MEGATHREAD Flexible Fulfillment

[Nauzhror]

How do I respectfully tell my ETL they are wrong?

The same way you tell anyone else they're wrong?

I correct my ETL's on a regular basis. Then again I think my store has better ETL's than many. Some are ineffective (ETL-GE/SF for example), ut at least they have no ego, and if I correct them they don't get defensive.

@FAwasteoftime Sounds like your store is only ship to store, not ship from store. The stores that are doing ship from store get an extra workcenter and someone specifically scheduled to do nothing but Instore Pickup, Ship To Store, and Ship From Store.

 

[Moosechives]

I would rather my team do store pickups most of the time cause br is usually too swamped. Q4 though there's no way an esfs can do spu and ship from store. Last bf we walked into 100+ (counter was capped at 99) spu and almost 1000 orders. GS was calling us every 5 minutes to bring stuff up from the backroom. Very very inefficient. We got like 50-60 per day or more until January. Because of that we gave spu back go backroom.

 

[Nauzhror]

Our Flexible Fulfillment workcenter is intended to be a 40 hour a week workcenter for most of the year. 1 person 8 AM - 4:30 PM. Starting next week that changes to 1.5 people. One 12:30-4:30, the other 8:00-:4:30. By the end of the month it will supposedly be three 8 hour shifts per day. Not sure how that is going to work though. ie. It might be three people from 8:00 - 4:30, or it might be one 8:00-4:30, one 12:30-:900, and one 2:00-10:30 or something similar.

 

[tgtJose]

Did anyone else get their SFS order cap raised today instead of tomorrow?

This morning we had less than 20 orders, but by 1pm over 200 had randomly dropped in.

 

[SFSFun]

Did anyone else get their SFS order cap raised today instead of tomorrow?

This morning we had less than 20 orders, but by 1pm over 200 had randomly dropped in.

Yep, we did too. I knew they seemed to be dropping in a bit faster than normal, but I didn't really pay much attention until I got back from lunch...




"The order cap won't be raised until Sunday. It'll probably be a gradual increase."

 

[Kroneru]

lmfao.

 

[tgtJose]

We have 3 openers scheduled for Sunday, and everyone was joking about how overkill that was and that 2 of them would just be helping backroom the whole time... I guess they're going to be in for a bit of a surprise in the morning.

 

[see spot save]

Hopefully they've been doing ok. We've known for months when the cap was going to be raised, go ahead and give me both of those weekends off

 

[brizzy93]

So there is this one HL TM that gets the occasional SFS shift at my store. Like, he is a super nice person. He just sucks at most of what he is supposed to do lol. He was trained, yet it's like he's intentionally messing up because I'm not sure how he just doesn't get it. He has packed too many boxes to count in the polybags. We've gotten sent back at least 10 orders because the boxes rip through the bags in transit. And today, he was scheduled 4 hours to help me, and he ended up barely putting air pillows in the boxes... I had to go back and repack like 10-12 boxes that had no air pillows at all. Like everything was rattling, moving, and making wayyyy too much noise. It was a waste of time for me. It was like he wasn't even there tbh. Plus he went up for backup after his 15 and my HL TL let me know and I was like don't even worry, he can stay no prooooblem! lmao
Me and my SFS captain tried to get him going in the right direction, but he just doesn't seem to get it. Our goal is to have our batches pulled before we take our meal. This TM just casually strolls and end up having too much left to pull when he should just be packing. He always needs help to pack so he doesn't hit the time limit. I have talked to the BR TL about it not too long ago. I ended up mentioning it to the LOD/ETL-GE today because it's really ridiculous that he is getting full SFS shifts when he isn't doing things the way things need to be done. If she doesn't mention it to the ETL-Operations (she makes the schedule for SFS), either me or SFS captain will, because he can't really be counted on... I hate feeling like I'm throwing him under the bus, but he isn't fit for SFS lol.

{Toooootally needed to rant. Today was stressful. TLDR: Useless TM needs to go}

 

[SFSFun]

I have that problem with our closer, but he always comes in after I've left and our ETL doesn't really seem to care that he's doing a half-assed job. Or he will ask me to directly tell him the issues I've noticed (even though I rarely get to see him face to face).

The best solution I've come up with is to place extra emphasis on his problem areas when training new TMs and at least everyone else will be doing it correctly.

"Don't put anything in a polymailer bag if it can be easily crushed or if it has sharp edges that will rip the bag in transit."

"Make sure you fill in as much empty space as possible with the air pillows so that the items won't rattle around and get damaged and so that the box won't collapse when something heavy is placed on top."

 

[Moosechives]

Try having a team of 16 people scheduled where at least 6 of them per day would slack off, take long breaks, "forget" to scan the item in pack container, put the wrong item in with an order, neglect to put the whole freakin swimsuit set in a box/bag, call out 2-3 times a week, etc. Thank god the majority of those idiots finally got themselves fired. :x

 

[brizzy93]

I have that problem with our closer, but he always comes in after I've left and our ETL doesn't really seem to care that he's doing a half-assed job. Or he will ask me to directly tell him the issues I've noticed (even though I rarely get to see him face to face).

The best solution I've come up with is to place extra emphasis on his problem areas when training new TMs and at least everyone else will be doing it correctly.

"Don't put anything in a polymailer bag if it can be easily crushed or if it has sharp edges that will rip the bag in transit."

"Make sure you fill in as much empty space as possible with the air pillows so that the items won't rattle around and get damaged and so that the box won't collapse when something heavy is placed on top."

Yeah, that is already happening. My ETL-Op is on her game. She is the best ETL in the store honestly. She will care if we bring it up to her. She is having the backroom TM's trained for backup and they already get it. Like packing is the easiest thing ever and it's the only thing they really needed to really learn. Which is why I'm dumbfounded lol. I mean yeah splitting orders can be a little confusing if you don't have the hang of it, but they are learning. Doing a better job too. A BR TM ended up helping me today when CAF was light. He wants to keep learning, and getting actual help was good for me.

