Kroger pillages their pharmacists... but is expanding elsewhere

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PharmDBro2017

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Yeah I heard the 19% percent from another pharmacist up in Ohio. Kroger isn't looking to good. Kroger pharmacy’s new plan for pharmacists: only the pharmacy manager is guaranteed 40 hours. All others will be flex based on projected volume. Some weeks may be 40 hours, some may be 30, etc. No paid holidays, no personal days, and vacation is based on how many hours you were allowed to work by the company over a given time. Anyone every seen Titantic?
 
Heard the same thing from the Kroger down the street. Let's hope the response is do to Kroger's terrible management and the pharmacy operating a constant loss. Though you know all the other chains will be watching to see how this plays out and if they can do the same thing. In regard to the new way there are doing vacation - isn't that basically just the PTO system, where you earn vacation days based off how many hours you work? What is Kroger's ultimate goal here - to have the established pharmacists quit and then changes things back? Who is going to want to work there with the lack of holiday or personal days? I could see them getting by with the pay cut and full time being 30 hours, but all non rxms are going to have there foot out the door looking for a different job. Yes, unemployed new grads and pharmacist will take what ever they can get, but still they will be looking for looking for anything else that pops up.
 
Ironic news, since Kroger announced earlier in the week that it would be cutting all non-manager pharmacists down to 32 hours/week with a 19% pay cut.

Yet they are hiring 11,000 new employees and 2000 managers elsewhere in the stores? Gotta love how everyone continues to treat pharmacists like dirt. Expendable resource these days, I guess.

Kroger to hire 11,000 supermarket workers, including 2,000 managers


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It's awful. It's happened already in the Dallas, Columbus (OH) and Atlanta divisions already. I know the Columbus div is "overstaffed" by 17 pharmacists but the Cincinnati/Dayton div is understaffed. When the cuts started happening the promise was more technician hours. It had been acceptable to overschedule by 10% on tech hours, now that padding has been taken away and the expectation is 100% on forecasted hours and even those have been cut.

It. Is. Terrifying.

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Its a two fold action both a pay cut and a staffing cut. But the pharmacist market will allow this. I am looking for work and went on the Kroger website, only 4 positions nationwide.
 
Wait a minute...so their hours are being cut from 40 to 32 hours AND their hourly rate is also being cut 19%? That is crazy.

Kroger business model is just terrible.


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Wait a minute...so their hours are being cut from 40 to 32 hours AND their hourly rate is also being cut 19%? That is crazy.

Kroger business model is just terrible.


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In Columbus division raises have been frozen, i haven't heard anything about 19% pay cut unless the other person is factoring that to be the 8 missing hours, PTO, 401k etc.

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Yeah I heard the 19% percent from another pharmacist up in Ohio. Kroger isn't looking to good. Kroger pharmacy’s new plan for pharmacists: only the pharmacy manager is guaranteed 40 hours. All others will be flex based on projected volume. Some weeks may be 40 hours, some may be 30, etc. No paid holidays, no personal days, and vacation is based on how many hours you were allowed to work by the company over a given time. Anyone every seen Titantic?

Man that sucks! I had narrowed it down to Walmart and Kroger for my last job and took WM. Things are actually fairly good at WM, the pharmacy has cuts and new hires dont get 40s either though.

Have you found a corporate job yet?


It's awful. It's happened already in the Dallas, Columbus (OH) and Atlanta divisions already. I know the Columbus div is "overstaffed" by 17 pharmacists but the Cincinnati/Dayton div is understaffed. When the cuts started happening the promise was more technician hours. It had been acceptable to overschedule by 10% on tech hours, now that padding has been taken away and the expectation is 100% on forecasted hours and even those have been cut.

It. Is. Terrifying.

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Do you currently work at Kroger? Are the pharmacies actually hurting there? At WM reviewing our sales and profit, even low volume pharmacies are making profit with our generous staffing and compensation (tech and rph).
 
Hours cut and hourly rate cut as well? That can't be right.

What are all these grads going to do? There's going to be clawback concerning these pharmacy schools. This caught my eye, the dead pharmacy professor. I don't think we have the complete story or if it has anything to do with a communist group targeting the faculty, but I wouldn't be surprised to see more faculty take a dirt nap.
Professor Who Pleaded Guilty to Assault Is Dead | Inside Higher Ed

The fact this is in Austin where there have long been rumors of military intelligence involved in human trafficking is another red flag. Come to think of it, this whole pharmacy school scam could be thought of as a form of human trafficking.
 
