czink's anecdote

Pizza Hut Anecdote

When I was going through Pizza Hut’s management training program I worked in many different stores in many different areas. One store I worked at was in a lower class community and most of its employees were from that community. The manager this particular location was very tight with his labor spending. He never gave raises to his employees. He’d often ask employees to stay after their shift off the clock in exchange for a ride home. None of his employees received any benefits from the company because they all would either quit or be fired by the time they were eligible. He would work his crews ragged by short staffing almost every shift, disregarding the effects it had on his customer service and the welfare of his employees. I went back and visited that location two years after I left it and one of the employees was surprisingly still there. When I had worked with her the general manager had her managing shifts for new hire pay. I asked her if she had received a raise in the two years since I’d been there and she said no. I asked her how many hours she was working a week and she said around fifty five or sixty. She was getting paid overtime but after two years and increased responsibility she still made minimum wage. Many of the big fast food companies give bonuses to managers who run lower labor then they were budgeted for a period of time. In some cases, like the one I described, general managers will abuse their employees for the sake of extra money to line their pockets. According to investigations, this company’s labor abuse has spread throughout the world. In China a study was done showing that employees of companies like Pizza Hut, KFC and McDonald’s were being paid up to thirty percent less then their country’s minimum wage. Part time employees were being worked shifts up to thirteen hours long when their region’s laws permitted no shift longer than five. It’s a wonder that a business with such little concern for its employees can manage to be so successful.