Either way you lose

You're at work and you've been given a list of tasks that need to get done. When the list was given to you, there weren't many appointments booked, but with walk in appointments your day has been very full and you have made good sales numbers. Closing time is a half hour away.

Do you:
a) Check in the order packets that came in today, something not on your to-do list.
b) Do the telemarketing that is on your list for the full remaining half hour in attempts to make your weekly goal.
c) Start what closing procedures you can so that you are able to save as many labor hours as possible by leaving as close to 8:00 as possible.

Hint: Either way you're getting yelled at even if you were able to complete two of these. Make sure you have a pen at work tomorrow because you'll need to sign the summary of conversation for poor time management.

When you're not at work, you're at work

We know what a day at work is like. Let's talk about our time away from work.

Most days, I had the evening shift since the SM wasn't going to take it.

Often I would get woken up by phone call (oh how I learned to dream hearing that ring) around 9am when she got in, asking a question or accusing me of something that she could have accused me of when I was scheduled at 1. I then would go back to sleep.

I would try to not waste my entire day by getting up by 10am. Most days I would wake up feeling physically ill for the day ahead and go back to sleep. I realize this makes the work day come even faster, but still, it was hard to wake up. I dreaded going to work, especially knowing that I would be accused again once I arrived in studio.

I finally pull myself out of bed 12:00 and start getting ready for my day, figuring I need to at least need to have a small bit of time to myself before going in. Then I might receive a call saying that my schedule changed and they needed me in as soon as possible. Or I might get a call saying come in an hour later than anticipated.

Then of course I actually go to work. You know how that goes. At some point during the day I call home to deliver this disappointing news say that I'm going to be late since something has come up (last minute at-closing appt for example).

Get home, stay up late so I can feel like the day isn't a total wash, go to bed.

Repeat.

Call it a hunger strike

I'm not looking to stir up any trouble, but is there a way that those of you still in the fight could be better heard (or at least be in the conversation)? It sounds like a lot of people feel like their opinions and suggestions aren't being heard. Maybe there's nothing that can be done and SPS is just bleeding out, but it would be nice if the employees were at least made aware of the reasons behind why certain changes get made.

I feel like the absolute best thing you could do is send an email (so that it's documented) saying that from this day forward, you are going to take your lunch without interruptions, leaving the studio. I know that the new hours try to force a proper lunch, but it sounds like some people still aren't getting them.

Everyone should be allowed to leave the studio, eat, have get some respite from the trials of the Portrait Studio. And if they try and get upset about it, you have documentation that shows their ill will coincided with when you started actually taking a lunch.

Thoughts?

When the upset people come back for more

A story from one of our friends at Picture Me Portrait Studio:

This morning a lady who has been to my studio...oh about 2 times. She came once at Christmas and once about 3 weeks ago to get her son's graduation pictures done.

While taking her son's graduation photos, she was displeased because I couldn't give her the same special prices that she got at Christmas time: She said I wasn't being fair with her because of it and that prices in Kentucky were way better in the Walmart there than here in [redacted]. I explained to her kindly that these were the prices and there was nothing I could do about those prices. Needless to say she gave me a bad survey all because of prices. [Even though her problem was mostly with the company and not with you, I'm sure the negative survey got you in trouble]

This lady thought she would come back again today to get more photos. I politely explained to her that I would gladly take her photos but if questioning my prices or my fairness was called into play then the session would be over. She proceed to call me an ASSHOLE right in front of all of Walmart and told me that I was an indecent human being.

I said "Ma'am, there is no call for obscenity but if you want to continue it further the police department could be here in 2 minutes for a free ride to jail." She proceeded to say it again this time with more severe words...and then the race card was thrown out. Loss Prevention for Walmart was listening to her whole commotion and advised her to leave because the police were on their way.

A big thank you to Loss Prevention of Walmart. I don't make enough to be talked to like that by any customer. We go out of our way to appease the customers at all costs and then get rated poorly on our customer service for the very things that we try to accommodate. This is why when a new job comes along I will be taking it as well...because no one deserves to be treated like that by anyone and the sheer fact the customer service refuses to think for one second heaven forbid that a studio manager might be not be at fault.

