My boss wants my team to be busy just because

So your store is completely clean with fully organized, rotated, stocked, and faced inventory? There are NO additional things that can be done? 

General housekeeping and organization is a thing MOST stores fall short on. Unless you're running the finest looking store in the world or in fact, there is more work to be done. 

So which one is it? 

They're just downtime tasks. Everyone should have things like that setup. It's not a big deal

My attitude when I show up to work is that my next 8 hours are bought and paid for. I generally don't care what I'm asked to do as long as its safe and ethical.

It might not be just because. It might be that if a higher up notices an idle employee they will cut a job or two and spread the work out among the rest and she’s trying to prevent that because she knows the policy. Just a thought.

Taking you at your word here, I don’t see a way to strive under her management. Sounds like she’s trying to run the designer boutique as you would a McDonalds fast food chain. There’s a fundamental difference in how you both see the work and manage employees. If this is a job you want to keep, you’ll need to put your head down and make sure to give her everything she wants, trying your best to keep her wrath away from your direct reports. If you feel you can’t/don’t want to, then head down and all of the above BUT job search as if it’s your part-time job.

"You got time to lean, you got time to clean" has stuck with me since my very first job over 20 years ago.

If the money adds up, everything is fine. But it is really hard for those of us who have worked in retail mgmt to think that there is a business out there that can manage to be competitive with 2 employees not doing anything for, say, 30% of their workday.

Let's guesstimate some numbers. There is this top mgr and then a mgr and then 2 f/t sales associates.

Lets say their annual salaries are:

80K

60K

40K

40K

This is 220K/year. Add 30% employee benefits and such and you get to $280k/year.

Let's say in a small boutique you are OK with wages being 30% of total sales volume.

Is owner OK having this store making sales of $900,000/year?

If so, then everything is fine. Owner has found a great way to make money.

If the place is organized and dusted and polished, and every item in the store is priced and hung neatly, then everything is fine.

Sometimes the appearance of being busy is more important than actually being busy. I learned this lesson early.

So there’s a manager and two sale people for a store that “usually don't have much customers”. 

Work without breaks seems excessive, but it sounds like there’s a lot of down time. 

Look at it as if its your money being spent.  If you hired three people to work 8 hours on your landscaping, and they efficiently mowed your yard, weeded your bushes and then stood around doing nothing for seven hours, how would you feel?

Now of course you could argue that 'I wouldnt do that, i would pay them only by the job', but the job you and your employees are hired to do is to stay busy for eight hours at a time, being available to help customers.

This is why most companies argue that having efficient long term employees you pay more is actually less effective than new employees that take longer to do their job that cost less.  You have to have them their during their eight hours, but its a waste of your money if they arent constantly busy, because the extra money spent for efficient employees who stand around doing nothing.

You're not being paid by the task accomplished, but for staying busy and available.   Scale back your efficiently and stress less, or find more to do, but stay busy.

It’s called busy work.

It exists since forever, it’s found in the kingdom of Naples naval code as “fare ammuina”. When the ships of the royal Navy were moored the crew was supposed to look busy to show how the kingdom was ran efficiently when effectively they weren’t doing jack shit of significance.

It all depends on the cultural context, in some societies is considered absolutely stupid because it doesn’t add anything to real productivity, in some society, such as the US, it’s considered a necessity by some.

The tricky part, if you have too much downtime, is to find activities which can increase productivity and there is where a skilled manager shows their worth and just doesn’t crack the whip to hear the sound.

Does the store has an online presence and some task related to it can be delegated to the front facing people? That’s usually a low hanging fruit.

Just tell them to look busy.

You're not going to make any headway with them on the leaning cleaning BS. Just show your people how to wipe the same spot for hours. Also tell them to slow way down on tasks that aren't immediately needed. All this manager is doing is killing morale. I used to tell my people if it's done and done right then you're good. Customers always come first so you better make sure they are taken care of. Turns out that they would work even harder for that downtime. They made sure customers were happy and I had a super low attrition for retail. My sales went up too. Surprising that a happy workforce produces more.

Now i have to provide a list of extra tasks "Because we have to be busy at all times", basically she wants us to work with no breaks just because: "you can recount the stock several times, you can clean the store, you can investigate on other stores".

How can i approach my POV without looking like i just dont want to work?

You can't. People who are more concerned with appearances and effort than they are with outcomes will never be able to relate to the idea that downtime has value.

They were likely raised in a setting where they would be scolded if they were caught playing absently or being too carefree, and you're not going to change someone's fundamental personality this late in their life.

Look for another job with a boss that doesn't try to squeeze people until they break. It's a lot easier to find another job than it is to change a shitty boss.

If you want to try to be the hero, you can bring this up to your boss, but I've tried that and likely all you'll do is turn them into your enemy. It's probably not worth it unless they've displayed a real willingness to listen and change their behavior previously, which I seriously doubt based on what you've shared. These sort of folks tend to want to believe they have it all figured out and they'll resent anyone who point out their failings - especially if it's a subordinate.

Start looking for another job. You can’t compensate for your bosses insecurities forever.

Dusting shelves, squaring up inventory, facing shelves, cleaning under counters, over and over and over is literally what you’re paid for. I don’t care if you just did it - go back and do it again. My head explodes when I walk in and see my employees standing around looking lost. Every once in a while I’m like oh yeah - I’m assuming I just walked in at the same moment they took a collective gab-session. Totally fine and great for team cohesion. But every time I walk through? Nah, look busy.

Half the time when read these posts I think " I could have wrote that".

Maybe you could talk about developing additional revenue streams? Taking on some "back of the house" type work like marketing or promotions.

Basically, rather than getting more work for the same wage, get more revenue for the same wage. Then at least the employees will feel like they're doing something meaningful instead of just sweeping the same spot every day just because.

The fact is she is coming from Mcdonalds, which is ALWAYS BUSY and GM has to make sure everyone working like crazy. But this small boutique store isnt like this.

You immediate boss needs to adopt her new changes. This may work somewhere else but not everywhere. I would ask her to realize this is NOT McDonalds, if you want to be straight forward.

Managers like hers usually self-sabotage and ended up getting fired. Seen that multiple times.

“We are here to provide an elevated customer service experience to our discerning clientele who loves our brand. Our employees must be well-rested and in good mood to better serve their impromptu visits. Our inventory is correct and the store meets the published brand standard. The employees are highly efficient at ensuring the store meets that high standard at all times and are standing by ready to serve their customers. I am here ready to address any exceptions my subordinates may encounter.”

If you have time to lean you have time to clean! Hated when my brother used to say that in my first job. As much as it sucks either find them work or you should be proposing a reduction in headcount to save money. That’s how your new boss is going to see it. The benefit of being an hourly employee is you don’t have to take your work home with you. The flip side is you need to be working every minute on the clock. That’s how it was when I was in retail almost 20 yrs ago. One tip… the most valuable thing to be busy in is helping customers. Also a lot more gratifying than stocking shelves.