There are many issues that must be addressed but before they can be sorted the company needs to end lone trading. Lots of companies will have staff members lone trading at some point but limit this to a couple of hours a day. However in Holland and Barrett as a key holder It is not unusual to be forced to lone trade all day. Even though legally obliged to provide a minimum of twenty minutes break for every six hours worked area managers will try to dissuade you from taking the break which you need - because the shop 'must stay open.' You should get cover of course however H&B don't believe in having temps or extra staff employed to fill in when people are on holiday, are sick or quit so you are relying on the other understaffed stores to support you - it's also hard to call other stores for cover when you're serving customers! Even worse, they also won't pay you for the hour you should have had your break in. Working alone while trying to provide 'qualified advice,' serve on the till, date check, clean and fill out paperwork is impossible it's especially tough if you haven't had a day off in the last week and there's no confirmed day off anytime soon because there's noone to cover you and ironically you don't have time to interview for your staff vacancies because you have no staff to allow you to leave the shop floor.
Colleagues would call begging for cover unable to leave their shop to go to the emergency dentist, visit their relative in intensive care, take a day off for grieving the death of their guardian - I could continue, it was just appalling. We felt guilty for being unable to support each other and scared that if we managed to take our holiday we would leave others in the same distressing situations, never have I felt more trapped, isolated and completely unsupported by higher management.
Not to mention that most stores have no cctv or door alarms and certainly no panic buttons at all - leaving staff vulnerable to abuse from customers too.
