paidtosmile
Former Team Leader
- Joined
- May 19, 2013
- Messages
- 744
Cel said it all for us, I think.
1. We do write break schedules. The GSTL/GSA breaks are at the same time every day. Early. Before it gets busy. and Late, after it slows down. It's common knowledge at our store, and any LOD or other leader could spit them out off the top of their head. Once every other leader in the building spends AN HOUR walking the floor in the morning they stop up front and we check in with them, too. I always let them know I'm taking my break at such and such a time, what they choose to do with that information is beyond my caring tbh. We don't even expect them to stand up at the checklanes and neander around, we just want a team leader or at least somebody moderately knowledgable about the rest of the store NEAR the checklanes (maybe a close-by department) so that way, when a cashier has a question or two (or twelve) a guest doesn't have to wait 10 minutes while listening to "I'm in the back room, Bob can you grab that" "I'm printing reports, Sue can you get that" "I'm with a guest, Joe can you help at the lanes" "I can head up from rear-seasonal for a minute or two." Meanwhile, since we only have two registers open, and one has to wait 5-10 minutes for a ridiculous walkie-game to see who draws the short straw, there is obviously a backup and request for more cashiers, which could easily be prevented if somebody was just NEAR the front so they could answer a question in 1 minute rather than 5.
2. I time my breaks down to the minute, same with every single one of my peers. Why? Because any extra or unnecessary time we're on a meal break is time we aren't getting paid for. None of us even take our 15's.... Sounds more like you have shitty team members at your store.
3. We help out the floor/other departments WHEN WE CAN. What nobody apparently f**king understands about the checklanes is that when you're scheduled, you are literally TIED to a register location or a service desk or a cafe all day. Your entire job is to be at your station, providing guest service. Look at it this way; if every hardlines team member was in the back room at the same time for a couple minutes to check out the pull line, it wouldn't be a big deal. If every cashier went to the bathroom at the same time, I'd say that has a more significant impact on our guests. We don't get the luxury of wandering freely, at all.
--We aren't scheduled well enough to help other departments that much. On the RARE occasion that we have a cart attendant, the ONLY time he's at the front lanes is when he's getting carts. The rest of the time he's working gobacks, pulls, helping the sales floor zone, responding to backup calls so your teams don't have to, etc etc. Forget about the overflowing hanger bins that nobody can get to the backroom because we can't get off a checklane for more than two minutes, and forget about the fact that the restrooms are disgusting and garbages are overflowing because there is physically not enough bodies to even take care of these little yet crucial maintenance tasks.
--The front end at our store zones girls, boys, performance, and accessories every night. Market, too, if we get a chance.. That's a good chunk of the store for a team that typically consists of 1 cashier, 1 GSTL, and 1 Service desk every night; considering two of those positions are tied to one spot, and the GSTL usually ends up backup cashiering most of the night. Yet we still get it done so other teams don't have to.
--When other team leads need idea's and inspiration for stupid metric-driving games, guess who they come to in our store? Yes, GSTL's. Because we spend 40 hours a week running absolutely idiotic games/competitions to drive the ridiculous metric of conversion. The AAR games our store tries to put together, borrowed from the front end's leaders. The incentives to not-miss-a-punch, borrowed from us. The action plans to increase softlines vibe scores, altered versions of idea's we've used to drive redcards. I don't know about anyone else, but at our store the GSTL's/GSA's usually come up with all the ridiculous vibed-out brand games that push to increase numbers. I'd consider that helping other teams.
--An average day for me consists of 1 GSTL, 1 Service Desk, 1-2 Cashiers, 1 Food Ave who actually spends the majority of her day on a checklane and only hops off during rushes or for food safety/procedural stuff-This is in an effort to minimize backup calls so YOU guys can work uninterrupted (is cutting backup calls by about 70% helping you? i'm not sure, you tell me.) That leaves me, the only one not tied to a checklane or a desk of ranting guests, to watch food ave backup at GS or the lanes, push carts all afternoon, run the break schedule, while also driving conversion CONSTANTLY because every 20 minutes we get an etl reminding us to be doing so. Which I can't do because I'm stuck on a register, at guest service with a crazed coupon-fraud guest, or outside trying to keep more than 10 carts in the building. It's not that we don't want to jump out and help other departments, we just physically do not have enough hands most times. They're all moving at lightning speed in an effort to avoid pulling other teams for backup calls.
4. I despise my workcenter, but I take pride in it because I work my ass off to keep my conversion, our conversion, our service scores, and our cashier speed green. I WANT to get the front end involved in the rest of the store, I WANT to get my cashiers to become more global, and I WANT to build the idea of teamwork. And for the most part, I've done a shit load of that in the past couple months since I really stepped up and took a bigger hand in leading the checklanes. I've built partnerships with our APTL and PPTL; APTL mainly for a shortage awareness, and PPTL for workload. I meet with her every week and we look at her workload, I offer to take what I think can be managed with the HUGE TEAM (heavy sarcasm) I have, I'll usually work a couple tubs/flats of price change in a week, set anything at the checklanes or OneSpot, and try snagging some so called "off-site time" so I can jump onto the floor and help plano with transitions, since I have a knack for organizing and planning. Our GSTL plays a big role in the sales floor, because she runs the 4x4 schedule and also manages all the consumables vendors. *Offsite time, mind you, that I would otherwise use to train-and-develop front end team members, have conversations with them about their conversion or speed scores, or fix the billion broken processes and routines at the service desk... But no. Instead, I'm trying to play a part in other area's in an effort to repay them for all the times I get the joy of hearing the ever-so-willing "UGH, I guess I can make my way up." If only I had time to try helping other workcenters.. Oh wait, I use every spare minute of my time doing that already.
