MEGATHREAD 2018-2019 Store Modernization Megathread

[Hometransition]

Its

“Hi. I was hired two weeks ago and got 45 minutes of training. I’ll be your expert today. “

Its sad that we or new people are getting no training. You have people that don’t know what a racing is, don’t know what a capacity is and they cram it all on the shelf one way or the other because they hate backstocking, people that want to come to work to do a job and get paid not be responsible for a whole area know what Target lingo means, how to read a planogram and my list could go on and on. People need more then one day training to be experts of their area.

 

[Hometransition]

Too bad there's no Plano team or TL to fix that.

Or even a PMT that could fix it. That one will be a big fix because of all those heavy curtains; those will have to come down so that he can pull the pegboard up and put it back into place or he will take the peg hook and put it back.

 

[Tainted Kool aid]

Omg lol I rewatched this Titanic scene below and it has taken on a new meaning.

Pretend it's April 1st 2019

Replace the Titanic with your store number

Replace the iceberg with modernization

The crew are team members

The engine room is the backroom

The water is unworked freight and backstock

First officer William Murdoch is a TL

Thomas Andrews is any ETL in their office

The captain is your STL

Anyone else is a guest.

Now that I've painted the picture rewatch and laugh your ass off. Comedy is how I cope.

 

[qmosqueen]

anyone else have inventory the first week of April aka Modernization (of course we have been on Modernization for about 1 year now) and Inventory ,,, ouch !!

 

[band_rules16]

It’s your store. My store still carries these brands and they get shopped hard.

Right, but it still doesn't make sense!

 

[BoxCutter]

Omg lol I rewatched this Titanic scene below and it has taken on a new meaning.

Pretend it's April 1st 2019

Replace the Titanic with your store number

Replace the iceberg with modernization

The crew are team members

The engine room is the backroom

The water is unworked freight and backstock

First officer William Murdoch is a TL

Thomas Andrews is any ETL in their office

The captain is your STL

Anyone else is a guest.

Now that I've painted the picture rewatch and laugh your ass off. Comedy is how I cope.

And in the end, all us TMs are Jack, and upper management at HQ is Rose on the door!

 

[SugarSugar]

Come on Target, how you gonna take all our tubs and not send us more smart carts, flat beds, or u-boats. And you want us to be efficient? It been a week of constantly trying to find vehicles to put my shit.

 

[GlobalTL123]

And in the end, all us TMs are Jack, and upper management at HQ is Rose on the door!

Im ready to sink in that ice bath

 

[MiracleWorker]

BPs?

Business Partner

 

[busyzoningtoys]

Come on Target, how you gonna take all our tubs and not send us more smart carts, flat beds, or u-boats. And you want us to be efficient? It been a week of constantly trying to find vehicles to put my shit.

Lol people actually sent them back? 😂 I still have cardboard cages too 😍

 

[gsa4lyfe]

But they didn't take feedback. I know what the point of a pilot is. But target threatened to fire people during the pilot for questioning anything about the pilot. Questioning why something is not working or how it works during a pilot good feedback. It shows there may be something wrong. All the pilot did was see how low each store could push hours and still get by. If they actually cared about a guest first approach or to make sure this new process worked they would support it at least at roll out.

To be fair most of the “feedback” I’ve seen from people on here is everyone complaining about change and and not constructive criticism about the process it self. Feedback doesn’t include “this process sucks” “it’s never going to work” or “I like the old way better”. They definitely listened to legitimate criticism like how in the pilot Plano and pricing was 100% dissolved but in the actual rollout there are still presentation TMs but pricing is 100% dissolved or even little things like changing lead and leader back to TL and ETL. Criticism is small tweaks not throwing out the entire process.

 

[Tainted Kool aid]

To be fair most of the “feedback” I’ve seen from people on here is everyone complaining about change and and not constructive criticism about the process it self. Feedback doesn’t include “this process sucks” “it’s never going to work” or “I like the old way better”. They definitely listened to legitimate criticism like how in the pilot Plano and pricing was 100% dissolved but in the actual rollout there are still presentation TMs but pricing is 100% dissolved or even little things like changing lead and leader back to TL and ETL. Criticism is small tweaks not throwing out the entire process.

ASANTS which for a pilot is bad. The only reason ever given by STL why the process isn't working is that we need better talent. While yes some of my team needs switched, the majority of the hours go to my Rockstars busting their butt and still falling well short. No amount of money will be able to make people work faster than they are physically able to. Target looks at it as if for every raise they expect another hours worth of work to be done in a 4 hour shift. My team wants to succeed I want to succeed but a 3-4 hour shift can't do it and not giving anyone full time hours is a moral killer and forces actual talent out. All you end up with is kids living at home or sometimes adults that don't need benefits or hours to support themselves. Let's be honest not alot in that group are EXTRA motivated. That will be the future of Target's work force.

