talan123
Team Member/Troll
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2011
- Messages
- 652
I was deluded into thinking that since corporate hires people, they included people with feelings and/or are human. Much to my dismay, I have found out that they are not.
Our store suffered a rather huge loss with a team member (that's all the details I'm going into) and it hit us like a hammer because this particular team member was related to several other team members. The reaction from corporate to everybody has shown exactly what not to do.
1.) Announcing that a grief councilor is coming next week. That's a great start but saying that and then "Our guests don't know what is happening and if you need a few minutes to collect yourself, come talk to us but don't bring your emotions onto the floor" speech is not a good follow up. In fact, don't tell people how to grieve. We know that we aren't supposed to do it on the floor but occassionally grief overwhelms people. Have the decency to trust us with our emotions.
2.) Do not announce that you will be collecting money for said person, then cancel it because "it is redundent because the community is doing it as well" and then start up another collection in the form of a gift card later on. That really sticks a knife into the gaping wound already. We want to help them and playing games with our emotions isn't something a good company would let happen, let alone support.
3.) Security. It was a bad incident and we need security at night. When said incident happens, do not cut the hours that AP does their patrol at the same time. It is telling us that we are not important enough to be protected, which I guess we are no longer worth it anyways.
4.) When you do send for a grief councilor, open up a window that is larger than a few hour's for one day. Grief works at different rates for different people and trying to squeeze everything into one day shows that you REALLY don't care about us.
5.) ETL's need to be there. It doesn't matter if they have a trip or vacation planned, when a once in a lifetime event happens at a store then their life outside the store needs to go bye-bye for a few weeks. It's not that I don't think they deserve the time off, it's just that they are needed for the image that they project which is stability/compassion.
6.) Talk with the DTL's and how this might not be the best time to start springing visits on the store. There is a lot of stuff going on right now and having to please a totally useless person that doesn't give us money is not exactly useful. Their first words should be one of support and asking how Target can help rather than why the glass cleaner is being used on the glass (chemical control is the biggest safety issue?).
7.) Increasing sales floor coverage to improve security feelings. As the amount of hours on the salesfloor goes down, there is a direct rise in theft/security related incidents. I have been assaulted twice in the last year and it needs to stop. I have reported this to the team members and the police and the hours get cut again. The lack of hours is directly related to the social norms on the salesfloor collapsing. If there is no authority for people to respect then they will not respect what we are doing. Being the single team member on the salesfloor for the majority of the day (having your electronics team member get and put away the milk is not smart) is just dumb. Any money corporate thinks it is saving is being lost to our insurance premiums.
8.) Temperature: During these extremely hot times, it would be nice to go to work and not have to worry about my fellow team members collapsing on me. For every degree you raise the temp from 72, the cost is 3% production.
In short, I am firmly in the mind that corporate's well being is no longer tied to any of the store's well being and only see the stores as cost objects in the way of their "branding" efforts. It's the only way to explain this junk they are pushing as leadership.
Our store suffered a rather huge loss with a team member (that's all the details I'm going into) and it hit us like a hammer because this particular team member was related to several other team members. The reaction from corporate to everybody has shown exactly what not to do.
1.) Announcing that a grief councilor is coming next week. That's a great start but saying that and then "Our guests don't know what is happening and if you need a few minutes to collect yourself, come talk to us but don't bring your emotions onto the floor" speech is not a good follow up. In fact, don't tell people how to grieve. We know that we aren't supposed to do it on the floor but occassionally grief overwhelms people. Have the decency to trust us with our emotions.
2.) Do not announce that you will be collecting money for said person, then cancel it because "it is redundent because the community is doing it as well" and then start up another collection in the form of a gift card later on. That really sticks a knife into the gaping wound already. We want to help them and playing games with our emotions isn't something a good company would let happen, let alone support.
3.) Security. It was a bad incident and we need security at night. When said incident happens, do not cut the hours that AP does their patrol at the same time. It is telling us that we are not important enough to be protected, which I guess we are no longer worth it anyways.
4.) When you do send for a grief councilor, open up a window that is larger than a few hour's for one day. Grief works at different rates for different people and trying to squeeze everything into one day shows that you REALLY don't care about us.
5.) ETL's need to be there. It doesn't matter if they have a trip or vacation planned, when a once in a lifetime event happens at a store then their life outside the store needs to go bye-bye for a few weeks. It's not that I don't think they deserve the time off, it's just that they are needed for the image that they project which is stability/compassion.
6.) Talk with the DTL's and how this might not be the best time to start springing visits on the store. There is a lot of stuff going on right now and having to please a totally useless person that doesn't give us money is not exactly useful. Their first words should be one of support and asking how Target can help rather than why the glass cleaner is being used on the glass (chemical control is the biggest safety issue?).
7.) Increasing sales floor coverage to improve security feelings. As the amount of hours on the salesfloor goes down, there is a direct rise in theft/security related incidents. I have been assaulted twice in the last year and it needs to stop. I have reported this to the team members and the police and the hours get cut again. The lack of hours is directly related to the social norms on the salesfloor collapsing. If there is no authority for people to respect then they will not respect what we are doing. Being the single team member on the salesfloor for the majority of the day (having your electronics team member get and put away the milk is not smart) is just dumb. Any money corporate thinks it is saving is being lost to our insurance premiums.
8.) Temperature: During these extremely hot times, it would be nice to go to work and not have to worry about my fellow team members collapsing on me. For every degree you raise the temp from 72, the cost is 3% production.
In short, I am firmly in the mind that corporate's well being is no longer tied to any of the store's well being and only see the stores as cost objects in the way of their "branding" efforts. It's the only way to explain this junk they are pushing as leadership.