I guess my statement was quite clear so to clarify, the reduction in hours in effect cuts overall pay and the staff present versus just cutting rph pay rate and still giving them 40 hours.

This happened at my last place of work. If you don't have fat in your budget, you might have problems.
 
Do you currently work at Kroger? Are the pharmacies actually hurting there? At WM reviewing our sales and profit, even low volume pharmacies are making profit with our generous staffing and compensation (tech and rph).

I do. Our sales and profits at my store is over 120% higher than last year, and that has been the trend for the past 5 YEARS, at a 2 rph store.

Budget has been met and exceeded division wide.

Morale is down though. Which will affect numbers in the company sooner rather than later. They increased tech starting wage to $11, with no increase offered to the experienced techs so everyone in the pharmacies are salty.

It used to be a great company to work for.

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Live in SoCal where we have some Ralphs Pharmacies with UFCW unions. Anyone think that this can bleed into the SoCal ?
It's as far as Dallas so far. I don't know if it will affect all of Krogers banners or just Kroger itself.

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Wait a minute...so their hours are being cut from 40 to 32 hours AND their hourly rate is also being cut 19%? That is crazy.

Kroger business model is just terrible.


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From what I read and heard, it is both.

Can anyone confirm?


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In Virginia, Kroger/Harris Teeter just bought 18 Farm Fresh Super Market stores. It will be interesting to see if they will hire most of the pharmacists from Farm Fresh or they will go with new grads. The table has turned, it's more like "Thank you for offering me a job" than "How much are offering me for this position?" as if asking for how much will make you a candidate for "We will be keeping your resume on file for future openings that better fit your profile." The new movement for corporate is 40 hours for RX manager and 32 or less for staff pharmacists.
 
From what I read and heard, it is both.

Can anyone confirm?


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If it's both, then 0.8 X 0.81= 65% of original pay...that's a 35% haircut. That's too much or has the first trumpet of the apocalypse sounded?

sangkakala.jpg
 
I do. Our sales and profits at my store is over 120% higher than last year, and that has been the trend for the past 5 YEARS, at a 2 rph store.

Budget has been met and exceeded division wide.

Morale is down though. Which will affect numbers in the company sooner rather than later. They increased tech starting wage to $11, with no increase offered to the experienced techs so everyone in the pharmacies are salty.

It used to be a great company to work for.

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Yikes in my area we start techs 14+. Its a shame even when ya hit goals you have to trim
 
Yeah I heard the 19% percent from another pharmacist up in Ohio. Kroger isn't looking to good. Kroger pharmacy’s new plan for pharmacists: only the pharmacy manager is guaranteed 40 hours. All others will be flex based on projected volume. Some weeks may be 40 hours, some may be 30, etc. No paid holidays, no personal days, and vacation is based on how many hours you were allowed to work by the company over a given time. Anyone every seen Titantic?
do they require you ( or allow you) to use your PDO that you earned in a full week to increase your pay for those weeks you don't get to 40?
 
My first pharmacy job was being a tech at Kroger, they started me at bare minimum wage and 9 years ago my RXM told me even if you earned a 3% raise they were only allowed to give 2% max. I have friends that worked as techs, interns, and now pharmacists with nearly a decade experience at Kroger and they are now being cut drastically. It's quite sad.
 
From what I read and heard, it is both.

Can anyone confirm?


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19% cut is to account for the 8 hours lost each week. So a 32 hr rph is still going to make ~100k. As far as benefits - they are the same for a 32 hr and a 40hr position.
 
Not to mention that express scripts is now closing one of its mail order facilities in Columbus. The job market here is horrible.

The Columbus division of kroger maybe hired one intern this year. But they were only giving them 32 hours per this change. Last I heard they turned it down.




