Also cashiers seem to be a dying breed. Fast food places, supermarkets etc, customer places orders at the kiosk , scans product, bag own groceries etc.
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Cast Member Standards
- Thread starter Rescue Ranger
- Start date
Ayla
Well-Known Member
The Post is neither informative nor educational. LOL
networkpro
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- Yes
They are a window into the gritty world of the North Eastern union gladiator pits and have nothing to do with cast member standards in WDW.
The labor market is tight and presumably will become even tighter as Epic Universe nears completion and opening. Something has to give to attract sufficient employees to make these operations functional. Supplying subsidized housing, increased compensation and/or benefits, appearance standards, etc. all are part of those casting wider nets.
Ayla
Well-Known Member
I know what the New York Post is and it is nothing you claim it is.
networkpro
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- Yes
Exactly what does this contribute to cast member standards ? The tangential association with the workers demand for no further automation is an artificial restriction on labor where there is sufficient supply. The Orlando labor market where WDW is located has many competing employers chasing a limited number of potential employees. Automation could replace some, but not a large number of functions.
threvester
Well-Known Member
yes, this is what I was referencing as well as the Hollywood strike hinging on AI constraints
DisneyHead123
Well-Known Member
There’s been some pendulum swing on that one recently due to theft, but I think in the end you’re right. This has probably been more than balanced out by the number of delivery drivers or “drive up pickup” delivery people needed. I know Target is doing a delivery service now and it seems like in terms of logistics, that has to be tricky. If ten people go through the checkout lane that will take about half an hour - delivering ten people’s groceries would be hours, unless you quadruple the number of workers, I would think.
I should tie this back to Disney so it’s not off topic, lol. So I’ll say - I think this just goes to show that Covid really changed the collective consumer mindset in a lot of ways. It seems like it’s easier for most people to trend towards less direct human contact, at least with strangers. So once people get used to that reduced contact, it’s hard to bring it back. People prefer self-checkouts and contact free delivery now. (I sometimes see a long line at self-checkout while cashiers are standing there waiting.) What does that mean for the parks? I’m going to say that cutesy, fun looking automated experiences would be very well received, and thus things will trend in that direction. Snack carts, some food options, and replacing some of the blue umbrellas with kiosks are a likely starting point, I would guess. I wouldn’t even be shocked if we started seeing hostess stands replaced with kiosks at restaurants, with your server taking you directly to your table after you check in.
Yes, there are more jobs in the Orlando area that Disney competes with for employees but Orlando has also has very high population growth for a while so the workforce pool has grown as well. Also, the changed standards have applicants who would have been declined in the past to now being hired. Taken together, the pool of employees is likely larger than it's ever been.
It seems like the differences are a smaller percentage of the worker force is interested in Disney, and from what others have said, training has fallen. Lower quality cast members thare are not well trained? Of course there will be problems. But Disney made this bed. If they paid better they'd attract better candidates. If they choose to invest in training again then they'll raise the floor. Instead of shooting for excellence Disney has seemingly taken a "good enough" approach to HR.
It seems like the differences are a smaller percentage of the worker force is interested in Disney, and from what others have said, training has fallen. Lower quality cast members thare are not well trained? Of course there will be problems. But Disney made this bed. If they paid better they'd attract better candidates. If they choose to invest in training again then they'll raise the floor. Instead of shooting for excellence Disney has seemingly taken a "good enough" approach to HR.
Mr. Sullivan
Well-Known Member
What happened is people are just more comfortable being rude to people who work in hospitality and the CMs are absolutely miserable. The problem is with us, the public, not them.
Mr. Sullivan
Well-Known Member
What exactly do you even mean by grooming standards? Like what color their hair is or their facial hair? Which if I recall both still have guidelines attached to them.
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The failure of this is attributed in leadership not holding their staff accountable for their staff members actions or inactions.
DisneyHead123
Well-Known Member
I’m undecided if society is getting meaner or it’s actually getting kinder so the meanness stands out more. Maybe both? Anecdotal, but I worked in restaurants through college and I got yelled at by drunk people on the regular. At that point in life I was able to roll my eyes at them, make some snide remarks about them to the people I worked with, and move on.
