My 16 year old son has been applying for part time jobs whilst at school to try and get him extra money to use for driving lessons.
Has been successful with an application and interview with Sports Direct. As he is 16 years old currently , his pay rate will be £3.72 per hour.
On his first pay packet he will have £7 deducted from his wages to cover the cost of his uniform and within a further 2 weeks (I think) , he must buy a pair of trainers from the shop and wear these whilst working.
It is a zero hours contract.
Back in my Safeway days, we employed a lot of schoolies - the shift pattern suited them and us. They were worked hard but even 10 years ago, I don't think the pay rate was this low. And they had a contract, and set shifts with the option to do more if they wanted. And supplied with a uniform and all the training and eqpt required to do the job.
One part of me thinks that it will be a good start for him, learn a bit of hard work and gain from it and hopefully he will get a job elsewhere in the future. Another part just feels blinkin mad that employers nowadays can offer so little because there will always be someone to take the position. He worked out that he will need to work just over five hours for every hour of driving lesson he wants to take!
Thoughts?
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Ghastly employer. Several of my student daughter's friends have worked there briefly and jacked in very quickly.
Compare that with my younger daughter who started at our local Co-op food store at 16 on about £6-50hr with proper training, free uniform and designated shifts with extra shifts available if wanted most weeks.
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Bit of both, my eldest got the same working with a firm of newsagents. However his managers were quite flexible and would 'round up' his hours as he was willing/flexible etc but he didnt have to pay for his uniform (although had to buy his own dark trousers) but he did have contracted hours.
If nothing else it will probably be a good starting point which after a while he can use as a reference point and probably find another retail job which will pay better.
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Sports Direct is simply horrible. Staff at one branch near here are required to frisk each other at shift changes because the presumption is that they've been pilfering. For such a piddling amount I can't begin to imagine why anyone would work there; there must be better ways to pay for driving lessons.
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Work there for a day to get the full picture, then walk out and make it your life's ambition to start a rival firm that will pay decent wages and put them out of business.
Take a special note of the manager's name, and when one day he comes to you asking for a job, tell him exactly why you don't want him.
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>> there must be better ways to pay for driving lessons.
This is the reality though of trying to find a part time job when still at school - he has applied to a few retailers and also has a "group interview" with Tesco next week whatever that involves.
His grandparents pay him £5 an hour for cutting grass, hedgecutting etc so he has been doing quite a bit of that over the summer but obviously now needs to find something else.
Would be much happier if he got into Tesco instead but meanwhile he will start off at SD and see how it goes.
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Of course it must be said good on him for wanting to get that income stream.
Eldest daughter started in the local town Argos at 16 which was OK. But due to 16yr olds having the need legally for a longer break than adults after a certain amount of hours worked they would only give her short shifts to avoid this requirement. This meant that the bus cost was disproportionate to the income from any one shift.
Then she started at the Co-op which is a ten min walk so that was fine and part financed driving lessons. Just before Uni she worked in the local pub for not a very nice landlord and only £5/hr.
On returning home from Uni for the holiday she's really struggled to get any work for the 3mths as all the jobs were already taken by the 6th formers.... like her sister. However she did pick up 6wks work at a nearby residential home as a part time (35hrs/wk) housekeeper. They have been very good with £6.75/hr, job training, lifting training, dealing with dementia training, free uniform and defined shifts arranged 2wks ahead. Quite impressed with they way they've treated her actually.
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A friend of mine once worked in the back office of Next. She soon left. Horrible employer, very high staff turnover, bad pay, horrible working conditions etc, etc.
I think those types of national retailer are all the same. High prices, low wages and sod the ethics but watch the profits and shares rise.
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SD is not only a crap employer, its a crap company run by crap people and it comes from the top, a throughly unlikeable Mike Ashley.
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Thought? Is a driving instructor, who has to provide a motor vehicle too, with petrol really only worth five times an unskilled labourer?
From the perspective of a barter economy it seems about right.
Now that £3.72, was it, doesn't go very far if he sits there during the working day drinking cans of coke out of the employer-subsidising drinks machine.
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>>>Is a driving instructor, who has to provide a motor vehicle too, with petrol really only worth five times an unskilled labourer?
Driving lessons seem expensive to teens and/or parents as the hours mount up. But I never think there can much money in it.
Daughter is paying £23/hr which is not a great gross once vehicle and other costs associated with running an own business are taken out... no sick pay or employee benefits either.
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He could joint the army. Free uniform, free driving lessons, free meals a day. Job done.
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Everyone does a few crap jobs when they are young, I always thought. It's true though that these US-style chain companies are particularly mean and evil. The crap job market has got quite a lot crapper since my young day.
