This entry was posted on Thursday, June 25th, 2009 at 6:05 pm and is filed under consultation, labour, regulation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
This entry was posted on Thursday, June 25th, 2009 at 6:05 pm and is filed under consultation, labour, regulation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
It might be a useful idea to link to a PDF of the survey form. It’s going to be a damn pain to print that off in any reasonable way.
In terms of the questions themselves, they sound pretty good to me.
Having a “do you have any other comments” option at the bottom is always useful in my opinion.
On the off-chance you want pedantic detail…
1) It is confusing that although each response has an identical box some are yes/no, some are write a little paragraph, and some are pick one of the options, and one is yes/no plus paragraph. I’m hoping you’re going to use a better layout when you do this
2) It’s odd you’re not asking workers’ opinions.
3) It might be worth asking who sets the hours, and what restrictions there are.
4) Address might not give you suburb or mall (you might get the respondent’s home address)
5) Asking them for the effects (on them, on their staff) of the hours might be useful.
6) It needs an explanation to go with it that covers what you mean by “forced”, as its from a political party people might think it means the government forcing them to do things.
7) The first question is confusing. Is the right answer “Yes. Manager” or “Yes, Betty’s muffins”?
8) “Satisfied … opening hour arrangements … Please state” are odd phrases in the second question, it sounds a bit officious.
9) The third question needs to specify whether you mean opening hours or working hours. My impression is that some food service places work longer hours than the opening ones.
10) Fourth question: “preferred arrangements”?!
11) Fifth question: “six days open, one day closed” would be clearer.
12) Sixth question: “ANZAC day afternoon”? People feel differently about the morning and afternoon.
13) Have you got an approach for people who don’t read/write good enough English to handle the form?
14) It might be worth checking whether food court rules are usually different and, if so, separating them out in the responses.
15) You could also ask “Should each store in a mall be able to decide its own opening hours?”
I will stop now
How would you feel about some sort of Google form Anita? I might see what I can do tomorrow…
admin,
Cos I know you love editing by committee
Thanks guys – I’m sure we can develop something better – one important point for me is that we can get a clear picture of the small business owners opinions because that is the group who brought the issue to me. If we are to get Westfield or Kiwi Properties to move or to get legislation agreed then their views will be vital.
I would like to see a question asking if we should be forced to open on public holidays.
For any business with a major labour component public holidays can run at a loss because of wage rates at time and a half.
Many cafe/resurants outside of malls, who have the option, choose not to open for this reason.
How about more questions specifically on the financial impact on a store of being open for public holidays or extended hours? For example, something like:
If the arrangements in questions 3, 5, 6 and 7 would result in your business operating for more hours than it currently operates, would you expect the costs of remaining open longer to be about the same, greater than, or less than sales income for that extra time?
I’ll join a Google Doc group to give feedback if you want. Set me up admin guy
Definitely agree with Anita re: workers opinions. Perhaps given your comments about Trevor a question could be framed as: “what are the impacts of store hours on you and your family, and your workers and their families?”
A mix of likert or yes/no answers, and open ended answers is a good move.
Perhaps also ask about busiest store times to get some evidence about the when they are busiest???? This could be helpful data to use as evidence for more store-friendly opening hours
I put together an updated draft with a bit more formattting and some revised questions which hopefully address some of the concerns raised by others. I can’t add it here as no upload function and would lose formatting to cut and paste in thread. Have sent to Trevor’s email, so I guess admin person can get it from him and put it in shared area for more feeddback.
Forced? Is that the right word? Forced by whom? By the Law? I think the questions about forcing shops to open in malls is confusing and leading. I know what you mean but as currently expressed, these questions won’t give you a reliable answer.
Forced by the clause in contracts whick allows Westfield to change opening hours without notice. This has only been used to increase hours. It is a take it or leave it provision.
How about these questions (with the ability to explain or qualify their answer)?
