Day 169 - 04 Oct 95 - Page 58


     
     1        people within the store may be able to hide it for a very
     2        short period of time but, at the end of the day, it would
     3        definitely rear its head to move further up the ranks in
     4        either coming through from the Supervisor or to myself or
     5        directly to the personnel department in East Finchley.
     6
     7   Q.   I am only going to ask about one specific thing in this
     8        regard:  Do you ever remember a time during 1984 or 1985
     9        when the Manager at West Ealing (and I quote Mr. Cranna's
    10        words) "got into trouble either with the Supervisor or with
    11        you because his weekly target for wage costs as a
    12        proportion to takings was not met"?
    13        A.  I cannot guarantee that he did not get into trouble
    14        with his supervisor because, obviously, that would be on a
    15        one to one basis between the two of them; in trouble
    16        because their targets were not met -- if there was an
    17        instant where they did not meet their target it was not a
    18        case that they got into trouble because of it; it was a
    19        case of that it was felt that either they had -- first they
    20        would be asked to explain if they had over or under
    21        projected their labour.  If it was a case of where people
    22        had phoned in sick, they could not get replacement crew and
    23        that is why they were short of crew at a particular point
    24        in time, then, you know, there is not very much they can do
    25        about it if they have done everything they can to cover
    26        people that have had either personal problems or illness.
    27
    28        If it went the other way, where they used more labour than
    29        was felt necessary for that particular store, then, yes,
    30        they would be talked to in relation to why they had used
    31        it.  There may be a very valid reason why the labour was
    32        higher than anticipated for that particular time.  It could
    33        be to do with the fact that they have taken on some new
    34        crew when they actually wanted to train those crew in
    35        particular areas.  If there was no valid reason for why the
    36        labour percentage was higher than was anticipated, then
    37        obviously it was an advisory capacity where the Supervisor
    38        or myself would advise the Manager on how to control their
    39        costs better.
    40
    41   Q.   Finally this, Mrs. French:  From your memory of the West
    42        Ealing store can you give us an idea on your visits there,
    43        12 times minimum in the first year, can you give us an idea
    44        of what the atmosphere was like in the store -- I am not
    45        going to suggest words; you tell us in your own words --
    46        what the atmosphere was like in that store at that time, so
    47        far as you can remember it?
    48        A.  OK.  The atmosphere for 90 per cent of the time was
    49        quite a bubbly type atmosphere; the crew seemed happy, it
    50        seemed to be running quite nicely; there did not seem to be 
    51        any major problems.  There were occasional days when I went 
    52        in but if they were a little bit short on crew then, 
    53        obviously, the moral of the store would be lower at that
    54        point in time.  But, like I said, that is not necessarily
    55        down to mismanagement but down to circumstances on a given
    56        day.
    57
    58   MR. RAMPTON:  Mrs. French, thank you very much.
    59
    60   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes, thank you, Mrs. French.

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