You may be wondering about your staffing levels for Christmas. Are you? After all, it is only a few months away. Whilst you consider your options, I would like to share with you what it is like to experience The Future of Work and be a Christmas casual worker at Sainsbury’s.

Last December business was a little quiet for me. It wasn’t desperate, but I was at the point of cancelling lunch with a good friend and I wasn’t having that! So, I signed up to do some casual shifts at Sainsbury’s; sometimes in life you just have to suck it up.

To be one of their merry band required navigating your way through the Indeed Flex App, which is apparently the Future of Work. This is not that straightforward; all very inhuman and not for anyone who isn’t tech savvy. At one point it crashed and I had to start again. After completing the “training” (ie watching a few videos about various things, including lifting and handling – compliance training anyone?) I got there in the end. Within hours I was booked in to do two shifts the week before Christmas. The app is the ultimate in being processed. But hey ho.

So how was working at Sainsbury’s?

Well not that great. Filling shelves and being in the hustle and bustle of Christmas was fine; it took me right back to my early days in retail. There is a certain satisfaction to be gained from getting an aisle straight and helping customers where I could.

What was not so sparkly was the way we were treated.

I arrived for my first shift and reported to customer service. They clearly didn’t know what to do with me or the others also arriving. I was given a visitor badge, number 6, and told to wait.

A manager collected us, took us through to the back office where we could leave our bags and then took us onto the shop floor. I was rather expecting a briefing – health and safety, domestic stuff etc.  But no. No explanation of breaks, location of toilets, the canteen, who to speak to, what to do at the end of day, where to take rubbish etc.

Straight onto the floor, shown an aisle and a cage, given a brief explanation of what to do and then left to it.

All day

And I Mean All day.

At no point during that 8 hours did anyone check I was OK, check that I was doing things properly, send me off for a break, be curious, be kind.  Not one member of staff came to speak to me. No manager knew my name. I swear I could have walked out of the store and come back at the end to sign out and no one would have known.

The fact that one of the other workers came and found me every time he had a customer query tells you everything you need to know.

It was inhuman. I was a visitor in the store and utterly abandoned.

Sainsbury’s has a quote that

“Our values make us different.”

Which values are these, do we think?

It was exactly the same for the second shift. I didn’t book a third. I had wondered whether I might make this a regular thing to do at Christmas. I guess not.

The Future of Work?

As a customer and as a person with a particular concern for people at the margins of society, I felt I needed to do something.

I emailed the Store Manager on the 28^th March outlining my experience. Then again on the 24^th April.

I wrote a letter on the 28^th June.

I’ve still had no reply.