Several employees at Loblaws-owned stores said they’ve been\u00a0pressured recently to push customers to use\u00a0self-checkout, driven by a company quest to get more people using the machines.<\/p>\n
“They’re trying to get us to force [customers]\u00a0to go to self-checkout,”said a cashier at a Shoppers Drug Mart in Ontario. “They’ve made cashiers feel like if they don’t do this, something bad is going to happen.”<\/p>\n
CBC\u00a0News is keeping employees’ names confidential because they fear repercussions from their employer.<\/p>\n
Their claims follow a\u00a0CBC News story\u00a0last week where customers complained they were ordered to use self-checkout\u00a0at two Loblaws-owned\u00a0chains: Shoppers Drug Mart and Real Canadian Superstore.<\/p>\n
At the time, Loblaws stated that it expects stores to always offer customers the choice of checking out with a cashier. But after the story ran, some Shoppers employees said their instructions to lure customers to self-checkout hadn’t changed.<\/p>\n
“I am feeling terrible,” said the Shoppers cashier. “I am not comfortable with pushing people to do something they don’t want to do.”<\/p>\n
Workers at her store recently received a directive from head office to pull out all the stops to get more customers using the machines, she said, including leading them directly to self-checkout when they’re ready to pay.<\/p>\n
The cashier said she suspects the company’s goal is to get customers used to the technology so it can cut cashier jobs.<\/p>\n
In 2017, Loblaws CEO\u00a0Galen Weston\u00a0announced that\u00a0with the coming minimum wage increases in Ontario and Alberta, the company was rolling out “custom-designed self-checkouts” at Shoppers Drug Marts to help “accelerate efficiencies.”<\/p>\n