Promotion to TL - Pay

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Sep 22, 2019
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TLSR: When in the process of promoting to TL do you negotiate pay? How much room is there to negotiate?

I’ve had the pre-interview. HRBP says it’s a matter of the opening occurring and me stepping in.
realizing that talk could all be smoke, I was wondering a couple of things, when do you negotiate pay, if that’s a common occurrence? When moving between districts ahd the district you’d be hired into has a higher base pay, how do you find that out?

TL pay is typically $4 more than TM base?
 
In our market, Team Leads start at $24/hour.

There isn't typically much wiggle room, unless you have a really good justification. When I moved laterally from GM TL to Closing Lead, back in what? 2018-ish? And became a key carrier, I argued that the extra responsibility of doing the perimeter checks and securing the building justified a raise. HR discussed it with the HRBP, and it was approved. But it's not the default case. Closing leads don't get that by default. But since the role was new, and not completely fleshed out at the time, I had a good opportunity to negotiate.
 
It seems to vary by location. PG45 (TLs) at my store is $6.25 more than PG35 (TMs). You can look it up in Workday by searching locations and finding the table under additional data.

I remember mention of there being experience pay (up to $4 over base), but I'm not sure if that's still a thing or if it only applied to external hires. There doesn't seem to be a consistent answer on what happens if you're near, at, or above the PG45 base as PG35 either. I think a lot of it boils down to what your HRBP and DSD will accept (and if your HR/SD will push for it).
 
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You can negotiate, but don't expect it. The time to negotiate is when there is a job ready for you. You should have some good examples of why you deserve more.

At my store, the difference is $7.25. I'd be shocked if it were only $4 anywhere.
 
Ours is $4 over base. If you're internal you'll be less likely to get more than that. Not saying it doesn't happen, but you'd need a hell of a lot of experience to back up the why. If you're an external hire you'll be more likely to get the increase.

That being said, back when I was promoted I started at the TL base and within a couple months was given a decent discretionary increase based off of my performance. I didn't ask for it (because I figured during raise time I could), my SD just told me I was getting it starting on my next pay. During raise time I got an exceeds expectations raise as well. So my discretionary raise didn't affect my actual yearly raise either.

ASANTS, but know if you have to start at the base but have a decent upper leadership team they can look out for you.
 
IMHO Target will try to pay the bare minimum as a TL because they know what you make now.

I would follow up with HRBP in a couple of months to see if anything is opening up.

If they give you a vague response look elsewhere.

Finally not knowing what department or store you might be placed is a BIG factor.

Good luck.
 
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I do have years of external experience, I’ve been working part time as a TM due to life. Good to know there might be a little room, though not guaranteed. I did tell HRBP, that moving to new district (I still live in the same place) would be highly dependent on final distance and “other factors”. Tried to hedge my bets a bit there.
thanks for all the info!
 
I recently promoted internally and they gave me $8 on top of what I was making as a team member. Luckily, my HR was helpful and advocated for me. I just mentioned that I was already making a few bucks above TM base due to previous raises, so I didn’t want to lose that and that I had years of Target experience, degree, etc.

Before promoting my TLs (one was an Internal and one was external) were talking to me and encouraging me to advocate for myself because they both told me internal promotions tend to get lowballed where externals have more power to negotiate. They also gave me a specific number to ask for, so that really helped.
 
Standard for internals is to receive whatever the difference is. So if your store is a +$4 store with bases at $15 and $19, and you're making $16, you would get bumped to $20. Usually very little wiggle room for negotiation. My store's difference is $6.25. You can see every's store's base pay by paygrade on workday.
 

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