Task should take x amount of time. Know how long it takes you as a manager that knows all the shortcuts. Know how long Target in their wisdom of averages things it should take. Figure out what is reasonable and what is a push. Set the expectation.
Guest interaction should not be more than x amount of time. You're pushing at noon on a Saturday across from electronics, or picking in HBA/cosmetics expect more guest interaction time. It's your store you know when it's busy and when the talkative guests come in. Tell them guest interactions should not be more than a certain amount of time, I use 5 min as even if you have to walk across the store to get something for a guest it's less than that based on my store. If you can't extract yourself from a guest teach them to call for backup. On average there are less than 3 on a Saturday depending on the section of the store. Sorry Grandma I'm not holding your hand for the full shopping trip and neither should TMs.
I understand upsell, but following a person around is not going to provide the upsell when we don't have product on the floor to up sell. Understand the retail environment and comp, retail as a whole was up in May, if you're store didn't that says more about your store than if you did comp up. If the floor is empty the best I can do is potentially find a web only product that is not on the floor to offer and make sure the floor is full. We're not a hardware store we're not going to have aerators, or the very specific custom battery the guests wants.
Teach TMs how to use the devices, stop only giving TMs one piece of information every 5 hour shift. Unless you're giving them mindless tasks eventually they need to know everything and it will take a while to learn it. Let them drink from a fire hose as they won't remember everything anyway and the more information they have to make informed decisions the better they will be in their job.
Don't be rude, find alternatives, help the guest, and set reasonable expectations. When you set unreasonable expectations you increase stress and drive people away. How many people really want an overly stressful job for lower pay than most office jobs that have far less stress? If you're a TM you should be able to push back respectfully if managers expectations are not reasonable.
Managers please don't play favorites with the schedule or performance discussions. Yes, call in the top performer first when there is a callout, but don't schedule by performance. Those poor performers shouldn't have made it past 90 days and it's your responsibility to manage them out. I'd rather fight to prevent a final, final for someone that's good but has issues in one area then have to document things for months if things go south.
One of the most promising TMs for a TL position has an issue with being cryonically 20 minutes late. That would normally prevent them from a TL position, and I know I'm going to have to fight to prevent the CCA on being cryonically late even though I'm the one writing them up. Yes, I'm documenting them because I should, and I want them to improve, but I'm also going to fight for them because they are an extremely hard competent worker.
You NCNS and I don't care you're getting a CCA. You're 2 hours late and didn't call I'll let you work just to give you the CCA the same day.
Know your employees strengths, teach them. They probably didn't get training at the start. Target is retail and a lot of poor managers can hide in the retail environment and blame semi transient employees.
LEAD BY EXAMPLE.
/Rant