CPI is going downhill and I will praise God when a new job comes along...because it is turning me into a person I don't want to be...because that is not who I am nor who do I ever want to become which is a person with no class.

Your own title says it all

First of all, a disclaimer: I saw a lot of great wedding photos taken at Sears Portrait Studio. The photographers could really pull off some creative and inventive photos.

That being said.
Why in the world would you go somewhere expecting that you're going to get great wedding photos exactly as you like them for three dollars and eighty eight cents?

http://tinyurl.com/thankyoucptainobvious

How could anywhere could make money selling photos for $3.88?

Some people have a way with words

For those of you that didn't see it, I wanted to highlight this comment:

"Working at CPI was like being in an abusive marriage for 15 years; I was never good enough, and brainwashed into thinking I could not do any better. Then one day my "husband" came home and said he didn't like me anymore, and to pack my shit and get out. I did. When I run into people I've not seen in a while, they always say how great I look-like 10 years younger. That's the stress and anxiety gone from my life. So, if you love CPI so much, stick around. You'll get yours. In the end, literally."

New Hours Begin

From the comments:
"I just found out about the new hours today and I have to say I am a little peeved! When I was first getting informed I heard something about more money. Then all I heard was that our studio is going to be down by half of our normal hours. Which also means I will not be getting my normal hours either. I have to let one person go, and the other one who is my best employee by far will get one day and maybe some discresionary hours? Yeah I am pretty sure that she will no longer have the same availability being as that she will need another job to pay the bills. There is no way she will be waiting around week after week to see if maybe she lucked out and got some hours. To top it off I am very sure that all of our customers and potential customers will be taking their buisness elsewhere. Somewhere that is open maybe? Closing at 2 and coming back to close? Are you fricken kidding me? What nut jobs are running this shindig? I for one am a very underpaid manager and now you tell me your going to cut my hours and I will be working by myself? What about my vacation? What if I am sick? Maybe if you give me one hell of a raise to run a show all alone but other than that I can start my own buisness and deal with the same thing. I feel we are going down and fast and I also believe that buying Picture Me studios only hurt us badly. Things were not like this a few years back. I should probably be looking for another job just in case. I will not be working in another studio thats not my own though thats for sure!"

This is how it should happen

While browsing the internet looking for a press release someone commented about, I happened upon this story of how it should happen.

http://marciaslichta.blogspot.com/2009/04/after-4-months-i-am-finally-getting.html

Yeah, that's right, I thought I'd take a negative break and post a happy story. If you ask me, the best part of the job was the families that would come back again and again and request you every time. Even in my short time there, there were kids that I got to see grow up quite a bit. Some kids were difficult, sure, but when you surprised the parents with how many great photos you got: that was a very rewarding experience.

(Ok I couldn't keep it completely negativity free): How can SPS expect to keep a customer base when their favorite photographers leave, meaning there's new associates every time they come in?

SAS, the bane of your existence

I think SPS is the only business that requires two registers to complete a transaction thanks to SAS. From the mid nineties, SAS is a system that CPI is not willing to abandon. I know because I myself submitted it as an idea to save money as did one of my associates (only to be told that their IT people had better things to do with their time).

SAS is one of the hardest things to get a handle on for new associates and as a result it takes up a huge part of the training process. It is the least intuitive computer system that I've used and I've been computing since the 80's. Looking for customer information? Well you won't find it under the customer tab; it's under Sales. Looking for a transaction? this time it's under Customer. Plus they couldn't think of a way to make all your options visible at once (hint: smaller buttons), so you have to hunt around a bunch of different menus. In the end, it's all memorization as to where you need to go.

But once you've got it memorized, it still loves to screw up. "Oh look," you say "it accidentally added on a second collage when I used this coupon, let me go back and fix it" only to find that when you do that, it adds on a third collage. Try something else and you've got a fourth. You can't delete out any of these items. Your choice:

1) Make the customer wait while you wait in a 30 person queue to talk to tech support, also making your next appointment late
2) Modify the prices down to the correct total price and later be asked/accused about giving away 4 collages for free

Check out should be a quick painless process for the customer: click on the things they got, click on the coupons they used, and ring them out. Done. Or better yet, have the photo ordering software also seamlessly integrate with the register so that it automatically charges them. Just type in the session number and everything pops up.