At this point, I would be very upset to get yelled at by drunk people. And I no longer want to be the kind of person who copes by making snarky comments about other people behind their backs. In some sense I think society is kinder and we’re all trying to figure out more positive ways of interacting (Although I will say some things seem new - like I don’t remember all the incidents of problems on airplanes when I was young. That just didn’t happen, that I recall.)
Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
And think about how often this information changes. Their skip the line program alone in the past 5 years.
John park hopper
Well-Known Member
there are simple more people in this country and the percent of those rude people has increased and more people notice
There was an article on brain strain because of tech overload causing some to be more rude and aggressive. A number of folks lack decent customer service skills since a good amount of their day is their face is super - glued to the screens of their smartphone.
Vegas Disney Fan
Well-Known Member
I’ve worked in casino bars, bar management, and now showroom bars for 20+ years here in Vegas and I have a similar take, I think 90% of society has stayed the same (or even maybe become more friendly), but the other 10% have gotten so much worse. Full blown Karens used to be pretty rare, now it’s a weekly occurrence that someone will go full meltdown, I think a result of this is the mean people are far more noticeable now than before.
For all the talk of how “bad” Americans are my #1 comment from our foreign guests is still how friendly Americans are, how everyone smiles, how we all say hello, how we open doors, how we start random conversations with strangers... some guests love it, others find it borderline creepy how friendly Americans are.
Edited to add I think the same is true at Disney, the vast majority of CMs are still very good, but the bad ones are really bad and seem to stand out far more than they used to.
There are two sides to every scale. I had a front desk manager that was spectacular. I paid her well, but her love for Disney made me look like an amateur (I actually kind of was back then and WDWmagic was so helpful). She would have made much less money entry level at WDW but she yearned for a job there. She had many hand and arm tattoos as well as many piercings. She couldn't imagine taking them out and putting on many band-aids everyday before going to work. Disney's loss was my gain. When I sold the hotel, I bought her and her fiance annual passes, because they couldn't afford to go often. The new owner made her manager of the property. She may be the exception to the rule, and I am not thrilled with some of the relaxed rules.
Tom Morrow
Well-Known Member
This topic is always a little loaded, because while it is definitely very noticeable and getting worse by the year, there's also always going to be a subset of entitled types that react like: "That CM didn't reply to my question while grinning ear to ear and call me a Mouseketeer (while being in hour 9 of their 12 hour shift of getting yelled at over and over trying to explain Lightning Lane)... where has the quality gone??"
As someone who was a CM from the mid-00's to mid '10's and is still actively part of the Orlando theme park worker community, I absolutely have noticed the level of enthusiasm from CMs decline significantly since my time there. But I still feel that the average, the level of service from Disney CMs is still better than most places, especially considering all that they have to deal with.
There are a LOT of factors here, and while maybe I'm not touching on anything that hasn't already been said in the thread, this is my perception based on my experience.
1. Staffing. WDW is just too big and the Orlando job market has spread exponentially over the last two decades, and is about to explode even more. It has reached a point where WDW literally can NOT function without the College Program and International Program. What was once a mutually beneficial supplement to the company is now the bread and butter of their frontline workforce. In the past, College Program participants made up a much smaller percentage of overall frontline staffing at WDW. Today, it's gotta be something like 30-50%. If you are at a park at closing time, chances are about 80% of the frontline workers you see are College Program participants.
So they now shuffle in and out more CMs than ever before every few months. This means that the quality of who they accept into the program is lower, the training they get is more expedited, and that at any given time a significant portion of the workforce is new (and honestly there's so much to know about WDW that anyone working there for under a year might as well be "new").
2. WDW has one of the most toxic work environments possible and has built up a corporate culture that rewards intense, cutthroat backstabbing and favoritism and not hard work/passion/enthusiasm. This lowers work ethic all around. Why go "above and beyond" when you watch, over and over again, the apathetic CMs who are merely good at "playing the game" get promoted instead? The full time and part time CMs end up burnt out, and this attitude also carries over to the CP's.
3. Disney has made a visit to WDW so ridiculously expensive AND convoluted. The guests are frustrated. The cast, even if they want to "make magic", have a harder time doing it now when the guests are so frustrated and confused and need constant instruction.
