Archived TL not giving review on time, penalties?

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There is a lot of hostility around the review process!Every TL and Exec knows from Feb 1st what the timeline is for writing, editing and giving the reviews. Although to many people it seems cut and dry, there are team members who do care how they have been evaluated and how they can improve. Sure the score is determined in a group setting, but 1 person writes the review and that person should give it. There are over a hundred team members in most stores, and the ETL HR does have to read each and everyone. If they are organized, and hold the team leads accountable to the time table, they can do that by reading and reviewing 5-10 a day. Each TL has 5-10 to write excluding the Flow and GS team leads. The Team Leads owe it to their team members to write and deliver the reviews. Its part of their core roles. Their team members deserve it that way. Its all about respecting the team that works for you. This year I wrote just shy of 40 reviews and had them all delivered to my team members by the cut off date. But there are times that situations pop up, illnesses unexpected LOAs where someone else may have to give a review. This however is not as I read, the situation in this case. They could have been given before the team lead left or it should have been communicated to the team member when it would be delivered. Whether or not the Team Lead is reprimanded is of no concern to anyone else. But I really do not understand the hostility of some of the Team Leads who have responded to this poster. Why should they be raked over the coals because they want their annual review? I also hope the disgust some of you feel for your team members is never on display for them to see or hear.
 
Wow I have been a team member up to a senior team leader so i can appreciate alot of the feelings going on in this post, but there does seem to be alot of people getting defensive. Yes there are many stresses that team members do not realize that team leaders do go through, same can be said as there are alot of stresses that team leaders may not realize that executives and stl's go through. As far as the review process, it can be a very tedious and annoying process. You do sit down with all of the Executives/Hr and your fellow team leaders to get opinions and feedback on each and every team member. After you right each review which depends on the team member it can take from 30-45 minutes of uninterrupted time. I saw someone mentioned above about copy and pasting, that is something I never did with any of my reviews, each one of them was written for the individual not some form review. I am trying to understand the op point of view, because if you do get a random team leader administering the review you may have questions that the person can not answer. I had to have people help me with my reviews because I was the only team leader in softlines and i had 28 reviews to administer. But if the team leader planned there vacation in advance, that is not there fault what so ever. My advice would be for the team member who is upset which is what my team members did when i had to have someone else administer their review was take a note or 2 about questions you had and the next time that you see your team leader ask to sit down with them so they can answer any questions you may have. I am sure the team leader would be more than happy to answer any and all questions.
 
tellmeaboutatime said:
There is a lot of hostility around the review process!Every TL and Exec knows from Feb 1st what the timeline is for writing, editing and giving the reviews. Although to many people it seems cut and dry, there are team members who do care how they have been evaluated and how they can improve. Sure the score is determined in a group setting, but 1 person writes the review and that person should give it. There are over a hundred team members in most stores, and the ETL HR does have to read each and everyone. If they are organized, and hold the team leads accountable to the time table, they can do that by reading and reviewing 5-10 a day. Each TL has 5-10 to write excluding the Flow and GS team leads. The Team Leads owe it to their team members to write and deliver the reviews. Its part of their core roles. Their team members deserve it that way. Its all about respecting the team that works for you. This year I wrote just shy of 40 reviews and had them all delivered to my team members by the cut off date. But there are times that situations pop up, illnesses unexpected LOAs where someone else may have to give a review. This however is not as I read, the situation in this case. They could have been given before the team lead left or it should have been communicated to the team member when it would be delivered. Whether or not the Team Lead is reprimanded is of no concern to anyone else. But I really do not understand the hostility of some of the Team Leads who have responded to this poster. Why should they be raked over the coals because they want their annual review? I also hope the disgust some of you feel for your team members is never on display for them to see or hear.
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You're missing the key points here.

1st key point - This vacation was probably planned months ago, how was the TL supposed to know when the reviews would be available for him to deliver? It varies you know. Just because it's "that time of year" doesn't mean we (TLs) know when the reviews will actually be given back to us for delivery to our TMs.

2nd key point - The OP can ask the TL anything anytime he wants. If he has questions about the review, he can ask later. Regardless of when he asks, it's probably not changing at all, so I fail to see the need for such urgency in response.

3rd key point - If you really are a TL, you know that the OPs TL wasn't the only one coming up with the OPs rating. Sure, the specific check boxes were filled in by the TL, but the only one anyone really care about, the last one... well that is very much up to ALL leadership. The OPs TL has very minimal control over that final score.
 