Now that you don't have to pay me out of Watt's the Big Idea funds anymore, SPS, just do it for your employees and save yourself some training dollars.

It's been a while since I've been on SAS (thank goodness), so leave your experiences in the comments.

Happy Easter

From the comments:

"Our studio recently got an e-mail stating that if we beat sales for the day, everybody working gets time and a half. We were supposed to get time and a half REGARDLESS since they're forcing us to be open on a holiday!"

(Plus don't forget that you'll be paying for your easter props out of your own pocket)

edit: one commenter asks:

"What is so bad about that? The company wants TO MAKE MONEY. It's a business! Duh..."

I thought about that in making the post. True, they don't have to pay time and half to anyone. But I just imagine Easter across the business happening the same way it did at our studio. Our Easter appointments would vary year to year. Some years they might get 1-2 sittings. Other years they might get 0. Usually it was dead all day partially given that people don't expect a lot to be open on Easter. And out in the mall, you couldn't pull anyone in to get photos since the Sears was usually dead. So it's just the randomness that got me. Through no fault of your own, some poor associate might have no one come in all day and miss out on time and a half. It used to be that when an associate had to run the studio on Easter, at least you got to tell them that they would get getting time and a half as some small concession.

And on top of that, the associate can't do any outreach telemarketing with appointmentless time unless they just want to get people angry for calling them on a holiday.

Don't forget your connection pose. Oh wait, forget it.

Things at Sears Portrait Studio go in cycles. Every quarter there's a brand new crusade against something ranging from labor numbers to an element of 5 star photography. Let's use connection poses as an example, a type of pose that made up your 5 star photography grade.

First off, it was impossible to properly define a connection pose since it was an umbrella term for poses ranging from the child looking at a toy to a cute expression (this is as vague as it sounds). The difficult part was that sometimes in evaluations, we would get marked off points for not having a connection pose despite copying something directly from the training manual. Other times, photographers would get rewarded for having a connection pose and we were unable to figure out why.

The crusade ultimately lead to everyone having to go through their sits weekly to find and track their connection poses (with the free time that no one has). We also had a meeting in which we went through some sample sittings and sometimes we just had to say "You know, you're right. I don't know why you didn't get points for this connection pose" which makes it hard to enforce. Also this meeting was scheduled 2 days ahead of time and was a mandatory Sunday-before-open meeting for all associates, but that's beside the point.

Once we got everyone on the same page with connection poses and were able to get them as consistently as the vague criteria would allow, the corporate office tells us to forget connection poses: we're now going to focus on inventive/extreme angle poses and forget about tracking or grading connection poses.

Time to get on the phone and tell everyone to change their schedules: we've got a new mandatory meeting tomorrow evening.

How are the new hours working?

Over at the Open Thread they've been talking about Easter (which has a dumb way of scheduling) and the new hours the studios are running. I'll let the following comment ask the question for me:

Yeah, one of the worst things you can do in business is have unpredictable hours. Customers give up on you.

My question is how the heck is this a full time job for managers anymore? Are you in the studio every day now to make 40 hours?"

Did you lose any assistant managers when they weren't getting guaranteed hours? Did SMs have to take other people's hours so they themselves could get enough? How's working 6 days a week going?

Either way I figure nothing says "we aren't doing well" like making your store be open fewer hours.

Sign and date here please

Someone emailed me on Tuesday and wrote
"Honestly, after reading your blog (which my fiance linked me to) i am
AMAZED that sears portrait studio hasn't had their asses sued up the wazoo
from their employees! How in the hell do they get away with it? That's
INSANE!"

