Pile more onto my plate would you - Customer Team Leader Co-op Employee Review

3.0
Feb 3, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

30% co-op own brand discount. Holiday measured in hours rather than days which increases with overtime worked.

Cons

Shifts are sunday-sunday so could work 6 days in a row and still be under the 39 hours a week threshold technically; I just worked 50 hours straight, 6 closes in a row and only have 1 day off. Delivery turns up at unpredictable times, so it’s hard to schedule an appropriate amount of staff to work said delivery- leads to a backlog for the day following. I only get to take a break ~20% of the time and it is not uninterrupted. Legally I should have an hours total break for an 8/9 hour shift but most of the time i’m lucky if I get 15-20 minutes and that is usually interrupted. Online orders are insane, some days my shop consistently hits 85+ just eats, deliveroo, uber, picker app and I do not have the staff to manage that amount of online orders in addition to working stock / serving in-shop customers. This paired with constant offers for online orders which makes it cheaper to order online than it is to shop in store is insane. The people who sign off on ‘fresh monday’ and ‘half price Wednesday’ (a big delivery day), and now thursday-sunday 50% off snacks, meals etc. has never worked in a co-op shop in their life. The job should be borderline easy but when I can’t fit a GAP into my shift or it takes me an hour longer to do reductions because of online orders or i’m running around like a headless chicken doing 4 time-sensitive jobs at once which means no break for me it’s so stop and start it’s ridiculously frustrating. Oh never mind the in-post locker plus dpd collection / drop off so we’re a food store, a post office, an online grocery store and a coffee shop with a skeleton crew. Reluctance to upgrade stores- my shop takes ~60k a week and yet we had a costa machine installed before self service. One member of staff must be on till at all times which makes 1 on 1 working (which happens too often and on days where it shouldn’t) put the entire pressure of delivery, online and till help on me in addition to the costa machine beeping every 5 minutes even when nothing is wrong / leaking water on the floor for no reason. The reduction of bonuses- we do not get our Christmas party contributed towards anymore. When i’m at work I just feel purely stressed and as if I could just implode at any moment especially on sundays, wednesdays and fridays. You ask more and more of your staff without allowing them to have the tools to make their shift run more swiftly and easily. Pile more work on, burn more people out, but care more about pushing your own version of a tesco clubcard.

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Co-op Response
1y
Thank you for your review and feedback. We’re concerned with the issues you raise and for your well-being. We would recommend that you speak with your manager to ensure that your store is following the clear guidance that we provide and see how you can be involved in making changes in your store where things aren’t working as they should. You are entitled to 11 hours consecutive rest every 24 hours, and this is built into the TARA scheduling system. When managers change schedules, they need to ensure that this is considered. Full-time hours provide for two full days off a week. If you agree to work overtime or respond to callouts, resulting in continuous work into a second week, you are entitled to two consecutive days of rest. Occasionally, for colleagues working one-on-one or, in exceptional circumstances, alone, it may be difficult to take uninterrupted breaks due to the need to provide a continuous service. In these situations, you’ll be allowed to take compensatory rest at the next available opportunity. Please visit How Do I for more information on scheduling hours. You can check what time a delivery is due into the store or track where your delivery is using the TES portal with your 5-digit CSS number. You can use this information to support your shift arrangements. With our home delivery partners, your allocation of hours is based on the items picked in the store. It is the responsibility of the manager and/or team leader to plan how these hours are used when the store is busy with online orders. If this planning is not done effectively, colleagues may feel the strain. Prioritisation needs to be carried out on a store-by-store basis, planning other tasks around busier periods. Should you need any support with understanding the allocation of hours or anything to do with Q-Commerce, please reach out to your local online performance lead. If you’re not sure who this is, you can find out more details on How Do I or speak with your operations manager. Promotions such as, Fresh Mondays and Half Price Wednesdays, are the partners' promotions, not Co-op. Fresh Monday is a campaign on Uber Eats that they use across all their retailer partners and are not within our control. Any internal marketing plans are clearly communicated to stores via internal comms. We continually review our benefits package to make sure that we remain competitive and provide fairer ways to reward our colleagues. You may have seen the news that we’ve announced an exciting new addition to our incentive plans that includes all Co-op colleagues, Rewarding Growth. Please visit the Pay and Reward Hub for more details on this. Finally, we’d also like to remind you that support is available for you should you need it. Speak to your manager, or operations manager for advice or you can get more help using our Colleague Support Programme with our partners at Grocery Aid.

Explore other reviews about Co-op

5.0
Aug 18, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good pay, great staff. Good shifts

Cons

Long hours. Too far from home

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Co-op Response
9mo
Thank you for your review and feedback. We're pleased to see that you were happy with your pay, shifts, and your colleagues.
3.0
Sep 8, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Team got on well, hours weren't particularly harsh (pay not particularly impressive either)

Cons

Overworked due to corporate ruthlessly cutting hours (while hiring more staff?), generally piling on more and more work to the store team without considering time constraints, absolutely no opportunity for advancement while a store manager is already there

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Co-op Response
9mo
Thank you for taking the time to submit a review, however, we believe that you have left this in error. Our Co-op is based in the United Kingdom and have no association with Co-operatives in the USA. We've advised Glassdoor to allocate your review to the correct organisation, but you may wish to review and edit this yourself to ensure your views are represented correctly.
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