 

[gsa4lyfe]

ASANTS which for a pilot is bad

That’s why it was tested in many districts with different platforms. Small, chain, super, 1 floor , 2 floor, city targets? I’m not sure your point here

 

[Tainted Kool aid]

That’s why it was tested in many districts with different platforms. Small, chain, super, 1 floor , 2 floor, city targets? I’m not sure your point here

What is your point? We're you able to access all the feed back to know this was a successful pilot program? If one store is not giving feedback and saying all is good, there are definitely more. Your blind allegiance to modernization is the same reason why we were not able to discuss modernization at our store with out being fired. Like I've said before I'm all for change but when you say we are all about the guests, brand and being DBO's but not give any hours to support the new process it is flawed. I'm glad you are living the modernization dream and every process works like a charm but for my store and many others it is not. So don't be so dismissive. Again ASANTS

 

[gsa4lyfe]

What is your point? We're you able to access all the feed back to know this was a successful pilot program? If one store is not giving feedback and saying all is good, there are definitely more. Your blind allegiance to modernization is the same reason why we were not able to discuss modernization at our store with out being fired. Like I've said before I'm all for change but when you say we are all about the guests, brand and being DBO's but not give any hours to support the new process it is flawed. I'm glad you are living the modernization dream and every process works like a charm but for my store and many others it is not. So don't be so dismissive. Again ASANTS

Your only complaint is hours? Hours were an issue before hand so I’m not sure how you can blame modernization for that. I don’t have a blind allegiance to modernization and there’s definitely things I don’t love about it. I have an allegiance to my job and if my boss tells me this is how things are going to done well then that’s how I’m going to do it. It’s not a pilot anymore I don’t have the luxury to give feedback so I’ll do my best to work with what I have. My point and I’ll I’m trying to say is the only feedback I’ve seen on here is complaining about the entire process in its entirety and that’s not feedback. I’m not saying I’ve seen all the feedback and could tell you if they listened or not but I can see the differences between the pilot and the full rollout where there are clear differences that was more than likely feedback from some stores that they took into account.

 

[Tainted Kool aid]

Your only complaint is hours? Hours were an issue before hand so I’m not sure how you can blame modernization for that. I don’t have a blind allegiance to modernization and there’s definitely things I don’t love about it. I have an allegiance to my job and if my boss tells me this is how things are going to done well then that’s how I’m going to do it. It’s not a pilot anymore I don’t have the luxury to give feedback so I’ll do my best to work with what I have. My point and I’ll I’m trying to say is the only feedback I’ve seen on here is complaining about the entire process in its entirety and that’s not feedback. I’m not saying I’ve seen all the feedback and could tell you if they listened or not but I can see the differences between the pilot and the full rollout where there are clear differences that was more than likely feedback from some stores that they took into account.

It's not just hours, at many stores there are many reasons, different reasons. Most people that just say this sucks or it doesn't work maybe that's how they vocalize their frustrations and there are not big into writing paragraphs as we just did. It's not like corporate is gonna read our post and say you know what they might be on to something. We can continue our discussion during 4th quarter as this should be in full swing across the nation during the busiest time. If it ends up being great... awesome! I would concede but I can't yet since I've been part of this during 4th quarter last year. I've seen first hand the hell it brought to my store, my team and me. I am also a person that does what my boss or company says no matter how bad it may seem or I think. I get paid to work for Target so I do whatever they ask, but I hate seeing things the way they are so far.

 

[Frontlanegirl]

Since I am not big on writing full paragraphs, I will just state the issues that I see happening because of the new process. Mind you, we are a pilot store and have been in modernization mode for about a year. Empty shelves while product sits in the backroom, the backroom is a hazard and a damn obstacle course, being behind on markdowns, price changes and sales planners, product going to salvage without seeing the light of day, not enough staffing, etc. Big deal that we get to call them ETL's and TL's again, not that we ever stopped in our store.

 

[Ashfromoldsite]

Ask your stl if they could share what total store payroll looked like last Jan/feb. and compare it to this year. I bet it’s pretty similar, taking into account if you made sales or not. If not, of course it’s less. It’s just being divided out different this year because of modernization.

You also have to look at the fact that Easter is in April this year, not March. Payroll jumps 2 weeks before Easter. This year we had to wait longer.

In my store there are some Hardlines team members that are only getting 10 hours a week. Because they want to stay a Hardlines team member. They aren’t someone that stands out as a good freight worker. They just wander and do some reshop on occasion. So of course the Hardlines hours are going to the old “flow” team. They haven’t done anything about it in the last 3 months except whine and complain. They are still asking for the “old Hardlines” hours. They aren’t asking to push truck, sfs, they aren’t picking up shifts to try to prove themselves. They just constantly complain and expect their job to not change.

 

[graffiti]

All you end up with is kids living at home or sometimes adults that don't need benefits or hours to support themselves. Let's be honest not alot in that group are EXTRA motivated. That will be the future of Target's work force.

I'm seeing this too. 90% of my store is made up of kids who call out for half of their shifts, older TMs who are just waiting out retirement, and adults who have primary jobs elsewhere and just want to work their 4 hours and bounce. 5% is the assorted "favorites" who get the hours, days, and shifts they want every week, and the last 5% is the globally trained but scrounging for hours group.

