No time off, chaos, abuse: why Christmas is the worst time to work in a supermarket

It’s ‘the most wonderful time of the year’. And for supermarket bank balances the quarter is indeed ‘golden’ – sales topped £13bn during the four weeks of December for the first time ever last year. But for shop workers it’s a different story.

“What’s it really like to work in a supermarket at Christmas? It’s an absolute nightmare,” says Lisa*, who has worked at Tesco for over 30 years. “Nothing comes close to the festive period for stress. I’ve seen so much abuse and trouble over the years. One time, people were literally fighting about brussels sprouts. One woman got the last pack, and then another woman followed her and stole them out of her trolley!”

Lisa is not alone in her views, with 79% of supermarket staff characterising their experience of working at Christmas in store as either “quite negative” or “very negative”, according to exclusive research for The Grocer by Organise, an online platform that helps people improve their life at work. And 81% said shopper attitudes towards staff are substantially worse at Christmas than at other times of the year.

So what makes Christmas such a stressful time in store? What’s being done to address the issues? And is it enough?

The first issue is the sheer busyness of stores. “There’s a good seven or eight days where it’s absolutely manic. It’s chaos,” says Andrew*, who has worked at Waitrose for more than 20 years. “Say a customer asks: ‘Have you got any more sprouts?’ You think: ‘Oh, no.’ Because we know that in the warehouse, it’s absolute pandemonium.

“Just searching for a crate of sprouts will take about 15 minutes, because out the back, the chillers are chock-a-block, you’ve got cages spilling out into the warehouse, sometimes it’s all spilling outside the warehouse into the yard where the delivery vans are. That’s what I mean by chaos. It’s just about getting through those days.”

In the days before Christmas, getting stock on to shelves, along with other typical store standards, becomes “an afterthought”. Items such as oranges, carrots and red cabbages are simply stacked on the floor. “It’s intense, because it’s so busy,” he says.

Terri* worked for Asda for more than 15 years before leaving last month and paints a similar picture. “What’s it like? It’s horrendous. It’s like a slalom down the aisles. There’s empty cages, rubbish, stock everywhere.”

Inadequate resourcing

And what makes it worse, says Terri, is “the lack of support from management, especially on checkouts. Eight years ago I had 87 colleagues on checkouts, now it’s 35. They weren’t replaced,” she says. “If staff are needed on the shop floor they just go, and then I get the customer backlash, because I can’t get another checkout open. But I can’t just magic up a colleague I don’t have.”

Organise’s research for The Grocer, which polled over 200 workers, found nearly four in 10 staff specifically mention being short-staffed as a problem over Christmas – “by far the strongest theme in the dataset”, says Organise.

And compounding the problem, adds Lisa at Tesco, is managers who “hide away” during the chaotic Christmas rush. “They know that angry customers are taking it out on us, and they don’t want to be dealing with the fallout. We’re like human shields. It’s known among the staff: it’s getting close to Christmas, so we won’t see them, no way.”

Another big issue is the long hours and the shifts shopfloor workers have to put in. “All my colleagues are so stressed at Christmas already,” says Lisa at Tesco. “And now they want to keep supermarkets open longer and longer. We used to shut at 5pm on Christmas Eve, but now it’s 7pm. What does anyone need at 7pm on Christmas Eve?”

And staff complain they find it near impossible to get time off to spend with family. According to shopworkers’ union Usdaw, many retailers operate a holiday ban, so staff cannot take leave.

“We ask employers to close at 4pm on Christmas Eve and remain closed on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, but that often doesn’t happen, and we find people feel pressured into working,” says Joanne Thomas, Usdaw general secretary. “Our members tell us they get really unhappy, that their children get upset because they have to work Christmas Eve and Boxing Day. Unfortunately, it’s a very different Christmas if you’re a retail worker.”

Opening times vary across the supermarkets. Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda are among those that open on Boxing Day. Aldi and Waitrose do not.

Supermarkets say working public holidays is voluntary, and it can come with a “premium” hourly rate. But workers give this idea short shrift. “See the Christmas week? You haven’t got a hope. You couldn’t get a day off if your life depended on it,” says Tesco’s Lisa. “It’s almost an unspoken rule – you wouldn’t dare to ask.”