And in a this-is-really-wrong kind of way, they're actually very smart about it.
1) On your application they have you sign that they have the right to terminate you for any reason or for no reason. This is called being an at will employer.
2) To further protect themselves, everything is documented. Had too many coupons get used against you? That's a write up. If it happens next week, that's another write up that can lead to your termination for not fixing what you said you would fix and having fewer people bring in coupons.
3) Thanks to all the documentation, you feel like your job is always in jeopardy. I always felt like if I said "Hey, state law says my lunch is supposed to be uninterrupted and therefore I cannot take passports, deliver packets, or answer phones" that I would be seen as someone who wasn't a team player and then they would use all the documentation that they had stored up to give me the boot. Also, in terms of getting lunches, they have it documented that the DMs are yelling at you about making sure you get lunches, but in practice, it's just set up where it can't happen. As I've probably already written, my SM laughed at the fact that people expected to get lunches during their busy season shifts.

Open Thread

This is a thread where you can have a conversation about anything you would like in the comments. Have fun!

Cleaning and sanitation

Submission via email:

"This quarter, we got a message from our DM stating that we would no longer be reimbursed for washing the blankets and large cloth backgrounds. If a child defecates on the black velvet, we are now supposed to clean it up with a wipe and move on. Are you kidding me? The large backgrounds need to be washed and dried in a super capacity washer and dryer to get them really clean, and I have honestly NEVER seen things this dirty! The blankets are getting stained with spit-up, babies routinely pee on the velvet, and they want us to clean it with a wipe?!? Aside from customers being upset that the white muslin is now stained with melted M&M's (thank you, idiot mother), this HAS to be against some kind of health code....right?"

I'm guessing yes. Why SPS has never paid someone to come and do cleaning on everything is beyond me. Especially now with the reduction of hours, it seems like there would be a cleaning service that could pick everything up and bring everything back in the morning. And it would give parents piece of mind that their child isn't sitting in pee from 5 months ago.

One of the best things about my new job away from SPS is that I'm no longer responsible for cleaning the entire place from top to bottom. Even with a magic eraser, that white vinyl would take an hour to clean in and of itself.

Let's Celebrate Those Who Escape!

The comments section of this thread is designated for people that have quit. Let's all share in the excitement, shall we? I'll get it started with this story I received via email.

"Up until February of this year I was employed with Sears Portrait Studio. After nine short months I had made it from Associate to Store Manager. Recently CPI added two new additions to its ranks. Both are formally from Radio Shack, a business that has basically gone under! They have added new systems on top of an already existed system and has every one under them scared and running in circles to try and make the new systems work! Write up are flying every where and every studio is playing the blame game with their co-workers trying to keep their own job! I knew what was about to happen after my District Manager came back from a conference in Dallas and sent out an e-mail saying we were going to go to Monday and Friday conference calls, and a lot was about to change. I pushed myself away from the studio desk and and took a deep breath, I knew what was coming down the road, just as what is happening now! I said aloud "I will not be this person!" I immediately sprung into e-mailing her back. Subj: I Quit Effective Immediately! I closed down the store and as I drove away, there was this over coming feeling over me! I could breathe again and I felt like me, happy, spirited me! I feel sorry for my fellow co-workers and friends, but they are the ones who stay with it! I asking them, "How are you working for a company that is being micro-managed by two people whose previous company went bankrupt?" I am now self employed selling cosmetics and our motto is "People and Love!" I am ME!

Death Pool

How much longer do you think Sears Portait Studio has until it goes under? Leave your guesses in the comments so that later you can link it to your friends and say "I called it!"

To make it extra fun, let's guess the specific date they declare bankruptcy or close their doors .
I'll guess the announcment comes 12/31/09. Maybe that's too pessimistic a guess, but it seems like they would do it after their most profitable period and before things got really slow.

Fix CPI: Turnover

Sears Portrait Studio has a huge problem with turnover. It seems that my situation was not unique in that many newly hired people don't last more than 2-3 weeks.

What I really don't understand is that, from what your comments have recently said, is that now that times have gotten increasingly tough, the response seems to be "fire people that aren't making PRS numbers and hire new ones" as if this will magically make people spend more money and be more satisfied

It won't even help you save on labor when you fire that 3 year person (who got one raise and is now making .50 cents more an hour once she finally got it fixed in payroll) and hire a new person. Yeah, the new person will make less, but you'll have to spend your time to train the person and also have to pay someone to cover the studio while you train them*.