 

[unknown]

I overheard an ETL tell the consumables tl that salesplanners have to get done. I almost laughed out loud. They can barely get the truck pushed. Backstock everywhere. The cold beer and ice cream were blocked by 4 pallets of water from the truck until AFTER 1PM!

 

[gsa4lyfe]

Since I am not big on writing full paragraphs, I will just state the issues that I see happening because of the new process. Mind you, we are a pilot store and have been in modernization mode for about a year. Empty shelves while product sits in the backroom, the backroom is a hazard and a damn obstacle course, being behind on markdowns, price changes and sales planners, product going to salvage without seeing the light of day, not enough staffing, etc. Big deal that we get to call them ETL's and TL's again, not that we ever stopped in our store.

To play devils advocate I’m not saying moderation is amazing and will do wonders and it’ll work no doubt about it. What I am saying though you’re blaming the process for a broken store. If you can use your store as an example as modernization being an extreme failure then the many store succeding can use their stores as proof it works. At this point I’m just not fully convinced the reason for failure in some stores is the process, I think a big portion of failure is TMs poor attitudes and inability to adapt. As @busyzoningtoys can attest to, a successful process has TMs who believe in it and a team that’s willing to adapt

 

[Black Sheep 214]

My team wants to succeed I want to succeed but a 3-4 hour shift can't do it and not giving anyone full time hours is a moral killer and forces actual talent out. All you end up with is kids living at home or sometimes adults that don't need benefits or hours to support themselves. Let's be honest not alot in that group are EXTRA motivated. That will be the future of Target's work force.

I'm seeing this too. 90% of my store is made up of kids who call out for half of their shifts, older TMs who are just waiting out retirement, and adults who have primary jobs elsewhere and just want to work their 4 hours and bounce. 5% is the assorted "favorites" who get the hours, days, and shifts they want every week, and the last 5% is the globally trained but scrounging for hours group.

I’m no fan of Modernization,but one major reason that Modernization is failing is because Corporate thinks that they can cost cut their way to success, and one of the ways they have chosen to cut costs is to cut payroll, and thus benefits, for team members. Complex processes need to be executed by well-trained, committed teams. Teams like Target had before Modernization, when Spot decided to drive them out just when they needed them most. Committed teams are built by giving people a reason to care whether or not the business is successful. People who get enough hours to live on and get benefits work hard to make the business successful because they need their jobs and don’t want to lose them. Experienced team members who have their hours severely cut and lose their benefits leave because they have to in order to make a living. Spot has already lost an army of hard-working experienced TMs that they needed to mitigate the damage caused by Modernization until corporate wakes up and smells the coffee. On the other hand, most kids, or adults, who are willing to work only four hours a week for pocket money have no stake in the business, are just there to get a paycheck, and they aren’t killing themselves to get it. You get what you pay for. This is Target’s team of the future and the future’s not looking too bright...

 

[gsa4lyfe]

The paper from corporate mentioned the new process working in only some stores, so it seems as though it's broken in most stores. I'd lean more towards the process being broken than the majority of stores being broken.

It makes zero sense that most, if not all stores can go from coming clean on almost every truck to having to roll trucks nearly every day. There's just no way that can be blamed on those stores. They already had a team that could do the job. Are we really supposed to believe otherwise? That the teams that always came clean before Modernization aren't actually good enough?

The stores that this works in are the exception, not the norm. They're the stores that had the bodies, payroll, and room to make it work. But not every store has those things. Most stores don't, because most stores were built around a completely different process.

And I'm sure that feedback was provided by pilot stores. "We don't have the room. We don't have the bodies. We don't have the payroll." My store isn't getting an expansion. My store isn't hiring. My store is still cutting payroll. Clearly corporate didn't listen to feedback to make this work. They're just forcing it through with disastrous consequences at the store level.

As you said the stores are built a certain way and it’ll take a huge 360 to retrain all these TMs. It’s not an overnight process (no pun intended) it’s a long process and resistance is killing the process. The store that succeed aren’t those in a fairytale land, they’re the stores that jump in head first, embrace all the changes and weed out the resistance. The process works. Also I would lean towards the majority of stores being broken. The stores have been broken since the majority of stores went away from overnight, not from modernization.

 

[BackroomOG14]

I believe the dedicated owner process can work and it is working in my store. The issue I have currently is why are they dismantling POG! This is going to be a disaster. You can't expect Johnny in pets to be able to set an 8 hour revision and get his 6 hours worth of push done? Dismantling POG is a bad call

 

[FlowTeamChick]

And I'm sure that feedback was provided by pilot stores.

Maybe. I kind of doubt it though. Not at a pilot store myself, but when I've been asked for feedback about whatever and provided it, I've found it to be a mistake. It's like being led into a trap. "Tell me what you think about __." really means "Tell me everything is great or hear a thousand reasons why you're wrong." It's pointless so why bother? It's so much easier to just agree.