(11-25-2013 07:40 AM)TerryD Wrote:  

(11-24-2013 01:33 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(11-24-2013 08:31 AM)goodknightfl Wrote:  

(11-22-2013 05:19 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  

(11-22-2013 03:18 PM)goofus Wrote:  

Its time to go to a 30 hour workweek to increase employment IMO.

Obama care is one upping you by sending everyone to 25 to 28 hour work weeks.

You might want to read some recent articles regarding Wal-Mart and McDonalds or older stories on Circuit City.

Wal-Mart cut back on staffing presumably to dodge some ACA obligations. The net result was falling same store sales as Wal-Mart was unable to keep shelves stocked and keep checkout lines running efficiently. They have since restored hours for many workers and made a big show of handing out a lot of raises and converting more people to permanent positions.

McDonald's operators have been slicing hours and McDonald's has sent a bulletin to operators noting that customer satisfaction is falling with more customers calling in to report poor service and noting some indications of weakening sales.

Circuit City in a cost-cutting move sliced a lot of higher paid long-term employees and sales fell off the table as customers could no longer get quality help in many stores when experienced employees were replaced with less knowledgeable employees. Many analysts think Circuit City couldn't be saved as it was but the move hastened the chain's collapse.

I've learned from a lot of travel that the best thing you can do when flying is stay away from an airline in bankruptcy or just coming out. Employee dissatisfaction makes flying those airlines a miserable experience.

The biggest risk to American businesses isn't government or taxes or regulations. It's MBA's with an Excel spreadsheet who assume employees are simple inputs in businesses that depends on customer experience

Yep, corporations are making record profits and their stocks are doing very well, but they are not creating a bigger market for themselves by hiring more workers and paying their current ones more money to buy the shiny things they make.

And they create a buying experience that creates ill-will and makes it easier for competitors to gain acceptance.

I miss browsing the stacks at Waldenbook or Barnes and Noble (which I can still do) but I hated the customer experience. If I needed to special order a book it was a hassle. The staff was generally indifferent. So I started using Amazon and then once I moved to e-books there was no turning back.

Chick-Fil-A is growing because no one in fast food consistently offers as good of a customer service experience.

A local publication did a story recently about raising the minimum wage. They interviewed the manager of a fast food restaurant who said they hire at minimum, when they identify good workers he tries to get them raises to keep them up to $10 per hour. Then he went off the rails from the storyline he was supposed to stick to and said that if the owners would allow him to pay a few key employees $12 and the mid-levels $10, let them have 40 hours a week and a consistent shift that they could rely on knowing their hours and days off that he could save a lot of time and money in constantly training the waves of part-time employees and getting them uniforms. He would deliver a better customer experience because invariably the customer complaints he has to deal with trace back to either new people cooking or rude treatment by a part-timer.