Redditor u/Grizzlypupper posted how their manager at Walmart wanted workers to clock out early to keep from paying them overtime.
They posted a photo of their manager’s instructions to the r/walmart subreddit.
In a handwritten message on a whiteboard, management wrote, “Everyone needs to ONLY work as many hours as they are schedules,” while also noting, “(If you are scheduled 5 hours do not go over that).”
The message then calls out six individual workers saying they need to “leave early due to going over their scheduled hours yesterday.”
The workers had to clock out early by as little as five minutes, and up to 15 minutes.
In the top voted comment, one user noted how ridiculous it is to come down on workers over a few minutes of extra work.
“Making a fuss over amounts as small as 5 minutes is crazy. If you aren’t gonna give people full hours give them 4 long work days instead of 5 short ones,” they wrote.
“And then get pointed for clocking out early,” someone else said.
A current Walmart associate chimed in: “This! When they cut our hours, it’s like one or a half an hour each day before or after. Just give me a whole half day off. But, nah. That would benefit ME not them. This way they get the money saved AND me working my almost full five.”
Another user urged Walmart associates to stand up for themselves, offering practical advice, “So it’s actually against policy for them to do that. Associates can report it to the wage & hour hotline and I’m pretty sure they will have to pay out the OT. I know for such a petty amount like this it won’t make a difference on your paycheck but it’s about the principle.”
Many users were upset with Walmart’s business practices and how they treat their workforce.
“…You’re not allowed to say hire more humans, add more labor, add more funding, reduce store hours, reduce metrics… Corporations would bring in employees for 7 straight days and only work them 5.71 hours per day, if they could get away with it,” one person vented.
A Walmart manager also agreed, writing, “This is counterproductive. If it’s slow I let my folks know they can head home early. If it’s busy, I want the floor clean, and everything done. WOSH always works out in my favor. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that if I need another 10 minutes to clean everything up, that I should take that ten minutes and clean everything up.”
Big box stores have struggled to retain staff since the pandemic. In June, the number of US workers who went from full-time positions to part-time grew by 452,000 people—a 12% increase from May. Though many claim that the shift is a result of slowing sales, the reason could also be that Walmart has been restructuring their workforce through consolidation, hour cuts, and layoffs since 2019.
If this trend continues it’s not hard to imagine that Walmart and other big box stores would find themselves permanently understaffed.
The Daily Dot reached out to u/Grizzlypupper via Reddit Chat and Walmart via email for further comment.