 

[brizzy93]

Try having a team of 16 people scheduled where at least 6 of them per day would slack off, take long breaks, "forget" to scan the item in pack container, put the wrong item in with an order, neglect to put the whole freakin swimsuit set in a box/bag, call out 2-3 times a week, etc. Thank god the majority of those idiots finally got themselves fired. :x

I am SO sorry! I feel your pain. I also am super glad we aren't ESFS (I assume you are with a team like that). We did have a HL TM that kinda did shit like that. He somehow managed to pack and ship an order out without scanning the collate. I don't know how that happened. He has since moved up to AP lol
(I end up not taking either of my 15's unless orders are dropping in super slow. I wanna get my work done and not slack off)

 

[Nauzhror]

Try having a team of 16 people scheduled where at least 6 of them per day would slack off, take long breaks, "forget" to scan the item in pack container, put the wrong item in with an order, neglect to put the whole freakin swimsuit set in a box/bag, call out 2-3 times a week, etc. Thank god the majority of those idiots finally got themselves fired. :x

Team of 16, 6 per day slack off?

What? We have two people doing SFS a day atm, it was 1 till recently. Can't imagine having 6 people scheduled for Flexible Fulfillment scheduled in a single day.

 

[brizzy93]

Team of 16, 6 per day slack off?

What? We have two people doing SFS a day atm, it was 1 till recently. Can't imagine having 6 people scheduled for Flexible Fulfillment scheduled in a single day.

Same. There were 3 of us who knew it well and rotated (just 2 of us atm. other person is AP now). Our SFS captain obvi gets the majority of the days. He was backroom, then just SFS, but now he picked up Sunday BR days (only SFS shifts would be so monotonous lol). It was 1 of us back there alone. Unless we needed help packing or something, then LOD would send someone to help. We are just starting to get doubled up for 4Q. Gonna be a disaster for us for black friday though. Gonna be like 6 of us back there. We have one workstation and a table that was requisitioned as an extra spot because it had a chip broken out of the side.

 

[Nauzhror]

I've seen the term ESFS thrown around. What is it? We have SFS, but how does enhanced ship from store differ from ship from store?

 

[brizzy93]

I've seen the term ESFS thrown around. What is it? We have SFS, but how does enhanced ship from store differ from ship from store?

ESFS is SFS on steroids. They have multiple pack stations. Much bigger teams (I'm not sure if ESFS has a designated TL tho.) Huge spots in the steel for supplies (and big backrooms). ESFS stores also ship out bigger items (like furniture and TV's), and they usually have a section of online items that they also fulfill.


And they have a bigger (and cooler) variety of box sizes... Jealous

 

[Nauzhror]

Hmm, don't think we're ESFS, but we do ship furniture, TV's, etc. Just the one pack station though.

 

[brizzy93]

Hmm, don't think we're ESFS, but we do ship furniture, TV's, etc. Just the one pack station though.

I mean like big furniture lol. Like stuff that doesn't fit in boxes. We ship out furniture too, but like those dinky build-it-yourself shoe racks, or those little room essentials shelf things. I haven't shipped out any TV's yet tho. Not sure any of us have. You probably aren't ESFS then. I'm certainly happy my store isn't. We don't have the space for it lmao

 

[H2Owned]

I've seen the term ESFS thrown around. What is it? We have SFS, but how does enhanced ship from store differ from ship from store?

Yeah an ESFS is like SFS on steroids. .. we have an order cap of 600 right now soon to be 900. We have a lot of online only stuff from curtains to giant furniture like a Lazy boy chair. At my store we have a Flexible Fulfillment TL but it is only for 4th quarter. Right now we usually schedule like 6 to 9 people a day. Now the opener comes in at 4am instead of 6 am. But honestly the majority of the orders we get are in store items tho. The only bad thing about having online only items is that you can only back stock it with a mydevice and also you have to make sure the sales floor team doesn't try to sell online only merchandise.

 

[brizzy93]

Yeah an ESFS is like SFS on steroids. .. we have an order cap of 600 right now soon to be 900. We have a lot of online only stuff from curtains to giant furniture like a Lazy boy chair. At my store we have a Flexible Fulfillment TL but it is only for 4th quarter. Right now we usually schedule like 6 to 9 people a day. Now the opener comes in at 4am instead of 6 am. But honestly the majority of the orders we get are in store items tho. The only bad thing about having online only items is that you can only back stock it with a mydevice and also you have to make sure the sales floor team doesn't try to sell online only merchandise.

Intense. Do you have SFS only TM's/TM's hired just for SFS?

 

[Kroneru]

TM who use to do SFS primarily at my store transferred from an ESFS. 1,100 orders a day, nearly two dozen TM in the workcenter, and filling 53' UPS trailers daily. It was one of the original three ESFS locations before the other slew of them were added.

 

[H2Owned]

Intense. Do you have SFS only TM's/TM's hired just for SFS?

Yes we have about 10 people
for SFS only right now they are suppose to be hiring like 12 more seasonal team members

 

[Moosechives]

We have about 35 people for esfs atm. 24 were scheduled yesterday for cap raise day :<

 

[brizzy93]

I spoke to my ETL-Operations today about the TM messing up with SFS... All the ETL's know now. Poor guy. My HL TL even said he seems like he slowing down in general. Not long after I was put on the bench, he interviewed for TL too and I was like ??? why??? But he was rejected for being a college student without open availability.
I don't feel good about telling them, but it's not like I could have ignored his mess ups. Packages shouldn't be sent back for ripping in transit...