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do they require you ( or allow you) to use your PDO that you earned in a full week to increase your pay for those weeks you don't get to 40?
Idk. I have a friend that works for them and he just told me this week what was going on.
 
because we are required to be "on call" to flex up to 40 hours each week, so it generously (sarcasm) compensates us for "being flexible"

Man if we could grow a pair and not pick up shifts they’d be screwed. Unfortunately new grads are happy to take the job lol. First the schools came for us followed closely by pbms. We are in for a world of hurting
 
This is very bad for retail pharmacy. No one is going to be paying off those huge loans if they only work 32 hours/week. I probably wouldn't have gone to pharmacy school if the conditions looked like this before I began.
 
Wait a minute...so their hours are being cut from 40 to 32 hours AND their hourly rate is also being cut 19%? That is crazy.

Kroger business model is just terrible.

Their business model reflects the current market. There is an oversupply of pharmacists and PBMs are stealing all the money. Pharmacy is not the cash cow it once was for Kroger.
 
Sounds like Louisville division finds out tonight what they plan on doing. I really hope they're not looking to outsource the pharmacies if what they're doing now doesn't "work" or fix whatever issue they're trying to fix.

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I don't understand the rationale behind cutting every 5 RPHs down to 32 hours in lieu of laying off the 5th guy and keeping 4 FT. The company would save more on FICA by the former. Is this simply sadism on a grand scale? I mean, these are adults with fixed costs such as mortgages and other loans to service. Do their loans magically get cut by 20%? This isn't just Kroger. I've seen done across other industries
.
The only other thing I can think of is very dark. Like something from the movie Hostel. Have you ever heard of dead peasant insurance? What I fear is a step above that. Dark death pool betting. Instead of destroying the life one-fifth of the work force, distribute the agony over all fifths. Worsen working conditions. Make everybody feel like they're "walking on glass" with all passive aggressive harrasment vis-a-vis KPIs. The castle dwellers back in corporate sit back and watch a higher percentage than 20% eventually quit or die, collecting on whatever the prop bet stipulates. There could be vastly more money in this than we realize.
 
I don't understand the rationale behind cutting every 5 RPHs down to 32 hours in lieu of laying off the 5th guy and keeping 4 FT....

I believe the benefit lies in avoiding the bad PR of layoffs (retail image is all) plus you retain more staff to pick up shifts at regular rates instead of OT in case other rphs quit. The staff left also make 6 figures so the pay cut won't be bad PR either because the general public will have little sympathy.
 

Ten years ago I would've agreed with your assessment. But these corporations gave up on public perception years ago. They've cornered the marketplace. the public has no other option but go to corporate chain/big box outlet if not Amazon. The local donut shop, independent art theatre, independent sandwich shop, shoe store, office supply store, hardware, etc have all be snuffed out by the corporation with access to cheap capital to the detriment of local communities.

Think about it. Do you really need a corporate capital structure to make a donut? A submarine sandwhich? Sell office supplies? In effect, the consumer has to pay for unnecessary overhead because Wall Street needs its vig. Money gets sucked out of a community for no good reason
 
Ten years ago I would've agreed with your assessment. But these corporations gave up on public perception years ago....

I would still contend that image is of utmost importance to corporate america even if there were only one company (monopoly) for a particular field. Remember when Dominick's (food/drug) went out of business? I was watching video clips and there was a distraught customer wondering what they were going to do without "my Domick's". Apparently they bout the corporate line and developed an emotional bond with the company, you may as well have your paycheck deposited into the store's account.
 
Ironic news, since Kroger announced earlier in the week that it would be cutting all non-manager pharmacists down to 32 hours/week with a 19% pay cut.

Yet they are hiring 11,000 new employees and 2000 managers elsewhere in the stores? Gotta love how everyone continues to treat pharmacists like dirt. Expendable resource these days, I guess.

Kroger to hire 11,000 supermarket workers, including 2,000 managers


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The pharmacies in Kroger are really loss leaders, all they do is get people in the store or service as convenient to Kroger's customers. But if Kroger is losing money on them they are going to reduce hours.
 
