Holiday shopping madness

The big holiday season is upon us. It’s the time to indulge in excess of everything: food, presents, down time, sleep, etc.  But before any of that happens people indulge in biggest shopping period of the year starting Black Friday the stores get pretty crazy. There are shoppers pepper-spraying other shoppers to keep their desired merchandize, people getting trampled when the doors open. It’s all pretty ridiculous and unfortunate for the victims of these incidents. Full disclosure, I find it hilarious mainly because it’s so unusual.

Having worked retail, for about 5 years I have encountered the holiday season. Arguably the worst part of working retail is that occasionally you will be required to work holidays, but it comes with the territory, and frankly speaking most employers usually compensate extra for this time.  Apparently Target does not:

Count your blessings and then get to work. That may be Thanksgiving for more retail workers this year, as stores — desperate to pull in buyers on the first weekend of the holiday shopping season — push their openings earlier and earlier. Unhappy workers…are trying to persuade companies to back off, but retailers say they’re stuck: It’s what customers want.

Reporting to work at 11 p.m. on Thanksgiving ruins what is supposed to be a day spent with family, said Anthony Hardwick, who works part-time at a Target store in Omaha. His online petition against Target Corp.’s plan to open at midnight on Black Friday had drawn more than 100,000 signatures…“The folks that work at Target are going to be working all night overnight on one of the most hectic retail days of the holidays,” Hardwick said. “They need to be well-rested for that, so they have to miss out on Thanksgiving if they’re going to be working overnight.”

http://www.fistfuloftalent.com/2011/11/support-or-humiliate-your-employer-you-make-the-call.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FistfulOfTalent+%28Fistful+of+Talent%29

I am not certain on what the compensation system is like at Target, having worked at a similar type of retailer I can say that they probably pay base pay to the employees and that’s it. Whatever increase they provide is likely forced onto the employer by the government in terms of holiday/overtime pay.  Economically speaking the “price” that the employer puts on working at said time (the wages that employees are paid) might be deemed to low by some employees, which would lead to dissatisfaction and everything associated with it.

By contrast employees at stores that pay commission for the sales are looking forward to the holidays because that is the time they can make the most money. In this instance they would consider that the price the employer is paying for their service is high and it leads to satisfaction.

Therefore, I believe that this problem can be solved by: increasing the pay to the employees that are working these holidays.  It’s a well-known fact that retail jobs overall are notoriously under-valued, and a commitment to increase that value at least during the holiday season would be great. Raising the wage for the holidays would in theory would make employees more reliable and productive which could potentially increase efficiencies in the stores.