At Waitrose, Andrew laments the fact his kids won’t get to see his wife’s family this year, because they live overseas and he can’t get time off. “For a lot of staff, it’s a bit of a sad time,” he says. “This year, the days haven’t fallen too kindly, so we’re staying here for Christmas. Most of the time, if you request leave, it’ll get rejected.”

Ian*, who’s worked at The Co-op for more than 13 years, says staff can book holiday, but it requires special written permission, and “we’re sometimes pressured over that”. With the Co-op closing only on Christmas Day, he says it’s “not enough time to relax. You find yourself rushing Christmas dinner and not fully enjoying yourself because you’re working the next day.”

These pressures are arguably felt even more keenly by the tens of thousands of seasonal workers recruited every Christmas. Supermarkets are set to employ over 70,000 people in festive roles this year. “You’re definitely thrown in at the deep end,” Thomas says. “And sometimes there’s a bit of a promise of a more permanent contract at the end of it. Workers then do every hour God sends, the most unsociable shifts, to try and get this permanent contract. And when that doesn’t happen, it can be disheartening and unfair.”

Abuse

But “the worst thing about Christmas is the abuse from customers”, says Terri at Asda. In a survey this month by The Retail Trust, 71% of shoppers admitted to getting annoyed with in-store workers, delivery drivers or customer services. And 13% said they raised their voice or lost their temper. But the threat of violence is constant, says Terri. She recalls her husband having to meet her from work because a customer said they would “wait outside for me”. One of her colleagues had their car window smashed because she wouldn’t mark down a price for someone. “You’ve got customers coming in on 4 December demanding to know why we haven’t got any ‘f***ing Advent calendars’ left.”

According to Usdaw’s latest figures, in the past 12 months more than 70% of its members experienced verbal abuse, nearly half had been threatened by a customer and one in 10 had been assaulted.

Ian at the Co-op believes customers “get more intense and angrier with staff when it’s coming up to Christmas”.

“I had a drunk customer threatening me, saying: ‘If you step outside, I’ll beat the shit out of ya.’ I’ve also had my fair share of customers having a go at me because there’s not enough people on the tills,” he says.

Chris Brook-Carter, Retail Trust CEO, is dismayed by the survey findings. “Every year, there’s a fall in morale and a rise in unhappiness and anxiety – and the higher the footfall, the more store workers struggle.”

On the bonus side

Of course, interactions with shoppers aren’t all bad. Andrew at Waitrose finds many “customers are a lot friendlier and more jovial during the festive period – they appreciate we’re trying to keep shelves stacked”. But even so “abuse is just standard nowadays – it doesn’t matter if it’s Christmas”.

Indeed when asked what are the positives about working at Christmas, shop floor staff we spoke to all struggled. In Organise’s survey, only 8% rated their experience as “quite positive” or “very positive”. And only 2% said attitudes towards staff were better.

Another potential perk, says Andrew, is the “indefinite amount of overtime”. That could be a plus “for those that want to earn extra money”. But he yearns for a proper Christmas bonus: “What would be nice would be a little bonus of some sort.” The only thing his Waitrose branch does, he says, is knock down the price of unsold turkeys and geese to “about a tenner for staff”.

At Tesco, Lisa is even less circumspect. “What’s the best thing? I don’t think there is one, to be honest. They used to give us vouchers. Now, they give us a tin of sweets and that’s it. The vouchers were only a small gesture, but they made you feel valued. People feel less valued now at Christmas, 100%.”

Ian mourns the loss of the £100 bonus he used to get at the Co-op, while Terri says Asda employees “have to buy our own Asda Christmas jumper or special red uniform if we want to wear it”.

“There’s nothing to look forward to now for the colleagues – they’ve taken everything,” she adds. “We used to get a Christmas bonus, an allowance of £3 per colleague for some Christmas chocolate, money to put on a Christmas buffet for staff, money for an outside Christmas party – that’s all gone.”

