Archived Just in case Brian decides to see what his Leadership team really needs!!

[Backroom81]

please lets go back to how things were with proper staffing, consistent hours, better training, please Brian you can make it happen man! Also please lets do a "reward card" so the guests can save 5% and not end up having to open a credit card I have seen so many forcing down Guests' throats!

You would be required to shove the reward card just as much.

 

[thetargetman]

please lets go back to how things were with proper staffing, consistent hours, better training, please Brian you can make it happen man! Also please lets do a "reward card" so the guests can save 5% and not end up having to open a credit card I have seen so many forcing down Guests' throats!

You would be required to shove the reward card just as much.

yea but I think we should not be shoving it down people's throats.

 

[pellinore]

One simple change to save labor hours......have unannounced visits....from a DTL to regional sales, group sales, or even higher level executives who want to see how a store is really run.
When my store is told that "you're having a visit" in two weeks the ETLs suddenly seem to be able to find hours for TMs to make the store "look good."
If this is changed...then we won't have to spend precious hours trying to make our store appear to be what it may not be while neglecting the daily work to get things right....and the unannounced visitor will get a real view of what a store is like.

 

[tgtguy]

please lets go back to how things were with proper staffing, consistent hours, better training, please Brian you can make it happen man! Also please lets do a "reward card" so the guests can save 5% and not end up having to open a credit card I have seen so many forcing down Guests' throats!

You would be required to shove the reward card just as much.

I fully agree with this. I know that several years ago( when we were still on the 4 am truck process ) I arrived at work before the flow team lead...so I was waiting in my car...since there was no way to get in. He wasn't late I was about 15 minutes early. Anyways, there was a car that I didn't recognize parked by the front doors...which I thought was odd because as team members we all know we are not suppose to park there. Well. when the Flow team lead gets there to let the flow team in and myself and the rest of my fellow backroom team members. I asked him did he know whos car that was....he said no...about the time we were walking in the building out of the car comes the DTL....he spoke to us and said that he was going to spend the morning with us.. He wouldn't let anyone walk around with him....he told the Tl that he was going to observe and that if any ETL arrived that they could just go about their usual duties like he wasn't there. No one knew he was coming at all. He walked in...he saw the store the way it had truly been left the night before etc....they should do that more often.

One simple change to save labor hours......have unannounced visits....from a DTL to regional sales, group sales, or even higher level executives who want to see how a store is really run.
When my store is told that "you're having a visit" in two weeks the ETLs suddenly seem to be able to find hours for TMs to make the store "look good."
If this is changed...then we won't have to spend precious hours trying to make our store appear to be what it may not be while neglecting the daily work to get things right....and the unannounced visitor will get a real view of what a store is like.

 

[RunForACallBox]

To save Target and the brand...stop with the harping on us for Guest Service when hours are cut to nothing. I can't service the entire store as LOD when I have only 3 people on the floor on non truck days that aren't part of the process teams...give us back our hours we were promised when we cut TL head count. Get back to the awesome designer lines that people actually wanted...we are a Midwest company, make your buyers buy for Midwesterners...Fix Canada and quit making US stores pay for that mistake...do something about myTime, it's killing us all...promote from within, make it harder for SrTLs without a degree but at least make it an option, I have so much more knowledge than 2/3 of the ETLs and I work harder than them so I would be an asset! Who knows how many more of us you have out there!!

Yes, yes to all this. Applaud!

 

[BobLoblaw]

please lets go back to how things were with proper staffing, consistent hours, better training, please Brian you can make it happen man! Also please lets do a "reward card" so the guests can save 5% and not end up having to open a credit card I have seen so many forcing down Guests' throats!

You would be required to shove the reward card just as much.

Probably, but from my experience 95% of "no thanks" on the REDcard are about opening and carrying a new card. The idea of another bill (even debit cards are scary for many) far outweighs the savings.

I have like 20 reward card places that just require a name and phone number to save and I feel the same loyalty Spot is trying to create to say, Walgreens over CVS, because of it. I'm sure there's some business dealings that make it worth it to work with Visa (or Mastercard pretty soon) that make it worth pushing a credit card over reward type.

 

[sigma7]

REDcards let Target save on interchange fees. And guests do spend more with a REDcard, but expectations are starting to get out of hand in my group.

 

[Bullseyeprincess]

REDcards let Target save on interchange fees. And guests do spend more with a REDcard, but expectations are starting to get out of hand in my group.

They think that this alone will save the business but it won't...there's a lot more to what is keeping people out of our stores and we have to fix that along with pushing the REDcard!!