I'm not sure if I even dare ask this question, but readers, how would you prevent people from quitting? I can't think of a good answer other than fix everything else we've talked about in previous posts. In other words, make it so this blog doesn't need to exist. I would love to change this blog to "Sears Portrait Studio Is Not That Bad" but get the feeling that Sears is more likely to go under than it is to be "not that bad"

---
*note: not taking the time to train the person also costs you money since they won't get photos that people want to buy.

Paperwork

The word on the street is you guys are doing a lot more paperwork these days? Give me a summary and I'll post about it.

I find it hard to believe they're adding even more paperwork. When I was working they switched from 15 minutes of closing paperwork to 30 minutes: most of it duplicate information or information that could always be printed in the future if need be.

Fix CPI: CDs

CD's as low as 9.99!
...if you have already spent $100
...and the 9.99 CD only has one pose.
...otherwise it's around $70-$119.99
...[but shh, we'll sell it during the reorder sale for 19.99]

Everyone wants their images on disc. But in order to get that, they need to spend about $120 (either to buy the CD by itself or to buy a collection that has a CD). It's one thing when they've seen the pictures and can say "I want all of these" but how in the world can you convince someone "Digital images important to you? Hey, come on down to have your photos taken by someone you've never met. I hope your kid doesn't act up, because the CD is $120 no matter how good the photos are."

People want their images on CD. It seems to me that these days, it's actually preferred that you get your images on disc. What would you do to change CD's if anything. The main problem I see is that if you make them cheaper, your people that normally do collections, might only do the $60 CD. But would more 9.99 people do the CD instead? I think the CD sets the max price that you will likely get from your customers. Sell it for $60 and no one will buy anything that costs $80 (they can print it themselves. This is likely why the CD is $120 and the target PRS is (or used to be) 120.

Your thoughts?

Followup

Fyi, writing "I KNOW YOU CAN DO IT!" on the memos you use to communicate with staff is not sufficiently motivating or encouraging, and I don't believe that you believe it especially when everything else you say says otherwise. It probably looks good when the DM comes to visit though.

Fix CPI: Motivation

I don't think I'm being too reductionary when I say that the motivation to do well at Sears Portrait Studio is that you get to keep your job.

If you do poorly then you're out the door. That goes without saying at any job, but the problem is how doing poorly is defined. Have a bad week due to some 9.99 coupons dragging your average down? That's a write up.

Really if you ask me, the main problem is at SPS, there's no such thing as a good week. There are weeks when you do ok and therefore made your numbers and then there are bad weeks where you didn't make one of your numbers (be they sales numbers, five star photo numbers, labor numbers, telemarketing numbers). I didn't see much of any positive recognition (not counting the very forced "let's talk about what you did well" before the "let's talk about where you are doing horrible" potion of meetings) while I was at SPS. And, numbers aside, staff often sees their schedules change the day before they're supposed to work: days added, days lost, frantic calls asking someone to work. People switch their life around for the job because they feel they have to or they won't be a "team player" aka "someone with a job"

What's the best way to make staff feel motivated to do their best without putting their jobs on the line? How can you make the staff feel appreciated and valued?

How do they do it?

I want to interrupt the Fix CPI posts to ask a question. We've already discussed how at SPS, there's plenty of opportunities to move up in position since people quit so often and we discussed how my DM was someone who went from seasonal help to district manager in about 2 years.

But on the other hand, I don't know if you've looked at the company newsletter ever, but every once in a while, there would be someone in the newsletter where it would be something like this: "Congratulations to Ms. Person who, after nine years with the company, has been promoted to Studio Manager."

How do people last that long? Is it related to what some posters have said: how things used to be enjoyable at CPI and now are not (making those first nine years a breeze relative to the stuff they're about to have to endure)? I know that for some, working with the cute babies is enough to help them endure all the bad stuff, but nothing could make me endure for nine years.

Clothing choices

Image from deleteyourself. Looks like a Sears Portrait Studio collage if you ask me. If you can't read the shirt it says "Waterhole B.I.T.C.H. Beautiful Intelligent Talented Charming and Horny.

