For me, getting my hours cut at a job was always a bad sign. A few years ago, I used to work as a Pharmacy Technician at CVS/Pharmacy. I had plenty of hours and my Supervisor was always encouraging me to take on more hours. As time progressed and the economy worsened, slowly but surely, our hours were getting cut. The company had made a decision to hire more full time workers, rather than a bunch of part time college students with sporadic schedules.Pretty soon, I went from working 25-30 hours a week to a bare minimum of 10 hours. It ruined my budget and my wallet was shrinking. Eventually, I was laid off, which I had seen coming. I found myself in the same situation again this year. Luckily, I've been able to get some great advice about what to do when hours get cut.
Be A Team Player: Although your hours may get cut, show that you are a great team player. Don't be sour about having less money in your wallet. Show that you are still dedicated to the company and help out as much as you can. Maybe there might be a position in another department and your dedication to your show will give you the upper hand in this position.
Ask Questions: If you are fortunate enough to have a great relationship with your boss or anyone in the higher management, find out what is going on with the company. Keep yourself informed by reading the newsletters and emails at work. See how the company's stock is doing and keep yourself in the know. Perhaps they are discussing a hiring freeze, so you'll know not to expect that raise you wanted.
Advance Yourself: This is kind of like being a team player, but instead, making yourself a viable asset to the company. Maybe you'll pick up a class related to your career and this will help you find a new department or even position. Market yourself and show your worth at the job so you will stick around compared to the others.
Keep Asking: Just because hours are being cut out of your regular hours, doesn't mean there are overtime hours to be made. Sometimes, your job might have a project or something extra going on. If you don't speak up perhaps the boss will think everyone is okay with the cutbacks. Let everyone know that you are avaliable to help whenever. Maybe they need someone to come to the office on a Saturday. There goes a few extra bucks in your pocket. Have you had your hours cut? What did you do about it?
Comments (6)
These are good tips. I hope they will work when I find a new job. They tell us at work that it's the economy affecting our hours yet they constantly hire NEW people & they get 20+ hours a week. We dont think it's fair because we've been with the store since it opened a year & a half ago & we have seniority & we do more of the work. It's a shame we have to constantly ask for hours to take hours from other people.
I think it's an insult to hire outside the company instead of promoting within because they dont recognize the hard work we all do. They rather spend more money training someone new & then pay them $2 LESS than us. I'm strictly speaking for my job, not anyone elses. This place is horrible & has steadily gone downhill since it opened. Even after we got new management, people are still complaining & leaving because the managers dont do anything to help the employees & they always threaten us with bullshit. This is also a cheap tactic to get people to quit so they wont be able to get unemployment or sue.
I have yet to run into this problem. I would probably hang in there for a while before getting a new job..
I've never had a job before...
I too went through hours of having been cut at my Pharmacy Tech position at Meijer. I think part of it is the $4 list my friend at Krojer Pharmacy always gets plenty of hours. What did I do, we'll, I was promised for a few months that I'd be getting more hours and to wait. There were these two girls there that were not worth keeping always later, never did the job right etc, and despite promises of fireing them, it never happened. Realizing it wasn't working, I sent my little but out on a job search and found an amazing job I never expected with great benefits. I love my job at Meijer, but I needed more hours, now, I love the job I'm at more. In the mean time while I was looking for a job what did I do about money? We'll my grandparents were helping me out a bit and I had financail aide from school as well, in between, I unforutanlty had to rack up some credit card debt, but it'd paid off now.
and yes i've had my hours cut. i can barely make my car payments each month. my previous manager hired too many people too soon before the summer season which is where the company makes its most money. well i guess since she was handing out so many hours the store was losing money cause it wasn't bringing in enough. now with the new manager, i'm getting about 8 horus a week. i used to get 20+. if i get 14 or 20 one week the next i'm off for like 5 days so it kinda just evens out.
my uncle works for the state of california and recently had to cut one day off the regular week, so now he's only working monday thru thursday and off every friday and took a 20% pay cut. he really didn't have a choice when all state employees had to change their schedules. it sucks because even the dmv is closed on fridays now. i'm ok with my schedule, only thing that dipped was that i didn't get a higher raise that expected but kept my regular schedule because i work for an insurance company.