Flik began their takeover of this account on December 12th, and since then it has had the same problems that have always been here: under-staffing, overworking, and lack of communication. On one hand, the new management is overbearing, authoritarian, and don’t support staff during rushes (not that they would be able to anyway, considering they not only don’t know how to do very basic tasks that us rank-and-file workers can, but they also wear jewelry and dress shoes instead of following the dress code). On the other hand, these problems seem to be a constant at this location no matter who the management is, and it is almost certainly due to how the client desires the place to be run.
The first couple weeks was exactly like how it was back in April when Eurest was trying to “re-vamp” the account. Extra staff was drawn in from other locations to help set up, but all the extra managers were saying contradictory things, each expecting everyone to be working on something different and to juggle a multi-person load of tasks. Now as we come out of the holidays, all the extra help is gone but we are still left with just as many things to do; we even lost a couple people from the transition and still haven’t replaced them. We got 2 new people to help with catering, and only one will be “cross-trained” to work at coffee bar (although not the one out of the two that has 10+ years of Dunkin Donuts experience), essentially meaning that they will also be expected to juggle multiple tasks at once and not be a sufficient support.
All the changes that have been made so far have ranged from basically the same thing but supposedly fancier, to just taking away the things the customers and the workers like. Flik talked a big talk about making all their food from scratch in house, but the pastries that are sold are the same ones that Eurest always did; albeit, the new chef has improved some of the preparation. The lunches that are served no longer come frozen, but many customers have complained that they are bland and that the meals repeat during the week. At the coffee bar, we have stopped accepting cash altogether and no longer give a discount for customers bringing in their reusable cups, both of which have garnered many complaints.
The communication has stayed as bad as before. The main ways of communication are through the morning kitchen meetings and through one-on-one conversations. The meetings in the morning don’t address staff-centered concerns and have no useful information for the coffee bar whatsoever. Wrong instructions are shared fairly often, and management did not do a sufficient job explaining new procedures during the transition yet now expect everything to be done 100% correctly. One example of this is the utter confusion about the “no nuts” policy: we aren’t supposed to use nuts in any of our recipes and therefore can’t carry the pistachio coffee syrup, yet we are allowed hazelnut syrup and also almond milk. Plus, on multiple occasions we have been told to put out and sell baked goods that days later we are told that we actually can’t sell them because they have nuts; this doesn’t give the impression that management knows the policies and how to implement them.
The only staff meeting that was called was after the first week, a whole month ago, and all we were told was that we couldn’t eat what we want anymore and that we were gonna be paid bi-weekly (though that also turned out to not be true, at the least for multiple staff members, and the mistake was never mentioned). We were also told that “there will be plenty of opportunity for overtime”; what about the opportunity to leave on time? Many stay hours after their shift is supposed to end every day because there isn’t enough time or labor power to properly break down stations or prep food for the next shift. Now, we’ve lost one of the veteran workers after the stress caused her to walk out.
Other locations all over Compass Group serve hundreds less than we do and have over twice the staff, there is absolutely no reason we should be overworked to this extent. Whether the issues stem primarily from the management or the client, it is important to remember that these problems are something that can be solved, but only through the organization of the workers. This location cannot run without the workers, and to lose the functionality of the service would have serious consequences for both Flik and the client. The threat of a work stoppage is the biggest leverage we have, and we should be prepared to use it.