What are your worse clothing choice stories? While I had my share of people coming in wearing ridiculous shirts and getting the 9.99 package, the thing that surprised me the most were those that came in wearing horribly wrinkled graduation robes, take photos only in those, and then spend $250 on a package.

Fix CPI: Coupons

Coupons. They bring people in, but then people can end up spending 4.99. With people looking to save money [I feel like that is the phrase I'm going to use in every post], what are your custom conversions at? SPS can have a very busy day that requires two associates to be there, but if that second associate just ends up selling 4.99 packages, those extra sits have actually lost you money since you had to pay an extra person to be there.

What, in your opinion, is hurting you the most? Is it not having enough sits, or is it having too many coupons? If you're running single coverage, it's of course best to have as many sits as possible; there's no need to have an associate sitting doing nothing. But we also all know how having a day where two coupon-users kills your PRS and your job security.

Now, I don't know a lot about marketing and I venture that a lot of our readers don't either, but if you put yourself in the shoes of marketing, what would you do? More coupons? Fewer coupons? Different coupons? Better targeted coupons?

"Full time"

I wanted to highlight the following comment because of how well it shows that things are getting worse. Studios are beginnning to cut hours to the point that studio managers have to basically live at the studio:

"Recently CPI has changed the hours of operations on some "test" studios (soon to be changed in all studios). In my studio our new hours will mean we are only OPEN 35 hours out of the week. That means, as a studio manager, I have to work every single hour we are open every single day. It's ridiculous! It also means that my assistant manager's hours will be cut down to practically nothing and my other staff... well... sorry?

To top all that off, we were recently told on a conference call that if we drop below 32 hours a week, then the shorted time will be taken from our PTO time [a combination of sick days and vacation days]. So if I decide one week to only work 5 days, then whatever hours I'm short will come out of the measly PTO time I have. We are forbidden from taking unpaid time off. I think that too is ridiculous. We aren't salary workers. We are hourly. If we want to work less hours, it means they just pay us less! We used to be able to take unpaid PTO with DM's approval provided our studio was covered. Now, we have to basically work 6 days a week with no break but measly pay."

I don't know how Sears can expect to get good assistant managers any more. People that have any kind of relevant experience or skills aren't going to work for the small number of hours. This is probably why, a couple months ago, there were rumors of the assistant manager position being eliminated (which, to date, we've heard nothing of). Eventually, it seems to me that they're going to realize how few hours the assistant managers are getting, eliminate the position, and fill the gap with associates that they get to pay less.

The revolving door

There have been a lot of great comments on the previous entry about the horrible conditions at Sears Portrait Studio, and I wanted to highlight a few. These are in response to another comment that suggested that if you try your best, you'll always be safe from losing your job:

"I was fired for low studio numbers...I did everything in my power to get the numbers up. I was a loyal employee for 15 years. I worked holidays and nearly every weekend; hell, I didn't even take a sick day my first 5 years. I hung in through all the changes and daily BS. My reward? A DM who lied about studio visits, posted my job online before beginning any corrective action, talked smack about other studio managers to me, and played favorites on a regular basis. Don't kid yourself. You are ALWAYS REPLACEABLE. "

And another commenter writes: "The problem with this job is the company feels we are easily replaced. on a recent conference call we were told to interview people weekly so those who are underperforming can be replaced immediately. you CAN and DO get fired for low numbers.and good luck actually getting people to take the job at the lousy starting pay. we are so easily replaced and yet it takes a dedicated person to fully do this job and give good customer svc. we hire any old person off the street and expect a miracle. thats why this company is in the toilet. START WITH THE EMPLOYEES. find your sales rising. (oh look i wrote in caps that means IT WILL be done right?)"

Did you catch that? People are being told to interview people when there aren't even positions open. As many SM and DMs that have had their jobs posted know, nothing says "we don't value you" like actively seeking out new people to do your job.

I left this company about six months ago thinking that it couldn't get any worse over there, but clearly it's gotten worse.

Fix CPI: Business model

The CPI business model is more or less the following: bring in people, take great photos, use sales tactics to sell them sheets at 14.99 each, bring them back.