 

[sigma7]

REDcards let Target save on interchange fees. And guests do spend more with a REDcard, but expectations are starting to get out of hand in my group.

They think that this alone will save the business but it won't...there's a lot more to what is keeping people out of our stores and we have to fix that along with pushing the REDcard!!

Totally agree

 

[BullseyeBabe]

This morning during one of her speeches the ETL/LOD said, "...getting those 20 RedCards is our top priority today!" That pretty well explains it all.

 

[Anonymous12345]

Almost every position you hold in the store there will something that is emphasized every single day. Logistics, stop over spending payroll, Backroom, pull CAFs and backstock, Salesfloor, work strays and get your zone done, oh and finish those SPLs, HR, get that schedule posted on-time, Market, fresh and full by 9am, and GE well sorry to say but yes REDCards. As annoying as it may be to pitch them everyday, it really does grow the business and it is very important.

I would just say to make it more of a conversation about educating the guest rather then making it fell like a sales cars-man pitch. This will probably make it more enjoyable and less annoying, and you will probably have more success with it.

A rewards card wouldn't be a bad idea but then you would have to pitch another thing, we already have Credit, Debit, Pharmacy rewards, surveys, SRP, I'm sure Target feels having a reward card would be overkill.

 

[Bullseyeprincess]

I agree that we have to at a store level do everything we can to make the shopping experience the best it can be...but we can only do so much. I am asked several times a week 'who decides what to put in stores?' Case in point would be the Space Cat pants...who decided that would be something we should carry?? And then they harp on is for A markdowns...I can't sell ugly

 

[Voicetarget]

Target is destroying target itself from within. Proof? The team morale of stores across the country. Spot needs to listen to their team- not the Best Team Survey crap, but listen to YOUR team and how things REALLY are. Why Target has not yet abandoned MyTime is beyond me, it is so clear that computer automated scheduling does not work for Target. We are NOT like other retailers, so we must not shift our way of scheduling to such a degree in which there is NoTime! We are GUEST DRIVEN, pure to the word, but lately, the only thing that drives us is the possibility that "Tomorrow" may be better, in terms of scheduling. Closing busy weekends with 3 salesfloor team members and 1 cashier is not only hard on the team, but hard for the guests. To the corporate heads- my challenge to you is to lead a store to a brand close during a busy weekend at a high volume Target store (Outside of Minnesota, away from the "Test stores" where Mytime mysteriously and magically works). Let's see how much hair you want to rip out of your heads by the end of the night.

The Target credit card breach in 2013 and the botching of Canada Target stores should not be punishment for the things that were actually going RIGHT. You want to make up for the $$$ poured down the drain, then we will earn it back through consistent sales, hard work, and motivated team culture. You will NOT earn it back through cutting and saving hours.

The sooner Spot can swallow the pill they call pride and admit MyTime is not the right transition, then we can finally move forward together and make our step in the right direction.



PS: At your original MyTime "Test stores" , seeing as how it worked, either:
A: Those stores are not getting enough guests.
B: There is some serious overworking people there.

 

[Bullseyeprincess]

Target is destroying target itself from within. Proof? The team morale of stores across the country. Spot needs to listen to their team- not the Best Team Survey crap, but listen to YOUR team and how things REALLY are. Why Target has not yet abandoned MyTime is beyond me, it is so clear that computer automated scheduling does not work for Target. We are NOT like other retailers, so we must not shift our way of scheduling to such a degree in which there is NoTime! We are GUEST DRIVEN, pure to the word, but lately, the only thing that drives us is the possibility that "Tomorrow" may be better, in terms of scheduling. Closing busy weekends with 3 salesfloor team members and 1 cashier is not only hard on the team, but hard for the guests. To the corporate heads- my challenge to you is to lead a store to a brand close during a busy weekend at a high volume Target store (Outside of Minnesota, away from the "Test stores" where Mytime mysteriously and magically works). Let's see how much hair you want to rip out of your heads by the end of the night.

The Target credit card breach in 2013 and the botching of Canada Target stores should not be punishment for the things that were actually going RIGHT. You want to make up for the $$$ poured down the drain, then we will earn it back through consistent sales, hard work, and motivated team culture. You will NOT earn it back through cutting and saving hours.

The sooner Spot can swallow the pill they call pride and admit MyTime is not the right transition, then we can finally move forward together and make our step in the right direction.

