Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: How to deal with this stafff issue?

my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

»	Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE » Operations » Ground Level » How to deal with this stafff issue? (Page 2)

This topic comprises 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5

Author

Topic: How to deal with this stafff issue?

Andy Muirhead
Master Film Handler

Posts: 323
From: Galashiels, Scotland
Registered: Dec 2000

posted 10-05-2005 06:38 PM

Maybe you should look at a private area for staff to eat, I'm sure nobody wants to eat in a public area, actually does it not look bad? The fact that you have banned eating in the locker room probably encouraged staff to 'stash' their food in the lockers in order not to get caught.

You have 60 staff and nowhere for them to eat? Thats pretty astonishing!

| IP: Logged

Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 10-05-2005 07:51 PM

I have worked in several places that have locker rooms. Theaters and otherwise. NONE of them allowed employees to use their own locks on the lockers over the long term.

Two hotels I worked at, Sonesta Hotel & Prudential Sheraton, (Yes, the The Sheraton that got busted for having cameras in the locker rooms!) had full-fledged employee locker rooms. Both of those places had built-in locks on the lockers. Combinations were issued by management. They also kept master keys to all the lockers.

In high school we were allowed to bring our own locks but we had to write the combination down on a Rolodex card and give it to the secretary at the Principal's office.

At Cinemark theaters, employees are allowed to use locks on their lockers but NOT overnight. They are allowed to put their belongings in one of the cubbie holes and put a lock on it while they are on duty. When they leave the lock is to be removed and the cubbie is to be empty.

In ALL cases, if management thinks a locker needs to be opened they have the right to do so by whatever means are reasonably necessary. INCLUDING CUTTING OFF THE LOCK!

At Cinemark, I have cut locks off several lockers myself! (Always in the presence of the G.M.) Employees were SPECIFICALLY told that, if they leave locks on the lockers overnight, they WILL be cut off! The employees knew the rules. They took their chances. They lost.

There are plenty of relevant legal precedents for this action. It's common for employers to articulate the rules but it's not 100% necessary. These rules are usually in the employee handbook or posted on a sign in the employee break room... but they don't have to be. It's a HELL of a lot easier to prove your case if you DO give notice. However, it is reasonable to assume that a locker supplied by the employer remains the property of the employer and he is only allowing the employee to use them as a courtessy. The employee has no reasonable right to assume that the employer will not open those lockers if he needs to.

Extermination is a VERY good reason to open lockers!

If you wanted to by the "nice guy" you would give fair warning to all employees that lockers are to be cleaned out and left open. If, after a certain date, they are not unlocked... SNIP! SNIP!

| IP: Logged

Darryl Spicer
Film God

Posts: 3250
From: Lexington, KY, USA
Registered: Dec 2000

posted 10-05-2005 08:49 PM

quote: Randy Stankey
At Cinemark theaters, employees are allowed to use locks on their lockers but NOT overnight. They are allowed to put their belongings in one of the cubbie holes and put a lock on it while they are on duty. When they leave the lock is to be removed and the cubbie is to be empty.

That must have been a rule spacific to the theatre you worked for at the time. I have never seen it written that you had to remove your lock at night. The basic Cinemark rule has always been no personal belongings other than purses and coats were to be brought to work. Back when we used to have the bow ties and the suspenders and aprons and hats employees could use there assigned locker to store them in. Now lockers just are not used all that often.

As far as the topic goes, if there is another room to use as a break room then do that. It looks better than employees sitting out in the lobby eating their subway sandwiches in front of customers. I hate to say it but I have had to do this. Make a section in the booth the break area. It's not the best solution but sometimes it's the only option.

| IP: Logged

Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 10-06-2005 01:23 AM

..if rules aren't met, either write them up, reduce hours, or suspend the offenders for a week.

This will show that someone is in charge here.

| IP: Logged

Amanda Jones
Film Handler

Posts: 92
From: Indianapolis, IN, USA
Registered: Aug 2005

posted 10-06-2005 02:23 AM

Luckily we have weeded out the worst of th employees who think they are above managers. One of them would get his father in every week to yell at a manager for one reason or another. Like when he was written up standing out on the loading dock talking on his cell phone he had daddy come in and yell at me for writing his son up.