1. We do write break schedules. The GSTL/GSA breaks are at the same time every day. Early. Before it gets busy. and Late, after it slows down. It's common knowledge at our store, and any LOD or other leader could spit them out off the top of their head. Once every other leader in the building spends AN HOUR walking the floor in the morning they stop up front and we check in with them, too. I always let them know I'm taking my break at such and such a time, what they choose to do with that information is beyond my caring tbh. We don't even expect them to stand up at the checklanes and neander around, we just want a team leader or at least somebody moderately knowledgable about the rest of the store NEAR the checklanes (maybe a close-by department) so that way, when a cashier has a question or two (or twelve) a guest doesn't have to wait 10 minutes while listening to "I'm in the back room, Bob can you grab that" "I'm printing reports, Sue can you get that" "I'm with a guest, Joe can you help at the lanes" "I can head up from rear-seasonal for a minute or two." Meanwhile, since we only have two registers open, and one has to wait 5-10 minutes for a ridiculous walkie-game to see who draws the short straw, there is obviously a backup and request for more cashiers, which could easily be prevented if somebody was just NEAR the front so they could answer a question in 1 minute rather than 5.
2. I time my breaks down to the minute, same with every single one of my peers. Why? Because any extra or unnecessary time we're on a meal break is time we aren't getting paid for. None of us even take our 15's.... Sounds more like you have shitty team members at your store.
3. We help out the floor/other departments WHEN WE CAN. What nobody apparently f**king understands about the checklanes is that when you're scheduled, you are literally TIED to a register location or a service desk or a cafe all day. Your entire job is to be at your station, providing guest service. Look at it this way; if every hardlines team member was in the back room at the same time for a couple minutes to check out the pull line, it wouldn't be a big deal. If every cashier went to the bathroom at the same time, I'd say that has a more significant impact on our guests. We don't get the luxury of wandering freely, at all.
--We aren't scheduled well enough to help other departments that much. On the RARE occasion that we have a cart attendant, the ONLY time he's at the front lanes is when he's getting carts. The rest of the time he's working gobacks, pulls, helping the sales floor zone, responding to backup calls so your teams don't have to, etc etc. Forget about the overflowing hanger bins that nobody can get to the backroom because we can't get off a checklane for more than two minutes, and forget about the fact that the restrooms are disgusting and garbages are overflowing because there is physically not enough bodies to even take care of these little yet crucial maintenance tasks.
--The front end at our store zones girls, boys, performance, and accessories every night. Market, too, if we get a chance.. That's a good chunk of the store for a team that typically consists of 1 cashier, 1 GSTL, and 1 Service desk every night; considering two of those positions are tied to one spot, and the GSTL usually ends up backup cashiering most of the night. Yet we still get it done so other teams don't have to.
--When other team leads need idea's and inspiration for stupid metric-driving games, guess who they come to in our store? Yes, GSTL's. Because we spend 40 hours a week running absolutely idiotic games/competitions to drive the ridiculous metric of conversion. The AAR games our store tries to put together, borrowed from the front end's leaders. The incentives to not-miss-a-punch, borrowed from us. The action plans to increase softlines vibe scores, altered versions of idea's we've used to drive redcards. I don't know about anyone else, but at our store the GSTL's/GSA's usually come up with all the ridiculous vibed-out brand games that push to increase numbers. I'd consider that helping other teams.
--An average day for me consists of 1 GSTL, 1 Service Desk, 1-2 Cashiers, 1 Food Ave who actually spends the majority of her day on a checklane and only hops off during rushes or for food safety/procedural stuff-This is in an effort to minimize backup calls so YOU guys can work uninterrupted (is cutting backup calls by about 70% helping you? i'm not sure, you tell me.) That leaves me, the only one not tied to a checklane or a desk of ranting guests, to watch food ave backup at GS or the lanes, push carts all afternoon, run the break schedule, while also driving conversion CONSTANTLY because every 20 minutes we get an etl reminding us to be doing so. Which I can't do because I'm stuck on a register, at guest service with a crazed coupon-fraud guest, or outside trying to keep more than 10 carts in the building. It's not that we don't want to jump out and help other departments, we just physically do not have enough hands most times. They're all moving at lightning speed in an effort to avoid pulling other teams for backup calls.
4. I despise my workcenter, but I take pride in it because I work my ass off to keep my conversion, our conversion, our service scores, and our cashier speed green. I WANT to get the front end involved in the rest of the store, I WANT to get my cashiers to become more global, and I WANT to build the idea of teamwork. And for the most part, I've done a shit load of that in the past couple months since I really stepped up and took a bigger hand in leading the checklanes. I've built partnerships with our APTL and PPTL; APTL mainly for a shortage awareness, and PPTL for workload. I meet with her every week and we look at her workload, I offer to take what I think can be managed with the HUGE TEAM (heavy sarcasm) I have, I'll usually work a couple tubs/flats of price change in a week, set anything at the checklanes or OneSpot, and try snagging some so called "off-site time" so I can jump onto the floor and help plano with transitions, since I have a knack for organizing and planning. Our GSTL plays a big role in the sales floor, because she runs the 4x4 schedule and also manages all the consumables vendors. *Offsite time, mind you, that I would otherwise use to train-and-develop front end team members, have conversations with them about their conversion or speed scores, or fix the billion broken processes and routines at the service desk... But no. Instead, I'm trying to play a part in other area's in an effort to repay them for all the times I get the joy of hearing the ever-so-willing "UGH, I guess I can make my way up." If only I had time to try helping other workcenters.. Oh wait, I use every spare minute of my time doing that already.
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