So true!! myTime has killed morale at my store and ETLs use it as an excuse. My HR spends at least 9 hours writing the schedule(that we were told would write itself) every week locked in the office and when the Seniors (who run the store) begged to take back the schedule we were shut down immediately. If I were the STL I would say forget it, it doesn't work. Stay within allocated hours and write what works for business needs but I'm not so I can't

 

[Rock Lobster]

So true!! myTime has killed morale at my store and ETLs use it as an excuse. My HR spends at least 9 hours writing the schedule(that we were told would write itself) every week locked in the office and when the Seniors (who run the store) begged to take back the schedule we were shut down immediately. If I were the STL I would say forget it, it doesn't work. Stay within allocated hours and write what works for business needs but I'm not so I can't

If I had to say some negatives about MyTime that need improved, the first thing would be secondary workcenters. MAX would automatically pull TMs into their secondaries and it was amazing. I had (for example) all Front End Team Members keyed as Cashiers as their primary. All other workcenters (Photo, Service Desk, Carts, and GSA) were put in as secondary workcenters. I could open it up, take a look, and close each workcenter if it looked good. MyTime does not do this, and it is a simple fix. The amount of payroll being spent actually writing the schedule is a bit absurd, because each TM can have 7 secondary workcenters (I think) and MyTime only utilizes the primary. This means a large majority of the payroll is being filled by hand.

I disagree however with writing the schedule "for business needs" because it defeats the purpose of the rollout.

 

[BobLoblaw]

The Target credit card breach in 2013 and the botching of Canada Target stores should not be punishment for the things that were actually going RIGHT. You want to make up for the $$$ poured down the drain, then we will earn it back through consistent sales, hard work, and motivated team culture. You will NOT earn it back through cutting and saving hours.
.

I love this. Mysteriously our sales jumped from missing forecast by 4% in June to being over by 4% in July. Comp vs. last year is right about 2% for both months...

Purpose of typing that, we got the go ahead to "fix" our myTime schedule for a weekend we know as a store was going to be busier than forecasted. We moved a couple people around, mid shifts to closings and openers, added a person in high sales area, etc. Just finished an insanely busy closing (made sales by nearly 12% vs. forecast) and it was by far the best Saturday close the store has seen in a year. We added about 20 hours total (with 5 call-ins, 2 of which were replaced so really we came out about 10 hours ahead) to the proper workcenters and like magic, the store is ready for another busy day!

Seriously, what amounts to maybe $200 in payroll in a high volume store (adding TMs and some LOD intervention) was able to:

1. In the top 5 highest sales days we've had in 2014 and STILL help every guest that had questions in a timely manner.
2. Prevent nearly all cashier backup requests which pull from other workcenters.
3. Ad takedown took an hour instead of the normal 2.
4. Better zone in ALL areas compared to days with 1/2 the sales (not necessarily 1/2 the payroll).
5. Backroom is clean for the first time in recent memory (backstock and pulls complete before TM out).
6. Minimal abandons for all areas.
7. Best REDcard conversion of the week, nearly double our YTD average.
8. A general "we won" attitude by the entire team. Cheesy, but more smiles and TMs poking fun at each other than ever.
9. I get a few minutes to connect with and develop my team! Holy crap, happier, more educated TMs for the same pay?

These are some of the main themes we have been unable to conquer since our myTime rollout. So there is obviously no way to quantify the impact this had on sales but a complete 180 on our most serious morale busting areas for say, 4 grand a month? Yes, that's 50k/store/month > 10 million a year (simple math) but holy hell our store was running...how it should!

Such high morale over having an extra person or 2 drove so much more output it was ridiculous.

 

[redeye58]

Extra payroll made for a good weekend at my store.
Leadership gave early/midshift TMs with less than 40 (pretty much the whole team) the op to stay later & pick up hrs in needed/shorthanded areas.
Given the drought in hrs lately, nearly everyone took advantage & we had a well-staffed store the likes of which I haven't seen since Black Friday opening.

 

[BullseyeBabe]

Wow! That sounds good. We're all so tired & stressed out at my store. This past weekend was so rough. We were crazy busy but they were still trying to cut hours. Morale is low and call outs are killing us. There aren't enough people scheduled in the first place then we aren't supposed to replace shifts. It gets so bad though that some of us end up having to come back in to close after opening or we have to stay and work a double. Now we are open an hour later, but they keep hireling minors who have to leave a couple of hours before we close. I'm still trying to be really positive to keep everyone's spirit up. Tbh, many at my store are at their breaking point.

 

[working in hardlines]

Ditto with my store... Morale is low.... keep hearing about how payroll is stretched as thin as can be....but the store seems busier than ever with guests... BTS has been a nightmare.... I DREAD Christmas season this year...

 

[Backroom81]

I DREAD Christmas season this year...

