Retailer's 'flexible scheduling' leaves worker in knots

Q: My 23-year-old daughter was hired by a local branch of a national clothing store. During her interview, she was told she would be scheduled to work at least 20 to 25 hours a week and would be given occasional "on call" shifts. Since her hiring, however, the store has routinely offered only 10 to 12 hours of regular work a week and has frequently scheduled her for "on call" shifts, meaning she is required to check in two hours before the shift to find out if she is needed. The store has never called her in to work such a shift, but she assumes there would be negative repercussions if she were unavailable. Short of quitting, what recourse do lowly retail employees have when they are lied to and exploited?

A: The scheduling shell game your daughter is experiencing is increasingly common in the retail and service industries. Employers operating on thin profit margins want workers who are available at a moment's notice, but they don't want to pay them to work a moment longer than they're needed. With so-called flexible scheduling, it's often the workers who end up bent out of shape.

According to a June survey of retail and service employees in Washington, workers' top complaints include too few paid hours and too little predictability. Shifts are assigned or changed with little advance notice; protests result in retaliation and further reduced hours. Even workers with multiple jobs can't get enough hours to make ends meet. And they're not just teens and recent grads; the median age of service industry workers in Washington is 36, according to Census Bureau figures cited in the report, and 25 percent of them support children.

"You can't get ahead in these jobs because you can't count on a regular schedule and regular number of hours," says lawyer Paula Brantner, executive director of the employee rights organization Workplace Fairness.

To be fair, I also hear complaints from managers and business owners about unreliable workers who leave their employers scrambling for coverage. While poor work ethic may be to blame, I wonder how those workers would perform if they had predictable paychecks and felt like valued team members, rather than Tetris blocks.

But I could ride that blame train in circles all day. Back to your daughter: If she wants to stick it out with this job -- and no one would blame her if she didn't -- she should ask questions and study co-workers to figure out whether she can make herself a top contender when extra paid hours are available. She might also consider sharing her experience -- and, if she can afford it, her time -- with one of the groups fighting for change. An organized effort to alert her employer's corporate HQ could bring about improvements at the local level.

• Miller has written for and edited tax publications for 16 years, most recently for the accounting firm KPMG's Washington National Tax office. Ask her about your work dramas and traumas by emailing wpmagazine@washpost.com. On Twitter: @KarlaAtWork.