Day 197 - 07 Dec 95 - Page 12
1 put a monetary carrot there as well. So, if you did it,
2 we, as managers, actually got a bonus for doing it. So,
3 it was like an experiment to see whether that would work
4 or not.
5
6 Q. Left to myself, if I read that, there is nothing
7 extraordinary about trying to improve sales?
8 A. No, it just ----
9
10 Q. What it seemed to me is being said is that what people
11 might be keeping an eye on you for is whether you could
12 increase sales and cut costs at the same time. Obviously,
13 it is more easy to increase sales if you throw a lot of
14 money into doing it. What you were being asked to do is
15 to increase sales without throwing a lot of money into
16 it. That is what you were being observed for, was it?
17 A. To see if by cutting costs within the store and
18 increasing profit it would actually increase the sales.
19 So it was trying to -----
20
21 MR. MORRIS: If we move on from that, on 44, this review of
22 Mark Davis, I believe, it says, "MD TT" at the bottom of
23 it on the next page, does that mean by Mark Davis and Tim
24 Taylor or what?
25 A. I think that would relate to, although done by Mark
26 Davies, it would go to Tim Taylor.
27
28 Q. Who was higher?
29 A. His superior at that time.
30
31 Q. He says on page 44 just before the heading "Sales":
32 "I think that the store has suffered from being on a full
33 field list for so long. Huge efforts and usage of labour
34 counts on the day previous to a full field possibility had
35 often meant running too tight for the following three to
36 four days. It must be evened out. The store will not
37 improve if this continues". Is that because people put a
38 large effort into when they know inspections are going to
39 occur?
40 A. At that time we were on the full field list for quite
41 a considerable time and there would be two or three dates
42 a month that it would be done. So, the day before, the
43 night before, because you knew you could have a chance of
44 being in that store, money was spent in terms of labour,
45 extra people on, extra people on that day, and then if it
46 did not come off, you would, obviously, have to try to cut
47 back to recuperate that labour cost during the week.
48
49 Q. Was that kind of approach to inspections only at that time
50 or throughout your time?
51 A. Throughout my whole time. It was always like that,
52 that a big show was put on for anybody coming down.
53
54 Q. That was the same under Mark Davies as Manager, was it?
55 A. The whole time at the Company.
56
57 Q. If you look on page 45 under "Profit", is that what you
58 were saying before, you were behind budgeted sales but you
59 were above budgeted PAC and 1.32 per cent -- is that 1.32
60 per cent above PAC?