 

[Bullseyeprincess]

Wow! That sounds good. We're all so tired & stressed out at my store. This past weekend was so rough. We were crazy busy but they were still trying to cut hours. Morale is low and call outs are killing us. There aren't enough people scheduled in the first place then we aren't supposed to replace shifts. It gets so bad though that some of us end up having to come back in to close after opening or we have to stay and work a double. Now we are open an hour later, but they keep hireling minors who have to leave a couple of hours before we close. I'm still trying to be really positive to keep everyone's spirit up. Tbh, many at my store are at their breaking point.

I echo this entirely for my store. We're at the point now where extra hours are offered or people are asked if they would like to stay late and the answer is most definitely a resounding no. Things are way out of hand and it's clear that people want to get in, do their time and get out. Morale is at an all time low.

What we need is stable leadership and stable processes before anything else is going to get better. It's like we have a revolving door on our store and people never stay very long (this seems to be especially true of positions ETL and higher, but I also see it at the TM and TL levels too). Processes change so often and new practices are always rolling out that we can't keep track of what the current best practice is.

If they can get those things in order, I think we have a fighting chance. If not, we'll see. Our store can't continue to function as it is, so I hope they start working on this soon. I know for a fact that there are many stores out there like mine.

When I first started with Spot, I genuinely enjoyed my time at work. No things weren't perfect and of course there were problems - there are problems in all work places though. It's a part of life. But now I'm not sure I will stay with them long. I'm tired of walking into a gong show every day and of seeing my friends and team mates who really care taking better care of the store than they do themselves.

I hate that people feel this way but I do feel relieved that it's not just my store that is feeling this way. In the last year we've lost all ETLs and the STL from them leaving the company...doesn't make me feel real good about what the future holds

 

[Market Boy]

Give STL's and DTL's more power to run their own stores the way THEY want. Let them tweak headcounts, base-pay, raise allowances, etc etc. They're the ones running the store(s), let them determine their store needs.

Yes!! I'm a firm believer that there is no all encompassing "Best Practice". Every store has different needs and what will work in store x may not work in store z. Just an example, Pfresh is a very specialized workcenter. Just a low level example, well according to Best Practice, one shouldn't reduce the price of an item by over 25%. So the entire box of $10 steaks that don't sell for $7.50 and have to be qmosed out for a total loss makes more sense than selling them at $4 or $5 a pop and maybe not necessarily profiting, but avoiding further loss. And for a guest to get a good deal like that can drive loyalty and repeat business.

Thankfully at my store people rarely bother me in Pfresh/Market cause the management team don't know a thing about and don't want to deal with perishable merch or vendors. I've been fortunate to have a history of being allowed to be very independent by my former bosses and STLs. I break Target's "best practice all the time" and you know what? Our Pfresh sales have comped positively for years (until this year when we are really feeling the rape of TL/ETL position elimination and consolidation and raised expectations and other tasks with lowered resources)

A piece of advice I always tell my PAs - if something makes sense to you and you can explain why you are doing it, do it. I'll never give you crap for it, or if someone does, I'll go to bat for you and challenge them.

 

[New~gstl]

Focus on customer service.
If you want people to fill up their carts, hell to even come into a brick and mortar store at all you have to offer something special.
Make specialists who work in makeup, shoes, entertainment, electronics, food, small appliances, softlines.
Give them ownership over their areas, the training to know it top to bottom and the hours needed to maintain them.
The people will buy more when helped by knowledgeable, attentive people who aren't being yanked in nine directions at once.

Very well said

 

[thetargetman]

One simple change to save labor hours......have unannounced visits....from a DTL to regional sales, group sales, or even higher level executives who want to see how a store is really run.
When my store is told that "you're having a visit" in two weeks the ETLs suddenly seem to be able to find hours for TMs to make the store "look good."
If this is changed...then we won't have to spend precious hours trying to make our store appear to be what it may not be while neglecting the daily work to get things right....and the unannounced visitor will get a real view of what a store is like.

perhaps the visitors should come in as "guests" instead of the Red and kaki with the unannounced visits just to see how things really run.

 

[oath2order]

standardization.

I don't like the ridiculousness the Vibe went to. Something that needs to happen when we have something new go down is that you make sure all stores are on the same level. The price challenge change should have been "within 20% of the original price" for all stores. I've seen so many things on this board about how each store does things like this differently and if a guest goes to a different store and has trouble, it's confusing.

You need to have a standardized baseline for this stuff. Say to stores "here's your baseline" and if something needs to be changed to accommodate your store's clientele better, then you can trust your STLs to do so.