RGIS Inventory Blog: ASET

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ASET according to RGIS
The newly overhauled ASET is a profit generating novelty designed by RGIS. The company has boasted strategic gains in 2009 despite the significant reduction of many big accounts and frequency of inventories for the last 12 months.

So, the logical question would be: How did RGIS managed to hit a good strategic gains? The key answer lies on how the company streamlines its expenditures, and other cost-effective measures which includes but not limited to:

Significant reduction of employees from the middle and upper management positions.
Salary paycuts.
Getting rid of administrative employees in District levels.
Cutting of administrative costs such as supplies, equipment, orders, hiring, department budgets, and other expenditures.
IT Infrastructure projects such as deployments, purchases, software development, etc. have been postponed or cancelled.
The standardization of pay thru the introduction of ASET system, for hourly employees which gave RGIS better control over "unwanted raises and exceeding pay cap."
Strategic alliances thru acquisitions in the last 5 years, more significantly that from Blackstone Group.

"... the RGIS hourly employee could lost an average
of $3,366.00 per year since the ASET has been
implemented, more than enough to purchase

travel and accommodations for 2 to the
Bahamas Island of Paradise!"

These streamlining factors of the company were more than enough to cover potential losses brought about by the recession from 2008 until 2009. Now, that is as far as RGIS management side is concerned. How about its hourly employees? Do hourly employees really benefited from the standardization of pay as evidenced by the creation of the ASET system?

The answer depends entirely to whom the question was addressed:

From the management point of view:

more work + the same pay + less hours = better profit

From the hourly employee point of view:

more work + the same pay + less hours = lesser income

ASET according to its hourly employees
For the next 3 minutes, I am going to prove that ASET may generate lesser income for the hourly Auditor and therefore, disadvantageous in that aspect. Since the creation of APH, speed has been increased, with the same pay, for a lesser time.

Observation shows that an average of 35% of inventory time has been reduced after the implementation of the new ASET compared to average inventory time before its implementation. Below is a similar data taken from a middle size grocery store. The actual store name was witheld.

Store Name : FCC
Expected merchandise quantity: 250,000

Variables                            Before ASET     |           After ASET
______________________________________________________________

Average Merchandise        250,000                       250,000
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Store APH requirements       3,000                           4,270
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Average Inventory time       6.1 hrs.                         4.4 hrs
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Staffing requirements         14                                12
______________________________________________________________

Observations:

An RGIS Auditor could lost an average of 1.7 hrs per inventory event.
APH store requirements also have increased.
Inventory Time has dramatically decreased.

Since RGIS has increased the APH and we know that pay is directly commensurate to the amount of time you have peformed to a given inventory, statistically, you get a relatively lesser income. Even if RGIS argues that productivity depends from store to store, still, the truth remains:

A taxi carrying 3 people running at 60 mph to a designated point will likely to arrive first than a taxi carrying 2 people running at 45 mph with the same destination point under normal driving conditions. Extrapolate this to a 10-taxi scenario and you get the average results. That is exactly the same principle when I said that:

more work + the same pay + less hours = lesser income

In statistics, we speak of averages. Lets apply the above data:

Possible lost hours average per day (assuming you only work 1 store per day): 1.7 hrs
Possible lost hours average per week (assuming you work 5 stores a week): 8.5 hrs
Possible lost hours per month: 34 hrs
Possible lost hours per year (excluding low month: December): 374 hrs

To calculate possible income losses for the whole year:

374 X $9.00 (assuming your starting pay is $9) = $3,366.00

Therefore, the RGIS hourly Auditor could lost an average of $3,366.00 per year since the ASET has been implemented, more than enough to purchase travel and accommodations for 2 to the Bahamas Island of Paradise!

From your District alone, how much profit does RGIS can get per year assuming that your District performs 3,000 inventories per year? Do the math.

You may want to consider these books:

What is ASET?
Part of the p4 (people, process, productivity, and pay) platform that RGIS has designed is the creation of new hourly employee productivity skill levels called ASET. ASET (Auditor, Specialist, Expert, and Top Gun) was created to categorize RGIS hourly employees based on their speed and accuracy.

For instance, All newly hired employees will start as Auditors. The base pay depends on the district they are hired. Some districts offer $8.50 per hour and some can offer as high as $10.50 per hour as starting pay. As they become more efficient, their rate will also increase commensurate to their skill level, which is measured by APH (Average Per Hour).

Here's the RGIS pay table with Skill levels and corresponding base pay:

Skill Levels                              |              Pay
_______________________________________________________________

Auditor                                           Starting rate for District
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Specialist                                       + .50 per hour
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Expert                                            + 1.50 per hour
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TopGun                                          + 3.00 per hour
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Every RGIS employee will be evaulated quarterly by averaging their APH for that quarter. Although your your starting rate shall remain the same, your skill level pay may fluctuate depending on how you perform. Theoretically, Auditors can get as high as $3.00 increase within 12 months for as long as they can demonstrate and achieve one skill level up every quarter. However, if your APH drops off, the classification and pay will also go down to the appropriate skill level. APH is not entirely affected by recession or economic fluctuations because it is a performace-based metric system. The starting rate of Auditors depends entirely on economic conditions of a given district. In other words, you decide your own pay.

