Archived How's your store doing blackout dates?

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RunAndDone

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What's your store black out days? In the years I've been working for target, I've never seen them black out so many days. At this rate I won't get to see my family for Christmas until the second week in January at the earliest, and of course it's already too late to ask off before it starts. We weren't even officially told the plan until a couple days ago.

Just curious if it's my store or all stores.
 
I was told legally they cant have blackout dates. They have expectatiojs clearly bit they cant refuse times off during certain days for their own reasons or something along those lines.
 
We have all blackout dates till the end of December. You really should have talked to them before hand. I requested off 2 days next week like 2 months ago. They approved it and figured it out since it was so far in advance.
 
aronoiiel said:
I was told legally they cant have blackout dates. They have expectatiojs clearly bit they cant refuse times off during certain days for their own reasons or something along those lines.
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They can. We have denied several request for the month of december.

As always the key to getting dates off is to hustle them. We had people ask for time off in December back in june, they got it. If you are seasonal or new, ask for your days off during your interview. We will honor that.

Finally if you do get scheduled take advantage of the people desperate for hours q4. It's not usually hard to find someone who can take your shift by looking at the grid.
 
HRZone said:
They can. We have denied several request for the month of december.

As always the key to getting dates off is to hustle them. We had people ask for time off in December back in june, they got it. If you are seasonal or new, ask for your days off during your interview. We will honor that.

Finally if you do get scheduled take advantage of the people desperate for hours q4. It's not usually hard to find someone who can take your shift by looking at the grid.
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Hmm....My store has a sign saying that, even though you can now request off during 4th quarter, your request might be denied due to staffing. I was told specifically by my ETL that blackout is done for good. Maybe in some areas it still exists but it's done here
 
HRZone said:
They can. We have denied several request for the month of December
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Oh they have denied people but you can request it and they do the two per work center. A few years back an stl we had said blackouts are not legal (dunno if this may be a state to state?)and while they can deny it due to needs they cant refuse to allow you the time off if they can spare you. Our HR after that stl said the same. Now I am confused and curious o_O
 
aronoiiel said:
I was told legally they cant have blackout dates. They have expectatiojs clearly bit they cant refuse times off during certain days for their own reasons or something along those lines.
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Expectations of business needs.

I never saw Black Out Days except for one of my stores. It started Thanksgiving week to New Years. Then it went from all November to January 1st. Then it went from November 1st til Jan 15th.

My other stores just made it clear if you need the day off, you will need to give good notice or excuse.
 
aronoiiel said:
I was told legally they cant have blackout dates. They have expectatiojs clearly bit they cant refuse times off during certain days for their own reasons or something along those lines.
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When you make a request for time off, you have to check a box that explicitly states that you agree that your request may be denied due to business needs.

myTime auto rejected my request for time off, but I ended up not being scheduled for the day I needed off so it's all good.
 
Yeah lots of people don't seem to know how the time off request form works and think they can just fill it out and go about their day =( I wish they'd explain it better to people! You gotta request the time off and go to your boss asap to let them know it's there!

We also don't explain how to use sick pay very well either but that's another story =P
 
Well I couldn't because I also have to schedule around my wife's job too, and she doesn't know what she can do until it's closer to time. It's really inconvenient. We normally do the last few days in December or right after the first.

But I was asking because the stores I have worked at before, their blackout days were the weekend before, the day before and the day after Christmas and that was it. This store I'm at just blacks out everything and it threw me off.

It's kind of bittersweet knowing this store is doing the norm and the other 2 I worked at must be outliers.
 
A lot of people think blackout dates are illegal because in most union contracts, they are. But Target doesn't do unions. All they have to do, even with a union, is allow ONE person their request.
 
Gororules said:
Yeah lots of people don't seem to know how the time off request form works and think they can just fill it out and go about their day =( I wish they'd explain it better to people! You gotta request the time off and go to your boss asap to let them know it's there!

We also don't explain how to use sick pay very well either but that's another story =P
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It took me almost a full year to figure out that I needed to have a conversation with a live human in addition to submitting the electronic request. That was NEVER covered in orientation. And I was told that "someone" would discuss vacation and sick pay when I became eligible for those, and that never happened either. I had to chase down an HRTL to explain why I suddenly had hours in those boxes on eHR.
 
BigEyedPhish said:
As Presentation, my ETL sneaks us in vacation at this time of year..

I got the 22-27th off.. :)

Any other time of the year however, good luck.
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He ought to, there is no workload lol. Although some of our Plano people are our best pickers for sfs because unlike the lazy seasonals they don't want to INF everything
 
My ETL told us (SF TLs) that we will be denied for time off Nov. 1, 2018 - Feb 1, 2019 bc he screwed up and approved too many requests in one week. :rolleyes:
 
We have the usual blackout dates but it doesn't encompass the entire month or more than one month. Just certain weeks and weekends.

I just go to my TL when I need something off regardless of blackout dates. But newer hires might not be so lucky
 
HRZone said:
He ought to, there is no workload lol. Although some of our Plano people are our best pickers for sfs because unlike the lazy seasonals they don't want to INF everything
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I won't lie, we are the best in mine too.

However, we always find ourselves legit invading and taking over the packing stations so we can avoid the "rabble". We are also the best at packing, so no one says anything lol.
 
Ours end January 6th or something. It's stupid because people are just calling out. There's no one to give hours to (they didn't hire enough) and honestly so many of us have a bunch of sick hours to use and we have to call out to use them. Before they even posted the blackout dates I requested to not work after 5 tomorrow and these people scheduled me til 6 lol. Hopefully they aren't counting on me for that last hour.
 
SpilledTea said:
My ETL told us (SF TLs) that we will be denied for time off Nov. 1, 2018 - Feb 1, 2019 bc he screwed up and approved too many requests in one week. :rolleyes:
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You mean 2017 to 2018? You can't request off more than 6 months in advance
 
Fluttervale said:
A lot of people think blackout dates are illegal because in most union contracts, they are. But Target doesn't do unions. All they have to do, even with a union, is allow ONE person their request.
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I think it's pretty common in the retail and service industries, even under union contracts. My grocery store job is allowed by the union contract to completely black out 2 weeks per year, and limit time off during 4 other weeks. It can be any time they choose, as long as it's posted by Jan 1st.
 
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