Wednesday 16 September 2009

Anonymous!

Hello everyone who is Anonymous!

You all seem to be different people and it's great there's a few support managers gathering here. Can I just suggest you get accounts of some description so I can contact you/each other.

PS: yes, the daily weather reports are great aren't they?! Maria Swift IIRC? They get filed on the email straight away into "trash".

Management restructure

Hello!

I appear to have a whole new following of readers who are currently support managers at Pizza Hut. I'm a support manager and in short, we're all pissed off because they are changing the in store (sorry, we must call them Huts now...) structure of management.

All stores will be down to one Restaurant General Manager, one deputy manager (only in high PSA stores...read: not that many) and I think one support manager. I think the support manager role is totally going and it may just be one RGM and one deputy. Both of those roles are salaried so this change does not affect them. And it should be noted, they have no power or say over this. As far as I know, it wasn't discussed at the annual RGM conference and it's all being brought in quietly and on the sly.

What it basically means is, where support managers used to get paid from about £6.70 to £7.20 before, regardless of what job they were doing, they will now be paid team member rate which is about £5.20. These managers will be called "bench managers" and will only be paid the management rate when they are in the duty manager role. If they are working at the same time as the RGM, deputy or support they will not get paid the manager rate.

RGM and Deputy should do 5 shifts each per week = 10 shifts total. There are normally 14 duty manager shifts (2 per day, early and late). So this leaves 4 shifts for the remaining managers. Depending on the size of the store, there can be up to about 6 supports (now bench). 4 shifts for 6 managers? It doesn't work. Previously if the supports worked alongside the RGM/deputy they'd get paid as a manager, as after all, they are a manager.

You will interviewed by your area manager about the changes and you can whinge all you like, they don't care one bit. Apparently it has come about because we've been owned by Yum! for a while, but we now have a new managing director, some german bloke, who has come in from Yum!. Yum own KFC and this is the way they have operated for a while. It's (one of) the reason why KFC has a high turnover of managers, they have no motivation whatsoever (I know two, they both want to quit as soon as they can).

Ultimately the only thing we can do is either put up, or leave. Leaving is what I'm intending to do. Locally, we've already lost a manager who had about 10 years service with the company and everybody loved her. Not sure how Pizza Hut think that cutting someones pay from around £16.5k to £12.5k can work out, but they do. Retail/hospitality management is underpaid as it is, and people are willing to move companies.

The ironic/annoying thing is, in association with The Sun, Pizza Hut are running some bullshit campaign about getting people back into work. They are recruiting team members and shift managers. Pfft, a new batch of people who don't know any better basically.

The people behind it are:

Jens Hofna - Managing Director
Jayne Little - HR Director
Nick White - Operations Manager

If you'd like to email them, it's firstname.lastname@pizzahut.co.uk

They have PAs but these are their direct ones and boy do they love getting email :)

Don't expect a response though, they're too busy working out where they can cut costs more. Maybe they'll try and do something a bit dodgy with the fire fighting equipment annual servicing...oh no, wait, they already have!

Anyone from RSC or Yum care to comment? Email me at phtmblog@googlemail.com if you wish!

I'll be back in a bit...

Getting quite a lot of comments about the new management structure in huts.

It's definitely pissed a lot of people off and it seems like a step backward.

I'll do a more detailed post about it later today or this week.

Monday 4 May 2009

Its all about CLASS

This post is basically, a good old grumble about Pizza Hut's cost cutting measures :)

The EU bought in regulations regarding the shape, size and colouring of vegetables.

Most of the vegetables you'll buy in supermarkets will be Class 1, consistent shape vegetables and fruit. (No more LOL at the shape of that carrot, potato etc!). So all the vegetables that don't make the grade are then called Class 2 and are significantly cheaper. Aldi and other discounters will sell this stuff routinely.

Pizza Hut uses Class 2 vegetables, as they are cheaper. But it causes problems with how our products look. While we are badgered about the thickness of a slice of cucumber, "supply chain" are happy for us to use one cucumber which has virtually black skin, and others which are almost yellow.

While for the majority of the products it makes very little difference, it just shows that their commitment to quality goes as far as "only if it's cheap enough!".

Anyway enough moaning for this post. If I still have any readers left (I must start posting more regularly again and get my name back out there!!!!) Please leave a comment if you're still reading because it'd be great to hear from you!

Table for...

There are a few things which really annoy me about restaurant-goers.

Pair of mothers with 2 children in buggies...

"Table for two please"

It is quite obviously a table for 4. I can't sit you down on a table for two with two massive buses/buggies can I?!

I have taken to correcting parents on this and saying it's a table for 4. I don't understand why they don't count their children as real human beings, because most of the time the kids are nicer than the parents anyway. A lot of my colleagues are shocked when I correct the parents because they never do, but I think it stems from previously working a different format store. There you were still expected to be polite don't get me wrong, but it wasn't all lovey dovey.

That's not to say I'm rude, well not all the time. I have had a couple of notes written on the back of bills thanking me and when I do very occasionally serve tables, I get reasonable tips. I'm probably too honest with customers sometimes. There are a couple of items on the menu which are pretty dire and always disappoint customers and most of the time I tell them about it. They're normally very grateful for that, but some don't listen to my advice and low and behold cry back at me when they receive it.

The small salmon pasta bake for instance, looks like somebodys scrapped the remains of another portion and put it on the plate. Then an attempt to make it look better with some salad.

The tomato and mozzeralla salad is just the same. The mozzerela is ok but the tomatoes are normally floppy and totally unripe. I have a particular gripe about the vegetables but I will post that in a minute in a new post.