MEGATHREAD 2018-2019 Store Modernization Megathread

[Inbound Monkey]

More emphasis online, more opu, driveup, etc. Drill down on guest satisfaction, more small stores, and higher employee retention to do more with fewer people. I hope....improved technology.
Going to 14 will ensure employees stay.

Front end at my store is 90% self sufficient now. We rarely need backup. New employees are trained in a few weeks on nearly all tasks except cash office. It's working.

Course, the trick was to restore front end hours. That means we see total mess in pricing from sales floor.

That's cool, at my store the inbound team is being threatened with coachings if they dont respond to back up. Never mind that theyre a truck behind on their freight and have never even been crosstraining ....cause you know those hours were diverted elsewhere. Sure, Ill squeeze that into my 4 hour shift once I'm done pulling and setting the revisions that I've been assigned.

 

[unknown]

Look at the bigger picture. Front end is expected to be self sufficient but has permission to occasionally get register help when it's crazy. They also have immunity from helping elsewhere, even putting out candy.

Sales floor is expected to be self sufficient and never gets help from the front end, no matter how many times the front end has said "drop all your tasks and quit helping guests on the floor, because even though we have the same proportion of hours we need to take from yours".

So who ends up the loser in all cases? And who is partially responsible for guests not getting helped on the sales floor? Backup should be a rarity, not the front end's go to answer for every staffing hiccup.

Occasionally? I'll count tomorrow how many times I hear calls for upfront. I know Saturday it was at least 50 times, and I was off at 3. That's not my definition of occasionally.

 

[Inbound Monkey]

That's the "recommendation" for base stores (30-72m).

We're a B volume store and have 3 GM TLs, PLUS a fulfillment TL, PLUS a consumables TL. Even with all these bodies in the building, our store is a shite show. Half of a truck left over, thousands in PC, MAN-CAFs rolling. Yeah ..... we're screwed come 4Q.

 

[Inbound Monkey]

I’m not sure what the pay is like where you live but over here Target is paying well above what an assistant manager with keys would make at most local stores. This would include storefronts at the malls. So at least in some areas of the country TMs are being paid like mini managers.. 🤷‍♀️

Not yet...

 

[Inbound Monkey]

Good lord, the amount of states with minimum wage under $8.00 is appalling. Federal minimum wage should be $10.00 by now. People can't even live on that, but it sure beats $7.25. Yikes. In New England, all states but one pay over $10.00 (Shame on you, New Hampshire!)

Cost of living is different in different states. NH isn't tax burdensome, unlike the rest of NE.

 

[REDcardJJ]

all i know is that GM is overspending by thousands at my store which results in SPS and SE having to cut payroll to make up for the fact that GM isn’t operating efficiently. so i’m gonna keep calling backups until they start spending payroll responsibly and stop affecting MY business.

 

[Inbound Monkey]

Anyone heard anything about phase 3?

I'm wondering myself. I keep seeing all these references and would love to know if it's time to put in those 2 weeks.

 

[Inbound Monkey]

We were told today we would be written up for not finishing our workloads now. I haven't been in my department for ages, and I'm in seasonal right now because the regular DBO is gone. Today my truck push was 5.5 hours (5 uboats) and I had 5 tubs full of autofills. I was scheduled for 8 hours, so take out lunch and breaks that leaves me with 6.75 hours to get it all done. School starts on Thursday so you can imagine how many guests I had in my area. They schedule me 8-4 so I'm constantly trying to work around guests. Add in that I need to head over to stationary to push after filling BTS and then backstock. Needless to say I got my autos and 1.5 uboats done. I'm probably getting written up tomorrow. I don't think it's fair since it's not my normal department, but they won't give a crap. I'm starting to hate going to work. I'm stressed and worried I'm going to get termed out.

I'm pissed on your behalf. If your boss were smart, youd have a helper in SEAS and someone else knocking out the repacks in STAT

 

[seasonaldude]

But how many people walk out without giving us our money because they can't find what they came in for? While Target is good for basket building, there's a lot of time where people will walk away from their wants if they can't find their needs. And how many people will buy some stuff but not nearly as much because they couldn't find what they wanted, so they are buying a partial amount? How many INFs are there, resulting in OPU guests not giving us as much money as they would have?

I honestly have no way of quantifying your first question. As to your second, I can assure you that the cost of total year to date OPU INFs is less than our slowest total sales day for the year by a wide margin. Lost sales from INFs are a small drop in the bucket and my store isn't even green overall in INFs for the year. Most INFs with the exception of back to school are not the result of salesfloor not having time to do the work. In my experience going over the INF reports they are the result of the DC not actually sending us the product, GM doing a poor job locating what they are putting on the backroom shelves, and OPU TMs not looking hard enough for the items.

 

[flow4areasonuno]

OPU TMs not looking hard enough for the items.

If OPU "looked hard enough" they would have red metrics, I guarantee you, and management would be on them for that.

 

[Tessa120]

Occasionally? I'll count tomorrow how many times I hear calls for upfront. I know Saturday it was at least 50 times, and I was off at 3. That's not my definition of occasionally.

You misunderstand me. It should be occasionally. But most people here say it isn't what it should be, front end is doing exactly what you say, using backup just because they want more cashiers for the entire day. That's a back door way of stealing hours from what was allocated to sales floor and totally wrong.

 

[REDcardJJ]

You misunderstand me. It should be occasionally. But most people here say it isn't what it should be, front end is doing exactly what you say, using backup just because they want more cashiers for the entire day. That's a back door way of stealing hours from what was allocated to sales floor and totally wrong.

payroll is calculated taking into account that backup cashiering is a thing. if backup cashiering wasn’t a process then the GM workcenter would be getting less hours than they have now.

