I love Lidl

[Pekka]

Ohhh

[Pekka]

Also depends on the business structure but I always had the idea of supervisors role as the mediator between managers and them. Why? Managers are usually so busy with other things than managing all their direct employees, so excluding supervisors they should be left to do other business. And supervisors are the contact, and it's their job to hit the targets as managers set them, and it's also collaborative work so that the targets aren't set into maniac levels.

This is done by actual experience, knowledge of the work pace and processes, and supervisors are the ones who need to support the workers and listen their problems as far as work goes. He is the one that should be making sure that everyone is OK, trained and also make the work itself possible by enhancing the environment accordingly and being the messenger to managers. It's then the fault of the manager if the message from the field is ignored, which often is the actual case. But if there's no messages, if there's no collaboration, if everyone is out of touch of the reality, I'd put that on the shoulders of incompetent supervisors.

This of course depends very much how the company functions, but this is pretty general model. So there's many links that can be broken and it always shows and affects the workers down the line. And that's why there's more people to be fired and responsible than just few workers. In fact they prolly are the least responsible for bad results, if at all.

So this would mean, that the supervisor is supervising and kicking ass, I mean motivating and giving tools and methods to better work if they can't do their work well enough or fast enough. Also if the targets are too high or hte environment, tools etc are not good enough or sufficient enough (including other resources such as work force), they should go to the manager and keep them up to date and basically kick his ass to get some help so that everyone can do their job as intended and so that it's not a job for an animal. This often is something that people fail in because they lack the balls or social skills to work with their own manager. He's the gateway to those resources, so what you must do is that you are 'on the side of the workers' at that moment. You switch sides, depending on the situation. Doesn't always happen, and it's wrong and not right.

[Meticulous Man]

I just remembered another story about Lidl. They actually employ fake thieves. When you are working at the cashier, every once in a while a "customer" will try to smuggle unpaid stuff past you and if they succeed, they will pull the product out and go "what do you think this is, huh? I'm afraid we'll have to inform your superiors about this!"

[Ecthy]

Yeah Aivo, I remember rumors their management eat babies too.

[Pekka]

Aivo, if that's true, that's just silly. Security auditing is essential for big companies, however, that's not exactly part of it....

[Meticulous Man]

I have to stress that most of the stuff I have told indeed is hearsay and has not been reported in the media. It could actually be an interesting experience to work for Lidl a couple of months in order to find out to which extent these stories are true and take it as a kind of participatory observational study

[LordShiva]

tldr @ this whole thread

[Pekka]

Aivo, yeah, but if you do an observational study, well, you have to be really honest. The level of bias is obviously hindering already for any reasonable study to be done. Of course, excluding observational.

[Meticulous Man]

The least partisan Internet source to discuss Lidl's personnel policies in Finland that I've found seems to be the Finnish service union's newspaper at http://www.pam.fi/viestinta/pam-lehti/

Ketju kaihtimien takana
Outoja tapauksia Suomen Lidlissä

– Aluksi oli ongelmia työvuorolistoissa kategorisesti. Se oli osittain esimiestason osaamattomuutta, sanoo PAMin sopimussihteeri Juha Ojala.

– Lidlin työntekijät ottivat yhteyttä liittoon ja iso osa puheluista oli nimettömiä, mikä meillä jo sinänsä on uutta ja outoa.

In short, in the January and April issues of 2004, the newspaper criticizes Lidl's personnel policies that result in loads of "strange" complaints made anonymously to the Service Union. A part of this is attributed to the general incompetence of the middle executives.

[Pekka]

Right, that's what I anticipated.. incompetence of _supervisors_ or managment. It doesn't say anythign about executives

If there's a problem with executives and higher managment, then there's a problem with Lidl as a company. Otherwise it's a problem of bad HR.

[Q Classic]

Lidl == Aldi?

[MMC]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
Lidl == Aldi?

Same type of shop, different companies.

[Meticulous Man]

http://www.verdi.de/lidl/schwarz-buc...lidl_in_europe

Lidl seems to adapt to the prevailing legal and economic standards of each country. Where trade unions naturally belong to the political culture and are not only occasional negotiation partners – for instance in Norway, Denmark or Belgium – Lidl usually keeps the rules of the game, accepts co-determination bodies and signs collective agreements with trade union representatives. But when it sees the chance to downgrade standards, Lidl is grapping this opportunity. So in Belgium where Lidl management refers to “hardly any margin” for additional collective benefits – for Frank de Vos from the Belgian trade union LBC-NVK this behaviour is owed to the competition with Aldi as well as to strict orders from the German head quarter.

All directives strictly come from Neckarsulm – although Lidl always pretends that foreign stores are not part of the German parent company. However, the management staff is centrally recruited in Germany – also for the european affiliates. Moreover, employees in several countries refer in their reports to regular “visits” from Germany and that in their lead up the stores regularly have to be cleaned to high gloss.

Style of management at Lidl and Kaufland abroad is like in Germany authoritarian and directed towards intimidation of employees to force even higher performance. A Polish shop assistant of a Lidl store described the tone of supervisors against staff as “offending and vulgar”. Even in Sweden employees talk about “psychic terror” at the work place.

This apparently also applies for parts of the management: A young graduate in business studies reports in the Black Book about her experiences as a trainee manager and how she was obviously systematically humiliated. Presumably to enforce loyalty to the company and also to prepare her to treat the future subordinates in the same way. Meanwhile she has resigned.

[Dinner]

I must admit that the last post just sounds like common sense business practices and the author sounds like a whiner.

[pchang]

It also makes German management sound like initiation at Fraternities.