Big corporations were already displaying long American teeth when I worked for one in the City back in the late sixties. There were some very nasty expedient corporate cultures growing up. West End advertising johnnies were still quite jolly and elegant, but even their days were numbered in that form.
Actually the best jobs, crap and other, come through personal connections. My 18-year-old student granddaughter is a case in point: she works as a waitress for fairly decent crap wages for a catering company run by a distant cousin. The work is sporadic and stressful (to a teenager who can't get out of bed) and she has to be there on time and sometimes be collected late at night from the station or further afield. If she was no use she'd be fired immediately.
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Bought some trainers in a Sports Direct shop a few weeks ago. All I could hear while being served was the manager haranguing his staff over their portable radios about missed targets for the day.
It's not only sloppy practice to do this where customers can overhear specific targets and figures, but worse to not even bother to take the time to do it face to face during a short walk around the store.
I can easily imagine it being a deeply miserable and depressing place to work.
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>> Thought? Is a driving instructor, who has to provide a motor vehicle too, with petrol
>> really only worth five times an unskilled labourer?
>>
Driving instructors are all self employed and set their own rates. You can only charge what the market will bear and the top rates achievable are dictated by what the two big national franchises set.
If you are successful you'll earn more or less the national average wage with the bonus of all your motoring costs coming out of the business.
Last edited by: Robin O'Reliant on Sat 15 Nov 14 at 14:36
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>> Has been successful with an application and interview with Sports Direct. As he is 16
>> years old currently , his pay rate will be £3.72 per hour.
>>
>> It is a zero hours contract.
>>
>> Back in my Safeway days, we employed a lot of schoolies -
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
My thoughts are:
1. Yes, SD is a crap company, so yes it will be a good grounding for him.
2. Safeway where generous to you, but then where are they now??
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>> My thoughts are:
>> 1. Yes, SD is a crap company, so yes it will be a good grounding
>> for him.
>> 2. Safeway where generous to you, but then where are they now??
>>
You don't have to be crappy in the min wage/constant harangue mode to succeed.
Miss B is finding Aldi to be a good and understanding employer paying more than min wage. If posted to another store (recently sent from Plymouth to Exeter) she's paid travel time and mileage. They work her hard though.
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>>Safeway where generous to you, but then where are they now??
Disappeared due to putting all their faith and trust in a mad Argentinian to come up with a marketing policy that totally screwed the company.
Re Aldi - I think they pay substantially more than min wage do they not. Definitely get their monies worth out of them!
Sports Direct have KPIS and this is where the staff targets are - so things like the big reusable bags, water bottles etc that are kept behind the tills.
Mind you when my daughter worked for Vue cinemas they were tasked with selling the Combo meal deal which I think was a hot dog , popcorn and juice for something ridiculous like £10 or something like that. Amazing how many people do buy them though!
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If you've got it you spend it Bobby.When people by these hotdogs the stink in pictures put me off.That is just me do.>;)
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There is nothing wrong with KPI's, they are vital to any business - not just retail. There is nothing wrong with incentivising staff - any staff - to upsell. All this stuff they will surely come across in nearly every commercial business.
Its setting KPIs that are achievable and how you do it that matters, good managers motivate the staff to meet such targets, not beat them up. management style is a good ini cation of company ethos from the top. The top is where you lay the blame in SD case.
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Millibean comes down firmly on the slave labour side regarding Sports Direct.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30066568
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I agree with Millibean on this, but there is such a thing as commercial pressure and competition. The nature of the beast is to be as efficient and effective as possible.
Of course, treating your employees badly might not be the best way to do that, but presumably SD thinks it is. I tend to think that if they don't value their employees as people, they can't think much of their customers.
I was told recently by an employee of a well known electrical retailer that the standard contract is now 20 hours minimum per week. Given they could also operate zero hours as things stand, that is to their credit.
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>> I agree with Millibean on this, but there is such a thing as commercial pressure
>> and competition. The nature of the beast is to be as efficient and effective as
>> possible.
You can be competitive, you can even empty zero hours contracts to do so, but you don't have to treat your employees like carp, as sports direct do.
Its nothing to do with a zero hours economy. Its poor company culture and that comes from the top.
Last edited by: Zero on Sat 15 Nov 14 at 14:37
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I don't like zero hour contracts, and I think companies that use them should be avoided where possible.
However, people don't avoid them.
As a general rule your average person's moral objections to business practice will not out weigh a 5% saving.
Of course they will moan, campaign and petition against the company, but they'll still shop there.
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A good grounding or slave labour? - Fenlander
