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.