4. The attitude of the general public, basic empathy, and level of entitlement has absolutely plummeted ever since Covid. We've all seen it. Disney leadership IS at least aware of this and has backed off on punishing CM's over frivolous guest complaints because of how awful people have become. Combine this with #3 and, yeah, you get a work environment that's very hard to stay positive in. Note: This is NOT me making a "get off my lawn!" rant! Everyone I know who has worked in the parks since pre-Covid has noticed this decline.
5. Gen Z, which makes up most of the WDW frontline workforce now, in particular has grown up watching their elders get continually crushed by corporate greed and BS and has largely decided they are putting up with none of that. As an elder millennial, I agree with the sentiment, however, I feel that too often it lends to many of them believing that being asked to try at all at their job = "abuse!"
6. Older generations of Americans became accustomed to associating overly fake-friendly service with loads of corporate speak as "good service", while the younger generations are increasingly viewing that as off-putting, cringey, and at times, condescending. So what one person deems as "apathetic", another might prefer that style of response from an employee. The overall management style at WDW has shifted in this way.
As someone who was a CM from the mid-00's to mid '10's and is still actively part of the Orlando theme park worker community, I absolutely have noticed the level of enthusiasm from CMs decline significantly since my time there. But I still feel that the average, the level of service from Disney CMs is still better than most places, especially considering all that they have to deal with.
There are a LOT of factors here, and while maybe I'm not touching on anything that hasn't already been said in the thread, this is my perception based on my experience.
1. Staffing. WDW is just too big and the Orlando job market has spread exponentially over the last two decades, and is about to explode even more. It has reached a point where WDW literally can NOT function without the College Program and International Program. What was once a mutually beneficial supplement to the company is now the bread and butter of their frontline workforce. In the past, College Program participants made up a much smaller percentage of overall frontline staffing at WDW. Today, it's gotta be something like 30-50%. If you are at a park at closing time, chances are about 80% of the frontline workers you see are College Program participants.
So they now shuffle in and out more CMs than ever before every few months. This means that the quality of who they accept into the program is lower, the training they get is more expedited, and that at any given time a significant portion of the workforce is new (and honestly there's so much to know about WDW that anyone working there for under a year might as well be "new").
2. WDW has one of the most toxic work environments possible and has built up a corporate culture that rewards intense, cutthroat backstabbing and favoritism and not hard work/passion/enthusiasm. This lowers work ethic all around. Why go "above and beyond" when you watch, over and over again, the apathetic CMs who are merely good at "playing the game" get promoted instead? The full time and part time CMs end up burnt out, and this attitude also carries over to the CP's.
3. Disney has made a visit to WDW so ridiculously expensive AND convoluted. The guests are frustrated. The cast, even if they want to "make magic", have a harder time doing it now when the guests are so frustrated and confused and need constant instruction.
4. The attitude of the general public, basic empathy, and level of entitlement has absolutely plummeted ever since Covid. We've all seen it. Disney leadership IS at least aware of this and has backed off on punishing CM's over frivolous guest complaints because of how awful people have become. Combine this with #3 and, yeah, you get a work environment that's very hard to stay positive in. Note: This is NOT me making a "get off my lawn!" rant! Everyone I know who has worked in the parks since pre-Covid has noticed this decline.
5. Gen Z, which makes up most of the WDW frontline workforce now, in particular has grown up watching their elders get continually crushed by corporate greed and BS and has largely decided they are putting up with none of that. As an elder millennial, I agree with the sentiment, however, I feel that too often it lends to many of them believing that being asked to try at all at their job = "abuse!"
6. Older generations of Americans became accustomed to associating overly fake-friendly service with loads of corporate speak as "good service", while the younger generations are increasingly viewing that as off-putting, cringey, and at times, condescending. So what one person deems as "apathetic", another might prefer that style of response from an employee. The overall management style at WDW has shifted in this way.
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Starting wage with no experience for parks and resorts $20 per hour and up. Seems like more money with not the same stress and responsibility as a plelebotomist at a hospital , 911 operator and TSA staff at MCO that starts at $18 per hour.