I think I've come up with a way to assign lockers so to speak. Anyone who clocks in prior to 6pm is allowed use the top set of lockers and anyone who clocks in after 6pm or later can use the lower set of lockers. This will help us better when trying to determine who dirties the lockers.

| IP: Logged

Jim Ziegler
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 753
From: West Hollywood, CA
Registered: Jul 99

posted 10-06-2005 04:24 AM

quote: Amanda Jones
But this is not the first time this has happened and it is starting to attract bugs. I'm the only manager who feels this way but I think our employees think they are above us and just showing up for work should be thanks enough to us managers.

If that is their attitude, then management is not out of line to take the position that their paycheck should be thanks enough and removing perks such as free movie passes for a week or so should send an important message.

The problem though seems to be that you really need a break room or area where they can eat. Make it a closing responsibilty to clean it and have the managers check it every night.

quote: Amanda Jones
Luckily we have weeded out the worst of th employees who think they are above managers. One of them would get his father in every week to yell at a manager for one reason or another. Like when he was written up standing out on the loading dock talking on his cell phone he had daddy come in and yell at me for writing his son up.

My prefered solution for this is "I'm sorry sir, but this is Johnny's job and not yours, as such, I will only discuss these matters with him. I am going to have to ask you to leave now." If he is making a scene or disrupting operations, you are not out of line terming the kid for his parents behavior and banning the whole lot from your theatre.

Amanda, remember, its YOUR operation. You must set and enforce the basic standards. Always be fair with your people, but do not hesitate to use necessary discipline.

| IP: Logged

Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 10-06-2005 04:57 AM

Amanda, I would like to direct you back to page 1 of this thread and ask you to please re-read Jeremy Fuentes' post. There's important and darned good information in there that I think most people are probably missing regarding employee retaliation.

Time for me to get on my soap box for a minute since I see these posts starting to head in the direction of "you're the boss, so shove it down their throats" approach.

This nonsense of "IRON FIST" style of management is ridiculous. It shows no respect toward the very employees who are on the front lines representing your company! Just as Jeremy noted, if you push and push and threaten and demand and basically treat your employees like a slave, they WILL get back at you in some manner. That may be something as simple as not upselling when you are not watching over them, or could be a bit more extreme such as urinating on your carpets, vandalizing your personal car, intentionally stealing money or screwing up inventory with the mindset that you as a manager will look bad...the list goes on and on, and anyone claiming that doesn't happen is a freakin' idiot.

Treat your employees with respect. It's all in your approach and wording. Don't TELL them to clean #8, ASK them to.

"Roger, go clean #8."
vs.
"Roger, would you please take care of cleaning #8?"

Trust me, the latter works MUCH better. Your employees will see you as someone who respects them and as a result YOU will get THEIR respect BACK and they will do a better job for you, the company and your patrons.

I cannot stress this enough...
Respect is not automatically given just because you are a manager.
Respect is EARNED, regardless of stature in the company.

Now yes there are times to remind them who is in charge, but this situation does seem like a fairly minor problem. I agree that simply assigning a person every night to clean the break room will in most circumstances solve the problem, and if done daily won't take them more than 10 minutes max. Just tell them at your next employee meeting that because the break room is becoming a health issue that the management will be asking a random member to clean it every night and then don't let the chosen employee leave that day until you do a quick inspection of their work. Some people will see what the problem is like first hand and clean up after themselves better, others won't (and will never learn), but regardless your problem is solved.

One last bit about asking rather than demanding things, remember that just because you are asking someone to do something doesn't mean they have the option of saying no. If they do, it's insubordination and at that point write them up/run them off/terminate them. Those employees aren't worth keeping anyway. The key point to remember here is that by asking your employees to do things rather than telling them to, you will be creating a much more friendly working environment where everyone truly works together as a team.

| IP: Logged

Amanda Jones
Film Handler

Posts: 92
From: Indianapolis, IN, USA
Registered: Aug 2005

posted 10-06-2005 11:32 AM

Thank you guys for your input it is appriciated.

| IP: Logged

Brad Allen
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 688
From: Evansville, IN, USA
Registered: May 2000

posted 10-06-2005 05:41 PM

Amanda, I've been in this biz for 30+ years. Brad's way is the better choice.

| IP: Logged

Alexander Smith
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 128
From: Walney Island, Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria.
Registered: Jun 2003

posted 10-06-2005 08:11 PM

(a) I agree with Brad on earning respect from fellow
employees, no matter how far up or down the food chain.