1st Key point- the review time lines are released to the ETL HR in January every year. The ETL-HR gives this information to all TLs (usually padding the dates to allow for late reviews) If the team lead knew they had a vacation coming up they could have partnered with the ETL-HR to get their reviews back first so they could be given prior to leaving.
2nd key point - Reviews should never be a surprise. The team member should already know how they are performing. The review is a more structured time to sit down and discuss the performance. It is a matter of respect. We expect our team members to come to work and perform they should expect us to take the time at least once a year to sit down and discuss that performance and if/how they can improve. If the TL follows the timeline there is no urgency, there is plenty of time to complete the reviews on time. Most tls have 5-10 to write and deliver, not including GS and flow team leads. It's all a matter of managing your workload.
A huge part of performance and retention is a team member feeling valued. These annual reviews are a part of that. They should be treated as an important part of leading a team, not a time consuming pencil pushing activity that really doesn't matter.
3rd key point - I can assure you I am a team lead and have owned various departments for 15 years. While it is true performance of the team is discussed in contribution meetings throughout the year and in merit meetings in Feb, the team lead does have a say in their team members ratings. The team lead should come prepared to fight for their team members ratings at the merit meetings. They should be able to back up why they think a team member deserves a certain rating. I would assume that you would expect your ETL to do the same for you.
 
LogisticsPeon- I just want to explain something to you that might help explain why you got the response you did by some of the TLs on this board. Let me tell you about 2 of the reviews I wrote.

TM#1- We sat down as a group (ETL-HR, 4 TLs, ETL-SF) and talked about this TM, I said she deserved an E. She is a good TM, if called at home, comes in maybe 15-25% of the time. She zones very fast, but never does special projects and has a very limited availability, so she is difficult to give any special training to. Great personality though. Everyone else in the group said she was an EX. This means, when I sit down to write her review, rather than give her mostly E's like I think she deserves, I now have to give mostly EXs. Now, jump forward a month and a half, I am now ready to write her review, lo and behold, I get an email from my HR saying her review score will now be E. Wow! They took my advice!---that's my first thought, then I realized we,as a store, gave out too many EXs, so some TMs had to be knocked down to an E. Oopsy! So, now I am glad I'll be giving a score I believe in, b/c it will make her review more honest, but I'm annoyed no one listened to me in the first place.

TM#2- (this one is actually from last year, which was my first year writing reviews) We decided, as a group a TM was going to be an EX. He was awesome, asked to be cross-trained everywhere, was the first to respond to back up, informed the LOD of any issues, got lots of REDcards (especially for a SF TM), came in almost every time he was called. I did his review and gave him all EX, except for one, which was an O. One month later, my ETL gives me back his review and said it was too generic. Did this TM really not have anything he was less than an EX at? I look over the review again and try to identify areas that needed improvement. I couldn't find any and discussed this with her. She chose two areas that he could improve on and cited lack of leadership as the reason. I personally don't feel a TM not being a leader is a reason to give him an IE or an E. Leadership is not involved in their core roles, but, now its not my choice. I had to give this TM an IE in one area and an E in the other. (To make myself feel somewhat ok about this unjustified score, I gave him an extra O as well, if the ETL-HR can make up E and IEs, why can't I make up Os?) Now come review time, the team member challenges these scores (and rightly so!) I came off as a blubbering idiot as I tried to justify it to him. I am sure I lost some of his respect for it. It was probably my least favorite situation that I've been in in my 2 years as a TL

Now, I've learned to mix it up a little more than I may feel is necessary. If I have to make up a score I don't believe in so it passes HR's scrutiny, I rack my brain as hard as possible, so when the TM questions it, I can at least speak to it.

Just understand this, the group decides your score. Your TL tries to look over the past year and assigns scores to each category, but for the purpose of your actual review score (and raise) this is meaningless. If your TL gives you an IE you don't agree on, don't worry. Do your best to improve on it, b/c we all can improve on any given aspect of our jobs, but don't take it to heart. Your TL might not believe in the score either, he just needs to make it look good on paper, b/c to Target, that can sometimes be the most important thing.

We hate this process! Tellmeaboutatime mentioned that TLs can fight for scores, but I can tell you, in the situations I've been in, its not quite as easy as that. We can fight, but we can also be overruled. The hostility you're feeling is mostly feelings of being frustrated by the whole process, I'm sorry it was directed toward you.
 
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LogisticsPeon said:
he arranged a HL TL to give the reviews for him. Unfortunately...no one can find them.
Th HR never got them emailed to her and there are no hard copies.
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If it took this long for the HR to realize that a TL never submitted a review in the first place, then the HR is not doing there job. As others have said the TLs write the reviews more than a month in advance, they had to be turned in around the first week of March. Then HR goes through all of them, gets the merit sheets from HQ, and then finally when the reviews are ready to be given out the TL finally might see them again.

At my store the HR was the only person with access to the reviews from March until the end of April when we were then finally able to give them out, she kept them locked in the office until we were ready to actually hand them out.
 