Is this sustainable? I mean, yes, it's incredibly profitable to sell a product at 14.99 that costs you about 17 cents in raw materials, but it doesn't help if you only get a few customers a day. And, thanks to coupons (which will be another day's entry so save up those comments!), some customers pay just 9.99 for their entire package of photos that it took your associate an hour to take.

Times are tough and people are learning how to spend less. I know that the people at Sears take great photos, but how can you continue to convince people that your photos are so great that, rather than spending .26 cents for a cute 4x6 print that they took at Walgreens, they should instead pay many times that for a sheet of 4 3.5x5's, all with the same pose.

Fix CPI: PRS

Readers, I thought it would be interesting to discuss the problems that CPI faces and figure out what (if anything) they can do to make things better for you. Let's talk about the different aspects of the way that SPS is set up and discuss how you would change them. If you have topics you would like to discuss, let me know.

Let's start with PRS. Working at Sears Portrait Studio means you've got a lot of associates that are part timers, many of them students. In theory, since they're there 10-15 hours a week, they're not that invested in the well-being of the company (not saying this is true, I'm just going through the reasoning). When you as a company want to make more money, it makes sense that you would try to get their average sale up. Bring their average sale (or anyone's for that matter) up, and you bring in more money.

The main problem, of course, is that in practice, everything isn't tied to average sales. For example, when SPS calls people during outreach telemarketing, those sittings typically spend less. So you could have someone who brings in 10 extra sits for herself in a week, but this would reflect on her negatively, since these sittings would bring down her PRS.

We all know how closely PRS is tied to you having a job or not, and as a result, everyone feels like their job is in jeopardy when economic times get tough and people spend less.

Would you change PRS? How would you track job performance? How would you motivate staff to bring in more money? It's easy to say what doesn't work (and if you ask me, PRS has a lot of problems), but it's far more difficult to figure out new ways of doing things.

From the front lines

I wanted to highlight a comment we received just this morning from upsetcpiemployee:

I am a current employee in upper management and things are not getting ANY better, only worse. Since hiring J[name deleted]and K[name deleted], PRS has become a major topic. They have gone to the extent of yelling and degrading TMs, DMs and even studio managers in front of their peers, because we have people who are running lower numbers, and heaven forbid we have not terminated them immediatly after having a bad week. The thought of retraining people (even those who were hired just before Christmas and got the minimal training to begin with) is out of the question. No, we are to terminate them and find replacements. Like we can find people who will work for 7.50 (and that is on the high end in some of the studios across the country) and get 10 hours max. GOOD LUCK.

I feel for all of you that struggled at all levels with this company, and only pray things will change. I miss the old CPI, when we believed in recognizing our top performers and developing those who struggled. Heck, this year we are not even allowed to have awards ceromonies at any level. How is that for recognition! I am sorry that any of you had to feel the need to "fudge" your numbers to keep your job. [This was a comment on the "Screw over your employees" post] We failed you as a company, and I really do appologize. At the same token, I say "we" as if I am Home Office and I am not. I too am constantly worried that my job is on the line, and feel the pressure that the two new additions (J--- & K-----)have placed on us. I am glad I found this site just to speak my mind. I love what I do, and I have for a long time. I love watching associates and managers grow from when the were hired or promoted to becoming tops in the company, but that has been taken from me, and I miss it. Now it is just like our customers at Christmas lately with the lack of staff we have had, a cattle herd. We are not developing anyone, we hire them, give them the bare bones training, and give them 30-90 days to sink or swim. That is not fair to our managers, our employees and definatly not fair to our customers.
I hope Renato himself reads these comments, because we need to go back to the days of developing a staff and creating future managers in all studios. And you cannot get there by the constant turn over. And you certainly will not get there by having people like J--- and K----- come in and take a hatchet to our company and degrade all employees, whether they are on the top or bottom, they will find something they can complain about.

For those of you still employed by CPI, hang in there. It was not always a bad place to work, and I hope some day it will get back there.And please do not "fudge" numbers, ask for help. Any good leader will help you get through a tough time!

[Readers, come back for tomorrow's entry; let's discuss how Sears Portrait Studio can be fixed.]