What are employers doing?

All of the supermarkets contacted by The Grocer declined to respond to our requests for comments. But employers are trying to make things better, according to the BRC, particularly when it comes to abuse. Retailers invested £1.8bn in crime prevention last year, it says, in an attempt to keep colleagues as safe as possible.

Lucy Whing, crime policy adviser at the BRC, also points out “many retailers are increasing the amount of training they offer, so staff are better equipped to deal with situations like theft and harassment”. And the BRC itself has worked with the Suzy Lamplugh Trust “to offer de-escalation training for employees in difficult situations”.

One problem, says Brook-Carter, is the sector isn’t coming together enough. “We’ve seen a big shift in the past few years, particularly when it comes to abuse. A lot of money is being spent trying to keep store workers safe,” he says. “My frustration is there’s still too many retailers trying to solve this on their own. It’s a society-wide problem that needs an industry-wide response.

“There’s still a disconnect between what’s happening on the ground and what head office believes is going on. The danger is getting to the point where staff normalise these things. We hear this time and again: ‘Oh, this is just part of the job.’ But it shouldn’t be.”

Is it any wonder that 41% of workers have considered quitting, according to separate research from The Retail Trust in September? The consensus seems to be that more must be done by the sector’s leadership to de-normalise abuse, make sure the right messaging goes out to shoppers – that goodwill towards men and women matters – and ensure people know where to turn when an incident has taken place, whether they’re seasonal staff or retail lifers.

The good news is that Usdaw has a “huge” network of health and safety representatives, says Thomas, and “where they work together with management, we often find the statistics go down in those stores”. She also points out body cams and extra security “make a difference and make staff feel safer”.

But “the biggest thing” is making sure staff report all instances of retail crime, including abuse. Thomas thinks “some of the faith has been lost, particularly with the amount of frontline police resources taken away under the Conservatives, and some shopworkers feel it’s not worth reporting it because nothing gets done – but that’s the worst thing that can happen”.

On the employer side, she says the retailers Usdaw works with are doing “a lot”, but “I don’t think we could say all retailers are doing enough, or we wouldn’t have statistics like we’ve got”.

Lisa agrees. At Tesco, “they do have this QR code where you can report it, but I don’t think anything comes of it. That’s definitely the feeling among my colleagues. People regularly talk on the WhatsApp groups about the lack of support they got after being abused.”

It’s a similar picture at Asda. “All we have is a poster saying Asda does not tolerate abuse of its staff. That’s it,” says Terri. “I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been abused, and what support did I get? Nothing.”

Let’s Respect Retail campaign

The Retail Trust is also doing its bit. The launch of its Let’s Respect Retail campaign this month includes free online sessions to help staff cope with antisocial behaviour in the run-up to Christmas. That includes advice on body language, choice of words and recovery strategies. There’s also a set of support services for staff who have suffered abuse or violence. And in-store messaging encouraging shoppers to “restore humanity to the high street”, starting with simple gestures of respect such as saying hello, thank you or offering a smile.

Meanwhile, on the policing side, assistant chief constable Alex Goss, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for retail crime, believes “significant strides have been made in its fight against retail crime since the Retail Crime Action Plan was introduced two years ago”.

He also points to the government-initiated ‘Winter of Action’ campaign, which will run throughout December and January and “entails a strong police response and visibility around retailers. Each police force will have its own plan to tackle the areas affected most by retail crime and will be working with local partners and businesses.”

It’s a good start. But unfortunately, increased police presence won’t do much to help ease workloads, bring order to the pandemonium found in warehouses or ensure supermarket workers can enjoy enough time with family during the festive period.

A YouGov opinion poll of 1,763 UK adults, commissioned by Usdaw in 2022, found that 79% support their local supermarket closing all their stores on Boxing Day. Usdaw’s own surveying found that 97% of supermarket workers want stores to close that day.

“Back in the day, the Christmas period was great, because management was a lot more understanding,” says Lisa at Tesco. “There was more staff, there was more of a Christmas ‘feel’. Now it’s all about profit, profit, profit. It sucks the soul out of Christmas.”