 

[seasonaldude]

If OPU "looked hard enough" they would have red metrics, I guarantee you, and management would be on them for that.

Nah. I've personally picked over 25,000 OPU units this fiscal year. I know what it takes to get the job done. My personal metrics are green. When I say TMs aren't looking hard enough for items, I mean it. I run the reports and end up finding INF'd items in under a minute. At least at my store, TMs do a poor job of scanning backroom wacos and utilizing the RFID guns.

 

[happygoth]

payroll is calculated taking into account that backup cashiering is a thing. if backup cashiering wasn’t a process then the GM workcenter would be getting less hours than they have now.

Then GM should be the only TMs called for backup. I'm fine with that.

 

[seasonaldude]

You misunderstand me. It should be occasionally. But most people here say it isn't what it should be, front end is doing exactly what you say, using backup just because they want more cashiers for the entire day. That's a back door way of stealing hours from what was allocated to sales floor and totally wrong.

I think you are reading too much into things. Yes, front end would love an additional cashier, but when we call for backup we do what we can to get the salesfloor TMs back to the floor as quickly as possible. This is often why we don't just call for one person to backup. We call for multiple so the rush at the front can get broken quickly and TMs can get back to their assigned roles. We're not calling just because we want to. ASANTS of course, but at my store if someone does call for backup when it's not needed, someone else will quickly step in and call out that we're all good at the front.

 

[flow4areasonuno]

Then GM should be the only TMs called for backup. I'm fine with that.

Floor TMs sure won't be...

I mean FFS we still have GSAs and we're still failing.

 

[Tessa120]

I think you are reading too much into things. Yes, front end would love an additional cashier, but when we call for backup we do what we can to get the salesfloor TMs back to the floor as quickly as possible. This is often why we don't just call for one person to backup. We call for multiple so the rush at the front can get broken quickly and TMs can get back to their assigned roles. We're not calling just because we want to. ASANTS of course, but at my store if someone does call for backup when it's not needed, someone else will quickly step in and call out that we're all good at the front.

There's people here that say they will easily spend an hour out of their four hour shift as backup, and then get in trouble for what was left undone when a quarter of their shift was given to the front end. That's hardly putting people back on the floor fast.

payroll is calculated taking into account that backup cashiering is a thing. if backup cashiering wasn’t a process then the GM workcenter would be getting less hours than they have now.

Do they calculate for what is considered a reasonable rate? Or do they calculate for what the reality is?

 

[seasonaldude]

There's people here that say they will easily spend an hour out of their four hour shift as backup, and then get in trouble for what was left undone when a quarter of their shift was given to the front end. That's hardly putting people back on the floor fast.

That happens rarely at my store. When it does happen it's the result of callouts at the front and it's done with the knowledge and understanding of salesfloor TLs so that workload can be reallocated to cover for the TM who is stuck at the front. Those hours usually get paid back at some point by reassigning a GA to salesfloor tasks when the store isn't very busy.

Those are extraordinary situations though. Most of the time we're trying to turn the lights off for any salesfloor TM who is backing up. I do it all the time when I'm headed to the floor to do an OPU. If the lines are back down, I swing by the lane and turn the TM"s light off.

 

[RedcardReba]

That's cool, at my store the inbound team is being threatened with coachings if they dont respond to back up. Never mind that theyre a truck behind on their freight and have never even been crosstraining ....cause you know those hours were diverted elsewhere. Sure, Ill squeeze that into my 4 hour shift once I'm done pulling and setting the revisions that I've been assigned.

In our store, tms get one hour as backup time. If needed, tms are definitely expected to respond.

 

[FlowTeamChick]

Damn..



It's not large. I've been there.. Larger than my stores backroom but they have to push out uboats to be able to unload, no where to stage stuff while they are unloading..

We have to do this too, and shopping in Men's is difficult early on truck days because there are so many vehicles (empty and full) and pallets stashed there while unload is happening. But it's never as bad as those photos show, not nearly.

 

[Bosch]

Then GM should be the only TMs called for backup. I'm fine with that.

Then Style can take back their folding and hanging back from Guest services.

FlowTeamChick, well ours looks just as bad in the mornings, to be truthful. Worse on sweep days since we have boot the crap they shove in the receiving area so we can actually load the damn truck. I no longer feel bad about it. and the GM ETL no longer argues with us about it. She knows she will get empty sweep trucks. We need room to stack and wrap pallets otherwise nothing gets on the truck.

 

[Signingmum]

This is sears! Look what happened to them.

This is sears! Look what happened to them.

Yes! I worked there too and I see that Target’s on the same path, downhill...

 

[Black Sheep 214]

Yes! I worked there too and I see that Target’s on the same path, downhill...

^This, 100%. I also worked at another retailer that went under, and, yep, except for the advances in technology (the ones that are always crashing) Spot is going down the exact same path...

 

[Vince]

all i know is that GM is overspending by thousands at my store which results in SPS and SE having to cut payroll to make up for the fact that GM isn’t operating efficiently. so i’m gonna keep calling backups until they start spending payroll responsibly and stop affecting MY business.

The issue is “overspending” by whose standards? Corporate? If the workload from the trucks build up do to gm’s limited hours than the work will never get done and it’s an even bigger domino affect. They are not providing realistic hours for all that needs to be done on all levels

 

[REDcardJJ]

The issue is “overspending” by whose standards? Corporate? If the workload from the trucks build up do to gm’s limited hours than the work will never get done and it’s an even bigger domino affect. They are not providing realistic hours for all that needs to be done on all levels

then it starts messing with my service and engagement's workload and surprise, now GM is backup cashiering because the three cashiers we needed right now were cut to make up for payroll being overspent on the salesfloor.