I also find it odd that several teamleaders have admitted that they "sit down" "in a group" to evaluate and discuss each and every team members performance and what score they deserve. They have time for this no problem, but then when it comes to delivering the reviews, all these time constraints pop up and they are too busy to do that by the deadline!
 
invictustaylor said:
I also find it odd that several teamleaders have admitted that they "sit down" "in a group" to evaluate and discuss each and every team members performance and what score they deserve. They have time for this no problem, but then when it comes to delivering the reviews, all these time constraints pop up and they are too busy to do that by the deadline!
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If are in the middle of a something non-essential to the running of the store and your ETL says "Come here, we need to talk for 20 min". What do you say?
 
why would I be doing something non essential to the running of my store if I were a teamlead? answer me THAT!
 
invictustaylor said:
why would I be doing something non essential to the running of my store if I were a teamlead? answer me THAT!
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I'm not sure what point you are trying to prove, but the answer is just about everything! The only things that are essential to the running of the store at any given moment is that there are people to provide guest service. An aisle or an endcap doesn't get fully pushed...is the store going to shut down? No. Are people still going to be able to purchase products? Yes.
Sure, things need to be done to keep the store running, but not a whole lot is going to cause a store to not be able to be run in your team lead's 20min absence.

And I'm going to share this, just b/c your post reminded me of it a little. Last week, my fellow TLs and I had a 45 min unplanned meeting 1 hour before I was supposed to leave. At my scheduled time off, my ETL made me come in to his office for 10min and explain to him why I wasn't able to get my workload completely done for the day. And you wonder why we have no time for anything? Its b/c the ETLs want to stop working, sit and talk about what we are doing and then challenge us if we don't get it done (b/c we just spent a whole lot of time "sitting and talking". The system's seriously F***ed up at times invictus, I know I don't have to tell you that.

Edit: I don't hate my job, I really like it most of the time, but things can get definitely get frustrating. Oh, but I do hate the Shops at Target. That one is for sure a 'hate'.
 
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right on sorry for being a smart a--. Well I guess I would have to tell my ETL to get the F out my Face cause I have actual work to do. Real talk Challenge Upwards!
 
invictustaylor said:
right on sorry for being a smart a--. Well I guess I would have to tell my ETL to get the F out my Face cause I have actual work to do. Real talk Challenge Upwards!
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You can only do it so much because you're pulled into the office and coached or given a corrective action for skipping out on their 30 minute huddles, not going on their 30 minute brand walks, not "coming up with a game plan and communicating it to others" in the morning, a status (recap) of what was accomplished today, the weekly follow up and planning for next week, etc.
 
invictustaylor said:
I also find it odd that several teamleaders have admitted that they "sit down" "in a group" to evaluate and discuss each and every team members performance and what score they deserve. They have time for this no problem, but then when it comes to delivering the reviews, all these time constraints pop up and they are too busy to do that by the deadline!
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We actually don't have time for this, honestly. As ISIS mentioned, we are taken off the floor way too often and then coached for not getting everything done (by the person that wasted our time in the first place). As for us admitting it -- it's because it's mandatory for all TLs. We go to meetings because it is part of our job, not because we want to.

Side note: I find it hilarious that monthly TL meetings (that only take 1-2 hours max) are cancelled almost every month by our STL, but the weekly ETL meetings are never cancelled and they usually take at least 4 hours (not including the time they spend eating).
 
In my time at Target, the following happened with my reviews: never got the 90 day review, never got the first annual review but I still got the raise, got the second annual review after I got my raise, got the third annual review on time, and quit right before review time the fourth year. No, they don't have to give you your review (on time or even at all) in order for you to get your raise but they are still supposed to do it. The times I got my review, they were delivered by ETLs, not TLs, but the TLs were still in the room.
 
Fast Service Needed In said:
Side note: I find it hilarious that monthly TL meetings (that only take 1-2 hours max) are cancelled almost every month by our STL, but the weekly ETL meetings are never cancelled and they usually take at least 4 hours (not including the time they spend eating).
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You guys have monthly TL meetings? Ours are weekly and rarely canceled. I get where you find the humor in the canceling, but honestly, I'm a little jealous. haha
 
Fast Service Needed In said:
We actually don't have time for this, honestly. As ISIS mentioned, we are taken off the floor way too often and then coached for not getting everything done (by the person that wasted our time in the first place). As for us admitting it -- it's because it's mandatory for all TLs. We go to meetings because it is part of our job, not because we want to.

Side note: I find it hilarious that monthly TL meetings (that only take 1-2 hours max) are cancelled almost every month by our STL, but the weekly ETL meetings are never cancelled and they usually take at least 4 hours (not including the time they spend eating).
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You know, this must be the case in every store.... ETLs sitting around eating for 4 hours at a "meeting" multiple times a week. At my store, they were even paying for it out of the 529 account and scrapped all TM activities.