(b) I think the combination of allowing the staff to eat
in a designated, private, room _plus_ a cleaning rota
which is inspected by a manager daily (it's a 30 second
job to see if the job has been done), is the way to go.

Alex.

| IP: Logged

Amanda Jones
Film Handler

Posts: 92
From: Indianapolis, IN, USA
Registered: Aug 2005

posted 10-06-2005 10:21 PM

Like I said I don't mind the staff eating in the locker room they just won't clean up after themselves. There is no where else in the building for a break room. Apparently there used to be 2 locker rooms (one for the guys and one for the girls) 2 years ago our area manager wanted and office of his own for when he is in town so the girls locker room became his office.

The only other place for a break room would be the conference room upstairs but again for "security reasons" we can't allow staff upstairs without management supervision and we can't always have the projectionist babysitting the conference room.

| IP: Logged

Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 10-08-2005 02:49 AM

Have to ask the simple question: Is Amanda close to the same age as these employees, plus was she one of these employees-on the same level, then moved up above them, and now have to be their superior?

Seen this many times - just a good case of hardheadedness from employees who all of a sudden show disrespect to a supervisior that used to be on the same level as the regular employee(s).

Also, if she was one of them, how did she achieve being a supervisor...we'll never know...

-Monte

| IP: Logged

Jack Ondracek
Film God

Posts: 2348
From: Port Orchard, WA, USA
Registered: Oct 2002

posted 10-08-2005 11:21 AM

Jeremy brought up one point that could fix most of this by itself... remove the locks, then prevent the lockers from being "lockable".

If the staff understands that there is no place within the theatre where they can secure anything they consider valuable, they'll find somewhere else to put their "stuff", like the trunk of their cars. Maybe they'll leave some of it at home. An area, open to inspection by everybody could reduce a lot of the problems.

| IP: Logged

Amanda Jones
Film Handler

Posts: 92
From: Indianapolis, IN, USA
Registered: Aug 2005

posted 10-08-2005 12:24 PM

quote: Monte L Fullmer
Have to ask the simple question: Is Amanda close to the same age as these employees, plus was she one of these employees-on the same level, then moved up above them, and now have to be their superior?

I am 24 and the vast majority of my employees are 18 and under.

quote: Monte L Fullmer

Also, if she was one of them, how did she achieve being a supervisor...we'll never know...

I started out as one of them Feb of last year. In May due to my hard work/dedication/prior theater experience I was promoted to shift manager. In fact some of the managers didn't know I had prior theater experience until I was promoted and was able to grasp the concept of threading a projector correctly after only being shown once. I had a few people resent me for that because they wanted that promotion and thought they deserved it more because they worked for the company longer and I've only been with the company 3 months, and those few who were once nice to me start treating me like dirt. But like I was told a promotion to shift manager has nothing to do with how long you've been with the company but how hard you work/attitude towards employees and customers/ and what really impressed them was my ability to take charge.

The reason I got salaried was for one my complex wanted me moved up(I was the only shift manager to actually clean up in booth and actually clean the projectors, stay late if short handed, come in on my day off to help out if needed, etc..)so she was in talks with our area manager since he does the salaried manager hiring but at the time (January) we were capped out on how many salaried we could have and she didn't want to loose me to another location. Then fate stepped in, 2 of our salaried quit but then our area manager was on PTO for 2 weeks. Finally they had a job fair to hire salaried managers, I went through the lengthy interview process and by March I was offered a position. Our area manager was quite impressed with all the good things he heard from the other managers about my work ethic.

So yeah that's my story.

Back to the topic at hand, I'm working on a proposal for my complex on how we can assign lockers so when one is in less than desirable condition we know who did it. I was thinking we could put key locks on all the lockers. We can number the key locks and their keys and an employee who wishes to lock anything up during their shift will have to check out the key to a locker. We already do walkie check outs for employees ( we like our checker, head usher, lead cashier if there is no box manager to have radios)

| IP: Logged

Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 10-08-2005 03:34 PM

Do you like creating extra work for yourself?

| IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5

Printer-friendly view of this topic

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.