MEGATHREAD 2018-2019 Store Modernization Megathread

[Times Up]

“Unrealistic” ..... my store is finished with everything by the end of the day, every day and we are quite a bit ahead of most in the modernization process. Truck is done everyday except markets side of it. They want to ensure people are worth $15 an hour. In most areas of the country that’s really good money. Stop complaining and do your part to help your team get it done at the correct time every day

Serious question: if you're supposed to take your U-boat with you everywhere, does that include when you help back up at the lanes?

I can only imagine a busy Saturday with U-boats all over the lanes...

Heck, I'd love to see that! (Seriously)

 

[gsa4lyfe]

🤨

I most likely make more than some of the TL’s in my store.

It was a simple question. No need to be an ass.

The break room site is a known resource especially when stores are terrible about communicating with team members.

To be fair I wasn’t trying to be an assistant was legit answering your question.... you asked where you can read about it and it’s in the stationary transition notes. I only quoted it because I assumed you missed that in the previous response.

 

[Overadecade]

🤨

I most likely make more than some of the TL’s in my store.

It was a simple question. No need to be an ass.

The break room site is a known resource especially when stores are terrible about communicating with team members.

The leadership of my store was just informed we were supposed to be utilizing Greenfield (or whatever it's called) yesterday. Never one shred of communication, or even a link to it or email until people were challenged on not using it.
Which also means, no tutorial or training on exactly how it works, or what they're supposed to be using it FOR...

 

[gsa4lyfe]

The leadership of my store was just informed we were supposed to be utilizing Greenfield (or whatever it's called) yesterday. Never one shred of communication, or even a link to it or email until people were challenged on not using it.
Which also means, no tutorial or training on exactly how it works, or what they're supposed to be using it FOR...

To be fair no ones gotten a tutorial or training on greenfield since we started implementing it last year. Even when my DTL comes in for a visit and try’s to pull up reports he struggles sometimes. I like that everything is in one place instead of having 93729483 quick links and remembering which one does what

 

[Overadecade]

To be fair no ones gotten a tutorial or training on greenfield since we started implementing it last year. Even when my DTL comes in for a visit and try’s to pull up reports he struggles sometimes. I like that everything is in one place instead of having 93729483 quick links and remembering which one does what

It seems extremely useful. Way better than how you needed to type the actual PDF name into Workbench search 100% correctly in order for it to show up while searching for what that PDF name was in the first place... (Workbench search sucked, y'all.)

But, scarily indicative of how awful to nonexistent communication has been surrounding importing things, and a bit terrifying when going into a change as big as the new op model.

 

[gsa4lyfe]

It seems extremely useful. Way better than how you needed to type the actual PDF name into Workbench search 100% correctly in order for it to show up while searching for what that PDF name was in the first place... (Workbench search sucked, y'all.)

But, scarily indicative of how awful to nonexistent communication has been surrounding importing things, and a bit terrifying when going into a change as big as the new op model.

Totally agree but the communication chain of commands for the op model appears to be more thoughtful. All DTL, and group leadership were at HQ this past week to learn all about it. All the STLs in my district meet next week to get the info from DTL and the week after that all the TLs from from the STL and then we deliver the info to TMs during reviews this year

 

[Overadecade]

Ok well then show you’re worth more hours. I get mine and so do a few other Tm’s that bust their asses. If you’re killing it at your job then any stl would be crazy to not give you the extra hours.

As pretty much everyone has said, this is NOT the norm. Maybe your STL can get away with it, or is even will to try to, but this is going way over most of their heads. Cutting TMs to 4 hour shifts was rolled out years ago, and even at my store with its frequent HQ visits, we only implemented it for a short while before we couldn't run the store with the lack of TMs. We lost nearly ALL of our TMs that could work in the middle of the day. Now everyone either leaves by 3pm or starts at 5-6pm, leaving us just deserted during peak hours.

Now, we've been forced into it again, and even the rockstars are getting drastically cut, AND turned down for picking up shifts outside of their work centers or "ownerships" - for some reason that's unclear to all of us.
People we just told a couple months ago that we would make sure to give 30-40 hours to because of their availability and work ethic, are no working the same amount of days for half the hours (and pay.)
We have ONE left TM that will succeed with the new "DBO" process. ONE.
And we're not hiring because we're at "headcount" with all the leftover flex fulfill season TMs. The ones that FF didn't want...

And to all the "if you don't like it, quit" stuff? That's painfully elitist. There are all sorts of reasons some people cannot drop everything and immediately get new jobs. The strongest right now being, if they DO happen to be leadership or a full time employee, there's been a strong trend for employers to not offer health insurance for 6 months to a year, and there's a LOT of people who cannot go without that long, making them dependent on staying at a job that they hate. Hell, even Target is making people wait for benefits now; a lot of our new leadership was extremely unhappy when enrollment rolled around.

 

[Rolling CAFS]

Actually be ready for phase 2 lol. PTM is going away as are MPG labels. expect the company to move everything around so you set right off a truck directly, we have been piloting something like this at our store as of recent

PTM is becoming EOL...End of Life which is basically the same concept. The real trick is getting TM'S trained to do it properly and making sure everyone is on the same page. GOOD LUCK!

 

[gsa4lyfe]

PTM is becoming EOL...End of Life which is basically the same concept. The real trick is getting TM'S trained to do it properly and making sure everyone is on the same page. GOOD LUCK!

What is PTM?

