Archived Huddles?

[dailypush]

Our store hasn't had a team huddle in months. Does your store still hold these? Obviously recognition in my store is a thing of the past.

 

[commiecorvus]

We're only having like three a week lately but we still have them.

 

[odie]

Morning huddles happen just about every day. Evening salesfloor huddles on the other hand... Ha... HA HA!

Granted I think we're flat broke on salesfloor payroll. I will only have worked one salesfloor shift this month when all is said and done, and salesfloor is my official work center.

 

[illinoiscardinal]

Our store has it every single day. Morning & Evening & Food huddle.

Is it a good thing? From the cashier pov, I see it as a extra 30minute break to sit around and eat stuff for everyone except front end.

We used to let one of the cashiers join the huddle, then tried to make a cashiers only huddle with 4-5 cashiers, then gave up.

But that's just our store, maybe some other stores have "productive" huddle or w/e.

 

[Barcode]

My store did AM and PM huddle every day no questions asked. Front end always got neglected though.. We had one huddle every 2-3 months maybe.

 

[Determinism]

The point of huddles is to communicate things to the team about upcoming events, results from surveys/metrics that point out where areas need improvement, etc.

Making each person offer reconizition is pointless though. I already know what I did yesterday. Just cos I jump in and help out with other work centers on the fly through the day if they need it doesn't mean you need to point it out to everyone. I just want to do my job and my coworkers shouldn't feel compelled to mention I did my job and give fake praise for it.

There are table talkers, notices posted on boards in TM area, etc. I like the idea of huddles in theory, but its such a waste of time. It should be short, simple and to point -- team swarms and does whatever for 10 mins instead of bsing. I'm biased because it really helps to have 25 pairs of eyes shortdating and checking Consumeables for outdates on freshness Friday.

So I don't mind helping electronics out during huddle to zone to pog the audio CDs/movies aisles. Quid pro quo.

Everything I need is on workbench and it's redundant to hear it repeated 5 times by 5 different tls/etls at huddle. I got **** to do people.

 

[sher]

Our store has it every single day. Morning & Evening & Food huddle.

Is it a good thing? From the cashier pov, I see it as a extra 30minute break to sit around and eat stuff for everyone except front end.

Sit around and eat stuff for 30 minutes!?!? Your store has awesome huddles! We just kinda stand there while the LOD talks about the budget/goal, upcoming store stuff, and people give recognition for a few minutes. We barely ever have huddles anymore. I think they're kinda pointless anyway. They could easily put all that stuff on a white board or something.

Our cashiers get tons of "breaks". They just kinda stand there when there are no lines, usually. They've started folding shirts in the front of softlines lately, though.

 

[YepanSTL]

This is definitely still a best practice. Should be having at least 3 per day (early am/flow, opening, and closing).

 

[redandkhaki]

we have an early morning/flow huddle, morning huddle, food huddle, and evening huddle EVERY SINGLE DAY. (well sometimes randomly if we're suppose busy right at 6pm and it stays busy we'll skip that huddle but it's pretty rare. And we have a cashier huddle m-f right after the evening huddle where the salesfloor takes over for a cashier so they can all come.

 

[go ahead]

We usually have morning huddles and lately they end in "everyone grab a cart of gobacks, won't take long." It's cool, we work as a team.

 

[lauramc]

We have three huddles a day; flow and mornings and evenings. Love them! It really helps with communication and team building!!!l

 

[salesfloor10]

My store holds 3 a day (flow if its a truck day, morning, and evening). Only 1 or 2 of the morning huddles are actually "smart" huddles with PTMing or Freshness. The rest are 10-20 minutes of boring talking. We follow up two of the weekday huddles with FDC push which takes anywhere between 30 to 90 minutes.

 

[Electronics Man]

As far as I know, we have morning and evening huddle. Don't know about flow though, our's is an overnight team that starts at 10pm.

 

[Softlines Doll]

My store has at least two huddles every day. Every morning when store opens up by the lanes so the opening cashiers can be there as well and then again around 6 PM in the TSC or sometimes in seasonal if it's looking pretty bad (we'll spend 10-15 minutes doing a quick zone so our seasonal department stays in good shape). We usually get Starbucks treats and converse about store goals, training topics, any upcoming volunteer events or Vibe moments. Afterwards salesfloor team goes up to cover for cashier huddle which doesn't ALWAYS happen but 98% of the time it does.

Although the majority of the topics discussed are usually the same day after day I still think it's important to let everyone know whats going on and what to look out for. Sure it's unnecessary for those of us who work almost every day to hear the same repetative things but since a bunch of our team only works 1 or 2 days a week it's not always recycled material.

 

[CIHYVS]

I understand the intended point of Smart Huddles. But with the rise of the TM Alignment and the Vibe communication, I don't really push the recognition and communication part of the Huddle. I had a very wise veteran ETL suggest 2 minutes max for the talking points and only if it was something major. Recognition should be done through GTCs and over immediately over the hip PA systems. 99% of store communication should be getting to the TM through the weekly Vibe chat sessions. Most of the time, my team skips the store's huddle and we have our own which is far more efficient and effective for connecting the Vibe dots.

But I do agree with the "Smart" part of the huddle where we complete a task as a store team. Some things just get done more efficiently with the whole team involved.

It also always bugs me to pool our entire team in one area which means they aren't spread out on the floor helping Guest or watching for AP victims. I like the idea of each team or work center doing their own when convenient as the communication is more effective.

Sometimes when I see the entire store team huddled together, my old Drill SGT's voice comes back reminding me of how effective 1 grenade or mortar round can be when stupid privates get too close together to BS like chicken heads in a hen house. PTSD?

 

[Mamat82]

We usually have a quick huddle at the beginning of flow and a big one at 8 am before first break. Monday am we have a store huddle but our team usually skips it

 

[3LetterDevil]

Honestly couldn't tell you if our store has them regularly because we're never included....their idea of "including" us was having the huddle 1 day a week about 20' away :huh:

 

[ElechronicsTM]

My store has 3 a day. Morning, mid-day, and evening. Along with the smart huddles like fresh at 4 ect. But they exclude electronics team members from the huddles...I want snacks too

 

[rhguy]

We have been having our huddles after the store closes and the LOD edits us. It's actually nice, it gives front-end a chance to take part in huddles.

 

[DMNDZ bruhh]

we have an evening salesfloor huddle pretty much everyday, but as for early mornings, they will never do it because flow is always behind, they pretty much only do it if our STL is their in the early morning, and if any top HR people are there.

we used to do smart huddles but they stopped it idk why but me and the backroom NEVER partook in that.