Advice for Closing TL moving to dayside.

[Vanjie]

I am a Closing TL at a low volume pfresh, and my SD is pushing to move me into the Home/Seasonal Specialty Sales role.

As Closing TL I have plenty of experience planning and executing in-the-moment rather than weekly workloads for sets/transitions etc.

Does anyone have any good advice for workload planning, backroom management, or other aspects of being a salesfloor lead that a Closing TL might not be as experienced with?

Our store is terrifyingly behind in sets in Home/Seasonal, those backroom locations are a disaster, the DBOs for these areas have major performance opportunities, and I'm worried I won't have time to get my footing with that workload if/when this move happens.

 

[Far from newbie]

This is a time of huge transition, things will be rough for a while, for us all. The dismantling of modernization (DBO’s) and the shifting of ownership (Specialty sales adding home depts. to their responsibilities) is going to be difficult. Change is slow and not always easy. We were told : ‘“we are in a time of growing pains and if we Don’t GROW all we are left with are the PAINS”.

our closing TL was promoted to ETL GM and honestly is woefully unprepared for the change. Both Tam and guests are paying the price for her growing pains. She MAY get there - but the interim has been torture - no leadership decisions have been helpful, poor choices made, lack of knowledge killing us.
but I digress, for you my advice is:

Ask if you can go day side and shadow someone to see ALL that is involved. See how things are handled. Try it out. Basically, please don’t jump in feet first if you can’t see the bottom. Not only for your own good but everyone else too.

sounds vague because I havn’t been though it myself. I have only had to deal with the fall-out from someone who took the role without being prepared. Not easy for all and may still break me if things take any longer to improve. i can’t blame our entire shit show on one individual but I’m sure our situation wouldn’t be this bad with our Last ETL.

good luck.

 

[happygoth]

I am a Closing TL at a low volume pfresh, and my SD is pushing to move me into the Home/Seasonal Specialty Sales role.

As Closing TL I have plenty of experience planning and executing in-the-moment rather than weekly workloads for sets/transitions etc.

Does anyone have any good advice for workload planning, backroom management, or other aspects of being a salesfloor lead that a Closing TL might not be as experienced with?

Our store is terrifyingly behind in sets in Home/Seasonal, those backroom locations are a disaster, the DBOs for these areas have major performance opportunities, and I'm worried I won't have time to get my footing with that workload if/when this move happens.

Not to derail the convo, but you wouldn't happen to be a Drag Race fan, Miss Vanjie?

 

[BurgerBob]

Yea, i can definitely tell you closing marches to a different drum beat

 

[Inboundbeast]

Shift your focus from all areas of the store specialty.

Your backroom is probably currently full to the brim. Nobody’s backroom looks good right now. If you want to clean it up, maybe grab the DBO and completely inventory audit a section each day with them..? Grab a printer and print new backroom locs in location management on myday if needed.

As for workload, that really depends on who owns sets/transition. Is it the presentation team or is it TM’s in those areas? does your store struggle to keep well seasoned TM’s that have experience in planograms/vmg’s? Assuming you have a presentation team, all it is is sitting down, assessing the weekly/monthly workload, finding TM’s to own those sets, writing the schedule, and spending more time on it than you would as closing TL. All of this and partnering with your ETL on any questions..

It really is a lot of the same aspects as any other TL role. You lead, assign, coach, develop, and followup. You’re also partnering with your leader often.

 

[MrT]

Dont compromise on setting and pricing. If you need help with it speak to your etl. Do not postpone these tasks as it will make your life misrable trying to catch up. Accountability amd follow up is the biggest aspect of dayside as you are leading your own team and not others. Assuming you had your own closing experts its probably not that different but if ypur closing team is like mine they just do whatever is asked of them mostly pulls and sfs. Your team now will be much more focused. With the big shake up with home/seasonal it seems stores have taken many different approaches so its pretty hard to be specific.

 

[POGTL]

Don't make the switch. You will have major regrets. I am a closing lead now and would never go back to that stress (was a GMTL prior) for any amount of money. I would leave each day as a GMTL with sweat pouring especially in the summer. All the repacks... ugh! Never again. On top of all of that HQ is not giving enough hours to specialty and GM to even get close to being "Target brand" in all areas of zone+operations.

 

[Unleashed Dog]

I went from Closing to Inbound to Home to now Food.

To me it has all been about changing the order of my routines in a sense. Out of all four, Home was the most challenging and the one role I absolutely hated because I had little support and resources to get things executed.

I had a lot of liberties with Closing as I owned the whole building.

Decent amount of liberties with Inbound since I was the first leader in and owned one of the most impactful processes.

With Food one of the people I answer to is on District, so I get a lot of support from the Food and Bev Coordinator when we are both confident in my plans and decisions. No one in my building can override him.

With Home I was stuck pushing all day and felt like I was drowning. I always tried ti partner with my peers and it’s was always never enough hours, or people or some other bullshit. It was hell to sit down and actually plan like I’d needed to because the workload push was to much and we didn’t get enough hours and I got blamed for that. Food opened up, and I offered to take it. And now my store is the best food in the district because it has actual support. While Home is burning.

I think it mostly depends on your store and how you will personally prioritize and set your routines