Self-Scanners Impact Work Force
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Sofia Kimbro shows off a U-Scan checkout and helps customers use it. |
Sophia Kimbro of UFCW Local 1996 in Suwanee, Ga. could easily feel stressed today working as a front-end manager at Kroger’s grocery store in Atlanta. Not because the 17-year veteran supervises cashiers, baggers and four supervisors, but because she is in charge of a frequently hectic area of four self checkouts. Though customers scan and bag their own groceries in this area of U-Scan computers, Kimbro is sometimes overwhelmed helping customers who simultaneously need attention.
She assists customers with coupons, varying payment options, questions, voids and other security issues in all four lanes—which, she says, are almost always busy.
“There’s stress in being responsible for all four lanes at one time, where customers need assistance at the same time,” Kimbro said. “That happens often, and customers become frustrated either with the machines or for waiting for assistance. Some even walk off.”
Kimbro initially was excited about the technology when it was first introduced to her store in 1998. But she quickly realized how it affects the workers. She sees her job managing four U-Scans as taking away the hours of two or three cashiers.
“It also takes away from the personal aspect of being with customers. With Kroger, I was shocked we went that way (of relying on computers for customer service),” she added.
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Margaret Christy stands at her post overseeing the |
“Customers sometimes get angry because I’m taking care of someone who has a check, and then another who has coupons. Some will just walk off and go to a cashier, or some will get nasty with me. It gets stressful, because there is only so much I can do with eight U-Scans. I’m told not to take it personally, but it’s hard not to when customers are yelling at me. It’s tiring.”
WHAT ARE SELF SCANNERS?
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There are normally 4-6 self scanners in one area, which is overseen by one attendant, like Sophia Kimbro or Margaret Christy, rather than individual cashiers. The attendant is perpetually busy assisting the do-it-yourself customers, verifying credit card purchases, overriding errors or checking ID for alcohol and tobacco purchases.
ARE SELF SCANNERS EFFECTIVE?
Workers report mixed reviews in how efficient the self scanners are for customers. For shoppers to scan and bag groceries themselves isn’t more convenient if they have a cart full of groceries, but it does seem easy enough for those with just a few items. But no customer—regardless of number of items or level of computer experience—is exempt from typical computer frustrations.
An article in American-Statesman describes Nancy Sullivan as a technological-savvy customer who isn’t sold on the idea.
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| Front-end manager Sophia Kimbro assists a customer needing help on the U-Scan. |
“They’re a pain in the butt,” Sullivan said, as she fumbled her way through computerized beeps and prompts. “I’m an engineer. I’m smart, and I still don’t like them. If it scans wrong or you can’t find the bar code, you sit and wait (for an attendant’s assistance). See how long I’m waiting here? I could have been in a normal line,” she told the newspaper.
The IHL Consulting Group confirms Sullivan’s experience in its study, concluding “the actual transaction process is faster with staffed checkout because of the experience of the checker and the avoidance of delays from the security features of the self-checkout devices.”
Grocery stores say they are keeping up with the latest technology in order to improve customer service—more checkouts, less lines. Though it might speed up the process for the customers who are only picking up a few items, it doesn’t seem like improved service for customers to scan and bag groceries themselves.
At Sophia Kimbro’s supermarket, only the U-Scans are available to check out customers during the first hour when the stores open at
“Some customers refuse to use the self checkout, especially the early morning customers,” Kimbro said. “They feel if they are going to patronize our store, they don’t want to do a cashier’s job. They want a cashier to do it. And some actually demand we open up another checkout lane with a cashier, so they don’t have to use the self checkouts. We try to accommodate them, but we don’t have the hours for another cashier to come in and work.”
Margaret Christy has heard similar complaints from customers after dealing with the do-it-yourself concept.
“If customers aren’t getting the attention they need when a lot is going on, they’ll get frustrated or complain. I heard one say, ‘I’d rather go to a human’,” she said.
But Virginia Teal, an Atlanta Kroger cashier of 25 years also in Local 1996, believes most of her customers like the self checkouts.
“I don’t (agree) with the fact of it taking away our jobs, but a lot of the customers love them,” Teal said, adding that most customers know how to use them since Kroger has had them for awhile. “If the machines are set up right and manned properly, they work well.”
HOW DOES TECHNOLOGY AFFECT WORKERS?
When employers say they need to follow the trend of “keeping up with technology”, it usually means they are seeking alternatives to labor costs. And in the long run, employers hope that investing in computers in lieu of humans will end up saving the company money.
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| A customer scans her own groceries at the self checkout. |
And self scanners might be just the beginning of a new trend in technology. The possibility of a day when the entire grocery cart could be scanned and paid for in a matter of seconds, much like speeding through toll booths with an “EZPass”, may be a possibility in the not-too-distant future. The shopper could simply walk through an arch and have their whole order scanned at once, and have it automatically withdrawn from a checking account or billed to a credit card—all in a matter of seconds. To read more about this technology, click here.
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