In addition to your ASET rate, there are also ways to increase your pay:

Adder Roles
According to RGIS, if you were given an ADDER role, you will receive additional hourly pay on top of what you are receiving from your current skill level. For instance, if your current pay as an Expert is $10.50 you will get and addition of, say $2.00 per hour for having an Adder role in a particular inventory. You will get paid $12.50 per hour for that particular inventory. The following are examples of ADDER roles:

Adder Roles                         Short Descriptions
______________________________________________________________
Flow Leader                       Responsible for running inventory flow.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Super Prowler                     The fastest counter in the inventory.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SL/HL Prowlers                   Prowlers for softline and hardline.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Control Desk Operator         Able to run control desk or portable.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sweeper                            Ensures no stragglers in the flow.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recounter                          Recounts areas to ensure accuracy
______________________________________________________________

Team Bonus
Another way to increase your pay is through Team Bonus. When the inventory team that you are part of achieves a Team APH (the APH team goal for an inventory), each member of the team shall receive additional pay called team bonus. Although the amount may not be as significant when we compare to Adder role pay you receive, it can nonetheless add a gallon in your gas tank for every store that participate in the Team Bonus.

Does the ASET really beneficial to hourly employees?
The way RGIS packaged the newly revamped ASET system looks very attractive and rewarding. But, when you dig dipper to it, you will find holes and flaws. Here is a universal business principle: Every policy, program, or strategy that is being implemented, always and I mean always operates in the best interest of the company that created it. I mean, why would anyone offers something that go against its own interest?

So, when you begin to look closer about this ASET system as it affects hourly employees, you will realize that it is self-serving. It is not beneficial to hourly employees but only for the company that created it. Let me tell you why:

Paycuts. For those hourly employees who have been with the company prior to the implementation of the new ASET, you know what I am talking. ASET has severely cut hourly cap of thousands of hourly employees. I am not talking about $0.50 paycuts which is for many a reasonable one. But I am talking about $1.50 to $3.50 or even more than that being slashed away from employee's base pay. If you happened to be the hourly employee I am referring here, it was staggeringly disappointing. It cut me deep. RGIS may argue that the changes are part of the streamlining of the company due to the current recession we are experiencing. But my counter question is: What if the recession will be over, does RGIS revert back the paycuts to their original state prior to recession? Of course not!
Biased for Topguns. A lot of hourly employees especially those who have skill levels lower than the Topgun level think that being a Topgun is the best in its class because they can cherry pick areas in inventories, their pay is better, and they get better treatment, etc. But little they know that Topguns DO NOT get pay increase even if their productivity skills increase to a higher level. Why? Because they already have reached the highest skill level in the ASET system. And because there is no more skill level higher than theirs, they are stucked with the maximum pay allowable by the ASET system. I should know, I am one of them. Unlike the lower ASET levels, they get pay increase everytime they move up to the next higher skill level.

So the question is: Why did RGIS stop at adding another skill level higher than the Topgun level? Every topgun knows by experience that their APH is a breeze to beat. Look, Topguns can "cherry pick" areas whereas the lower levels would not. Only TopGuns were given a productivity blanket meaning, their productivity must be protected that is why they are given the first priority to count those fancy-easy multiple areas in the store and skip those areas that are messy and crappy. This is RGIS' "protect the 5."

In other words, they have all what it takes to beat their ASET requirements. Here's my recommendation to RGIS: If you are serious with productivity, then you should create a level higher than the Topgun. Let's say, the next level would be, "Elite" or any title that corresponds to the skill level. In other words, it is like a commission incentives that it won't stops the incentive bracket until it is no longer possible to reach. Do you think RGIS will agree with my observation? They may consider it as being reasonable. But until RGIS will implement the changes, the ASET remains to be a biased productivity tool.
ASET deduces employee's valuable qualities to merely a mathematical equation. What do I mean? Good work ethic, loyalty, dedication, honesty, experience and extensive knowledge of the business are good basis for evaluating employees' productivity. But under the current ASET system, you are being evaluated ONLY on the basis of your speed and accuracy. The APH calculator was programmed that way. Nothing more nothing less. It is so blind that it could not evaluate intangible yet integral part of the employee's efficiency such as the ones I mentioned above.

But of course RGIS would argue that ASET is the name of the game. Really? But how about those core values that RGIS company is committed to uphold from its employees such as honesty, integrity, loyalty, innovation, passion, etc.? That's according to its website. But it appears to me that when you are in the field, the ballgame would be totally different. Yes, I agree that hourly employees must achieve APH in accordance with ASET levels. But, RGIS should remember that true basis of evaluation are those core qualities that RGIS had already mentioned.
Your pay can be at the mercy of an Inventory Lead. I will give you just one example:
I once scheduled to help count Pier Imports in my Area. The Inventory Team Lead assigned me as the Prowler since I am the only TopGun present for that inventory. The procedure tells me that topguns must start counting stock to areas that are high volume count such as candles, glasses, plates, etc. But instead, Team Lead had assigned me to auto-scan linens. I forwarned her that I won't be able to reach even a fraction of my APH.

After 1 hour of inventory, the Team Lead reports the inventory progress to our DMs. The poor DM broke into fits of hypertension when he found out why high volume areas have not been counted in the first hour of inventory. Just before I left the store, I checked my APH with the Team Lead. And guess what? My APH has dropped to Expert level. Now, extrapolate this scenario in your case for the next 3 months, and watch your ASET level and payrate drop off one level below your currrent classification and it is not even your fault.