“Should mall operators be able to exercise any control over the opening hours of individual stores, whether to require them to open for longer or close earlier than they might otherwise wish to, and/or to be open or closed on a public holiday?”
OR perhaps something like:
“Do you think it is reasonable for individual store operators to accept some direction from mall management as to their operating hours?”
I think we need to ask the questions:
What are your preferred trading hours for the following days:
Saturday
Sunday
Statutory holidays – current trading days.
And
Would you like the opening hours for the normal trading week to be set at a maximum number of hours all Tenants are required to be open for, at the same time i.e. core business hours.
If yes, how many hours would you like to be open for in a normal trading week?
A clarification re Trevor’s comment. Under the current arrangement re changing trading hours, it is not “take it or leave it” it is simply “take it”. If you do not open the hours the Landlord decides upon and with no consultation with the Tenants, you will receive a warning and be fined against a prescribed formula set by the Landlord.
The contents of the survey is making good progress with plenty of coment which is great to see, is this going to be mail dropped to every tenant in all malls?
Sorry this is really long. I have a couple of comments about questions posted above, and I put together an updated proposed draft survey, which hopefully addresses some of the queries from others. Formatting is lost, so just imagine little tick boxes next to the response options for each question.
In terms of asking are you an owner or manager with a yes/no response and then ask which. It would be easier to ask are you owner or manager of a mall store and then have “manager”, “owner” and if you wanted “other” or “neither” as another option. Also, given the survey is aimed at finding out about store opening hours and the situation between mall management and their relationship with the store it would be better to keep the survey aimed at owners/managers who deal with the mall. Obviously there are issues for staff around work hours but they go beyond malls designating opening hours. Questions for workers would be different, so best to keep to one target group with a simple survey. Could ask generic question about obligations on staff as suggested by Rachel.
Also, it would probably help to be more direct around the mall’s involvement in opening hours since this is the focus of the survey. Only place for this currently is in open response box where people can say why they are not satisfied with opening hours. Be better to ask directly about malls involvement and whether they think mall shops should be able to choose own hours.
In terms of postal address, would be more useful to know the mall they are in ie North City Plaza or St Lukes.
Survey on mall stores trading hours
Please fill out the survey below to share your views on mall store trading hours and return to Hon Trevor Mallard via post or email – addresses provided at the end of the survey.
1. Are you a manager or owner of a mall store?
Manager Owner
2. How many days is the store open in an average week?
7 6 5 4 or fewer days
3. How many days is the store open past 6pm in an average week?
1 2 3 4 or more days
4. Are you satisfied with the current opening hours for your store?
Yes – Go to Q5 No
4b. If no, why?
5. Does the mall management have requirements around the days and hours your store needs to be open?
Yes No – Go to Q6
5a. If yes, what are the mall’s requirements about?
Specific opening hours directed by mall management
Number of days open a week Late night shopping hours
Other – please specify ____________________________________
5b. Would you prefer to be open for fewer hours, but are unable to given the mall’s requirements?
Yes No – Go to Q6
5c. If yes, what parts of the week when you are currently open, would you prefer to be closed (ie Sunday morning, or after 8pm)?
6. Do you support a standard 10am to 6pm day with one late night to 9pm per week?
Yes – Go to Q7 No
6a. If no, what opening hours would you prefer?
7. Should each store in a mall be able to decide its own opening hours?
Yes No
8. Should stores in malls be able to individually choose whether to open on public holidays (that allow trading), such as Anzac day afternoon or New Years day?
Yes No
9. Do you and your staff find it difficult to maintain your current opening hours, given other responsibilities to your families?
Very difficult Difficult Slightly difficult Not difficult at all
Any other comments?
Please complete details below:
Name (optional):
Store name (optional):
Mall store located in:
City where shop located:
Email (optional):
Please return survey no later than 1 August 2009 to:
Hon Trevor Mallard
Parliament Buildings
Freepost
Wellington (no stamp required)
Or email to: trevor.mallard@parliament.govt.nz