 

[Backroom81]

I forget the exact acronym; Pre-Transition Merchandising or something like that. It's basically when an area is slotted to transition and you can arrange the planogram in any fashion to keep it looking full and impactful as the discontinued items sell out.

 

[gsa4lyfe]

I forget the exact acronym; Pre-Transition Merchandising or something like that. It's basically when an area is slotted to transition and you can arrange the planogram in any fashion to keep it looking full and impactful as the discontinued items sell out.

Ohhhh I didn’t realize that was an actual term for that. I just know after a POG went MPG, you could flex transition items into it

 

[oath2order]

Tell that to Sears, Kmart, Payless and the many other retailers that have gone or are going out of business. They failed to look forward and just filled the floor. Business as usual.

Well clearly then the method we're going of "don't fill the floors just focus on helping the guest" is gonna work then.

 

[PackAndCry]

Discontinued/seasonal PLU is supposed to go out, not transition. The idea is to allow it to sell before it goes clearance. However, I don't think many stores actually followed this.

 

[can't touch this]

"End of Life" lol...ever so poignant in these dark times 👌

 

[Overadecade]

Discontinued/seasonal PLU is supposed to go out, not transition. The idea is to allow it to sell before it goes clearance. However, I don't think many stores actually followed this.

It's so painfully inconsistent, though.
Like, in SL, no matter what the items are, you just have 1-2 of each size on the floor. So, huge rush on outerwear? Hope your 1 TM can run back every time you sell 1 coat, or 2 pairs of gloves - and has a FLAWLESS memory for what's back in the jam packed stockroom.
Sale on kids leggings? Better decide if you want to spend all day reworking the leggings backstock from the 50 locations in the stockroom, or if you want to tackle freight/price change/VMG.
Even with seasonal items, they'd adhere to the sizing regulation. The amount of stuff that always gets pulled from the back for CLR is insane, and nearly none of it is represented on the floor anymore
We just hope it sells from flex... except the hanging stuff we know they don't check.

PTM was something my store did consistently until E2E rolled out... but we'd accomplish it by having someone pull all the DCode/PTM batches, and then having the entire team spend 2 hours doing a "smart huddle" working it all out every day.
Once they couldn't pull all the E2E teams, we haven't touched that process once.

 

[PackAndCry]

We never did the PTM batches (during my time, anyway), we would just pull whatever there seemed to be a lot of in the SEA/HCDY valley in our backroom and flex it in. Probably didn't work as well as the real process, but we also didn't end up with nearly as much clearance as we do now.

Also, our softlines team has started hanging their clearance in the back since about half of their racks were taken away on the floor because it looked too "cluttered". It's sad how many of the things hanging are in the original, full size assortment, and how much of it is actually cute and would definitely sell if it were out on the floor.

 

[Logo]

Actually be ready for phase 2 lol. PTM is going away as are MPG labels. expect the company to move everything around so you set right off a truck directly, we have been piloting something like this at our store as of recent

I have already been doing this. Why back stock when i have an empty spot where clearance or discontinued merch was. I pull up future POG to see where the general area of new merchandise is to go and get it as close a possible.

 

[jenna]

To be fair I wasn’t trying to be an assistant was legit answering your question.... you asked where you can read about it and it’s in the stationary transition notes communication. I only quoted it because I assumed you missed that in the previous response.

I bolded that phrase within my quote. Yep. That's it. I must have missed that phrase.

 

[can't touch this]

CVS carries generic autoinjectors, they're about 100 bucks for a 2 pack

 

[gsa4lyfe]

I bolded that phrase within my quote. Yep. That's it. I must have missed that phrase.

You got me there. Your question still could have been worded better. “Where can I read about that” leads me to assume you’re looking to read about general topic not a specific document

 

[flow4areasonuno]

We've got a skeleton crew at the moment. They added a truck today and somehow, some way, everyone got at least 7 hours today. That will be a blessing.

But from what I overheard from (an ETL? I don't know. I know he's above my immediate TL, he was talking to my TL), we still have too many people. I don't know if we can keep operating like this..

 

[Shayshay]

Hey so I’m a backroom team leader and just heard what’s happening to my team

They will have hardlines as their work center but be performing backroom duties

Does anyone have a clear answer about what is happening to backroom TL’s

 

[OneArmedJesus]

Hey so I’m a backroom team leader and just heard what’s happening to my team

They will have hardlines as their work center but be performing backroom duties

Does anyone have a clear answer about what is happening to backroom TL’s

Ours is becoming a "General Merchandise TL" I think he'll also be overseeing the unload too

 

[BackroomOG14]

Hey so I’m a backroom team leader and just heard what’s happening to my team

They will have hardlines as their work center but be performing backroom duties

Does anyone have a clear answer about what is happening to backroom TL’s

As a store that has been in the new OP since last summer, your backroom/flow will either quit or adapt and become a "dedicated business owner" or part of the sort team and work 4 hours. The best advice I can give you is get the RIGHT people in place to set you up for success. We're just now starting to see small wins each day. Most of the truck is getting done, the back room is clean, our BRLA is 97.6%, and we're seeing ownership starting to develop. Our biggest problem was that we didn't have the right people in place and never fully bought in. Everyone has to buy in or see ya later. As far as the BRTL position, you will more than likely oversee sort depending on your volume and current TL positions

 

[Frontlanegirl]

Discontinued/seasonal PLU is supposed to go out, not transition. The idea is to allow it to sell before it goes clearance. However, I don't think many stores actually followed this.

I'm still getting some Valentine's merch in repacks. Geez, I could have sold this merch last month. So now I need to take my time and defect out the merchandise.