I have to say, karma is a bi** though.... Most of the ETLs that came in looking thin and attractive were obese monsters after 6-12 months of sitting for hours eating gobs of fast food almost daily.

I remember being in clerical one day when our Sr TL walked in the door. I thought he was carrying a fully loaded trash bag from the trash outside, but no.... it was just a fast food take out order for him and 4 ETLs. (literally, so much food he had trouble holding the trash bag full of it with one hand.... and the smaller paper bags inside the trash bag had grease stains all over them)

This guy was a real a-hole and constantly got in TMs faces, would constantly remind TMs they weren't going anywhere because they didn't have a degree (funny because he didn't either), and basically just tried to make TMs feel horrible any chance he got.

The guy went from being thin and in shape when he first promoted and transferred to our store, to a giant pillsbury dough boy. I mean, I remember sitting at the computer next to him and looking over.... he just had rolls of fat on him that were coming out of his shirt. Must have been 500 pounds+ easy. (he was probably around 150 pounds when he was a regular TL to give you a perspective how much fast food eating they did) Eventually he was hospitalized after his ankle broke at work. (literally his ankle bones could not handle his weight and snapped)

The ETLs suffered a similiar obese fate, but didn't get it as bad as he did.
 
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At least you'll get your review; last year I never got one. Not as in got an unsatisfactory...just never received one. Did not get a review or a raise at all. Repeated questions as to where my review went were met with run around answers.
 
Softlines Owns My Soul said:
At least you'll get your review; last year I never got one. Not as in got an unsatisfactory...just never received one. Did not get a review or a raise at all. Repeated questions as to where my review went were met with run around answers.
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Are you sure? The lack of my merit increase would have been an instant call to the hotline... why did you drop the issue?
 
tellmeaboutatime said:
1st Key point- the review time lines are released to the ETL HR in January every year. The ETL-HR gives this information to all TLs (usually padding the dates to allow for late reviews) If the team lead knew they had a vacation coming up they could have partnered with the ETL-HR to get their reviews back first so they could be given prior to leaving.
2nd key point - Reviews should never be a surprise. The team member should already know how they are performing. The review is a more structured time to sit down and discuss the performance. It is a matter of respect. We expect our team members to come to work and perform they should expect us to take the time at least once a year to sit down and discuss that performance and if/how they can improve. If the TL follows the timeline there is no urgency, there is plenty of time to complete the reviews on time. Most tls have 5-10 to write and deliver, not including GS and flow team leads. It's all a matter of managing your workload.
A huge part of performance and retention is a team member feeling valued. These annual reviews are a part of that. They should be treated as an important part of leading a team, not a time consuming pencil pushing activity that really doesn't matter.
3rd key point - I can assure you I am a team lead and have owned various departments for 15 years. While it is true performance of the team is discussed in contribution meetings throughout the year and in merit meetings in Feb, the team lead does have a say in their team members ratings. The team lead should come prepared to fight for their team members ratings at the merit meetings. They should be able to back up why they think a team member deserves a certain rating. I would assume that you would expect your ETL to do the same for you.
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Man do you live in a world of roses and honey.

1) Yes, this would be ideal, and in a perfect world it would happen this way. It doesn't. Just like it would be ideal if we all followed best practice all the time, but we don't do that either b/c we don't have the time for it.

2) Ok, so what's your point? You seem to be arguing that:

A) A review shouldn't be a surprise. This suggests the OPs point is kind of moot, he knows how he's done, his TL isn't going to give him any major revelation of performance.

B) TMs feeling valued. They are valued... some of them... and some aren't. These reviews are useless pencil pushing, you'll never convince me otherwise. My TMs know how they're performing, I status with them, in some form or fashion, every week. They all pretty much knew what they were getting coming in to the review, and not one made a single objection (ok, one didn't like my wording on one section, but the point stands).

3) I fought for some TMs, I didn't for others. I had one that got an EX that should have gotten an O, but it still didn't get changed. I also had another with an E that should have received an EX, no change for that one either. ETLs control those ratings, or at least at my store they do. I can toss out all the metrics and facts I want, ETL > Me. I would expect my ETL to do the same for me, but that doesn't mean I blame her if my STL over-rules. I'll fight for my TMs, but that doesn't mean it'll matter a whole lot.
 
Actually, I like my team. They deserve a leader that respects them, and because of that they respect me back. Sure there are days no one wants to be at work, but we make the best of it. I am not a perfect leader, and I never claimed to be. I know what the job is,and I do it to the best of my ability. The day I do it half way is the day I give my notice.
If that means I live in world of roses and honey, so be it. I call it integrity.
 
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