I don't understand the rationale behind cutting every 5 RPHs down to 32 hours in lieu of laying off the 5th guy and keeping 4 FT. The company would save more on FICA by the former. Is this simply sadism on a grand scale? I mean, these are adults with fixed costs such as mortgages and other loans to service. Do their loans magically get cut by 20%? This isn't just Kroger. I've seen done across other industries
.
The only other thing I can think of is very dark. Like something from the movie Hostel. Have you ever heard of dead peasant insurance? What I fear is a step above that. Dark death pool betting. Instead of destroying the life one-fifth of the work force, distribute the agony over all fifths. Worsen working conditions. Make everybody feel like they're "walking on glass" with all passive aggressive harrasment vis-a-vis KPIs. The castle dwellers back in corporate sit back and watch a higher percentage than 20% eventually quit or die, collecting on whatever the prop bet stipulates. There could be vastly more money in this than we realize.

Why do you have to be so weird?
 
I don't understand the rationale behind cutting every 5 RPHs down to 32 hours in lieu of laying off the 5th guy and keeping 4 FT. The company would save more on FICA by the former. Is this simply sadism on a grand scale? I mean, these are adults with fixed costs such as mortgages and other loans to service. Do their loans magically get cut by 20%? This isn't just Kroger. I've seen done across other industries
.
The only other thing I can think of is very dark. Like something from the movie Hostel. Have you ever heard of dead peasant insurance? What I fear is a step above that. Dark death pool betting. Instead of destroying the life one-fifth of the work force, distribute the agony over all fifths. Worsen working conditions. Make everybody feel like they're "walking on glass" with all passive aggressive harrasment vis-a-vis KPIs. The castle dwellers back in corporate sit back and watch a higher percentage than 20% eventually quit or die, collecting on whatever the prop bet stipulates. There could be vastly more money in this than we realize.

Because it is likely that one of these 5 pharmacists would find another job and quit. Therefore, they don’t have to pay unemployment benefits.

They also avoid the messy process of determining whom to fire.


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Because it is likely that one of these 5 pharmacists would find another job and quit. Therefore, they don’t have to pay unemployment benefits.


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Nobody's finding another job in this market. The job you now have is your last. Plus, who is going to go from a pharmacy with probably one in window and one out window to a chain store freak show with multiple points of attack and a drive-thru?
 
Nobody's finding another job in this market. The job you now have is your last. Plus, who is going to go from a pharmacy with probably one in window and one out window to a chain store freak show with multiple points of attack and a drive-thru?

We all got to eat.


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Oh no how can anyone survive on only 100k a year?
**Looks at paycheck and ponders life choices **
 
Problem with cut backs like these, it might spill to other chains. Then, we are all fu3ked.
 
Kind of off topic but for those of you that make automatic contributions to a brokerage account, how do you decide which funds to allocate them. Do you have it set up so that a certain percentage goes into your desired asset allocation or just dump fund it to target retirement fund?
 
the problem with Kroger's business model, I assume from what I've read here and hear from colleagues, is that their pharmacies labor is dependent on the store. So instead of looking at the pharmacy's P&L sheet they look at it as an aggregate of the store, which isn't fair because labor is being distributed to parts of the grocery that is underperforming. Why do you need more cashiers when you have self-scan checkouts?
 
Of course you can but could be tight. Just reinforces the need to have a solid emergency fund and pay down debt.

Seriously, might be tight? 100k is still way higher then the average family brings in.
 
the problem with Kroger's business model, I assume from what I've read here and hear from colleagues, is that their pharmacies labor is dependent on the store. So instead of looking at the pharmacy's P&L sheet they look at it as an aggregate of the store, which isn't fair because labor is being distributed to parts of the grocery that is underperforming. Why do you need more cashiers when you have self-scan checkouts?
How they forecast the labor for the pharmacy is not dependent on the store. Each department has its own algorithm based on the tasks and how long it "should" take to complete these tasks. Then the prior years numbers play into it as well.

Or is supposed to.

Our business has been on a very steady increase for the past 6 years, another chain pharmacy closed in town last Nov and our numbers went through the roof. I've LOST over 40 technician hours and it's a good day if there is more than 1 hour of pharmacist overlap in a 2 pharmacist store.

The algorithm is useless if you let it do its calculations and then subtract hours from that. You're setting your staff and their patients up for failure. Or worse.

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Seriously, might be tight? 100k is still way higher then the average family brings in.
Yes, but most people have structured their lives around their current income and changing that could be painful. There are fixed monthly costs for most people, like mortgages or rent, that aren’t quickly changed.

Honestly I’d have to stop saving so much for my future, which is also painful and disruptive to any future plans of retiring.
 
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