already clean is pointless and insulting in my book. (Also, in my job, if we are working with a client at the end of our shift we are there until the issue is resolved, except if we go 4 hours past the end of our shift we can ask to be relieved. There have been many times over the last several years when I was on a call 2 to 4 hours after my scheduled end of shift. There have also been many times when I have worked hours past the time I should have had a lunch break, and in many of those cases I could probably have found a way to get myself off the call but I was committed to getting the issue fixed the first time. So there is a trade off).

I would definitely structure the checklist so that workplace chores are done efficiently, not just as a way of filling time. The other part is whether the person can be counted on to be attentive to customers and ready to go when the workload becomes intense (I may have missed something, but I found it confusing that it is a cleaning service but customers walk in??).

I own a business with a few dozen employees which nets in the seven figures. You need to let her go. Ultimately it is theft. You need to set an example. Hopefully she will learn from this. This doesn’t make her a bad person, but it was a very decision. You don’t really have discretion in this matter.

OP, you are the employer. Set rules for your employees to follow. My opinion is that you are incapable of running a business if you do not know how to manage your employees.

As a consumer, I observe this frequently. It bothers me. If two colleagues are in conversation and a customer walks in- one employee tenda to notice and acts accordingly..... on the phone this is not the case (perhaps more engrosssing?).

I have often felt I was interrupted the person’s viewing, texting, readin, chatting to pay for a item. Or it takes longer.

I don’t envy most employers as folks seem o engage this way often - hourly, service and even professionals.

12 bucks an hour unless it is cash is nothing. My daughter gets 15 bucks an hour cash to watch Netflix after she puts the kids to bed when babysitting.

Anonymous wrote:Adding a note, we have a daily checklist. When you await a customer, you are supposed to clean the facility, follow up with other customers, review inventory, etc. So there is a significant amount of work which can be done. The reason why I pose this question is because it is a low paying job ($12 per hour). I should have asked whether it's a norm for low wage workers to constantly spend their time on the phone.

I keep trying to figure out what kind of a cleaning business exists where an employee waits for the customers to come to the facility. Dry cleaning? Car detailing? Dog groomer?

I consider myself contentious with regard to work but I've exercised some very poor judgement when I was younger working in hourly jobs (got caught sleeping during an early morning shift, etc.)

If I were you I would focus on the tasks and whether or not they were completed or not. I would emphasize the tasks you want done an supervise her more closely and build an expectation that she needs to be doing those tasks. Then give positive reinforcement when she does what she is expected to. If you focus only on the video watching then that comes off negatively. It might motivate her to hide her phone watching rather than motivate her to do her work.

Frankly I can see if would be easy to fall into the trap of watching videos while sitting and waiting on the next customer. The is especially true if YOU have not properly trained and properly reinforced (periodically) your expectations. I think there are issues on both sides here.