MEGATHREAD 2018-2019 Store Modernization Megathread

[unknown]

I don’t think Canada compares. Open 132 stores all at once and you’re bound to fail. I could have told you that

Well apparently the think tank in Minneapolis didn't think that. Either that or they wanted it to fail. Which is it?

I'm still waiting on your answer. Of course, you can choose to not answer.

 

[Vince]

I'm sure the guests won't mind waiting there all morning for you. Apparently, that's what Target expects.

My whole point is a have a lot bigger fish to fry throughout my work day. Helping at the lanes is least on my to do list especially when I know there are much less busy “Team Leads” that sometimes but not always ask me to take the call when I get back they are literally in the same spot having a useless conversation that is not work related.

 

[Vince]

My STL says it saves energy (less lights, less heat) to not have the team in overnight. Also they were able to do away with shift differential.

I’m not buying that. The lights stayhalf way on anyway. Target is never completely pitch black for security reasons. And the shift difference is 1 dollar. Let’s say we had 30 overnight tms (which is a huge stretch) they are saving 210 dollars a week... and losing possibly thousands with product not reaching the floor or being located in the back causing INF to go up thus losing sales. Not to mention how many guest that would normally walk down a certain isle and potentially buy something but see a TM with a vehicle pushing just skip the isle. Could be due to social anxiety or just not wanting to inconvenience the worker but still loss of a potential sale. This is just common sense people

 

[Rolling CAFS]

And what was the reasoning from going away from overnight?

According to my "Store Director" overnight ate up payroll and the hours used by that team didn't match up with the work done. He said and I quote " pushing isn't rocket science and they milked it". Our DTL then said it's business needs first so during business hours is when team needs to be scheduled.

 

[gsa4lyfe]

I'm still waiting on your answer. Of course, you can choose to not answer.

I don’t really think Canada has to do with the current topic and you bring it up too much. International business has its own issues and it was the first time target was venturing into that territory. This is not the first time target has gone through a large structure change. I don’t feel like getting into Canada because I feel like it’s your argument for everything and it’s obnoxious

 

[unknown]

I don’t really think Canada has to do with the current topic and you bring it up too much. International business has its own issues and it was the first time target was venturing into that territory. This is not the first time target has gone through a large structure change. I don’t feel like getting into Canada because I feel like it’s your argument for everything and it’s obnoxious

I bring up a corporate blunder that ended up losing billions of dollars and the goodwill of a whole nation too much? It hasn't even been a decade yet. That's hilarious. Of course you dont "feel" like getting into Canada. It's a legitimate comparison. You're right though, it was obnoxious blunder and so is this whole modernization thing. We disagree on it.

 

[HardlinesFlowter]

My store, we just keep the baler key (not attached to anything else) in the baler.

Exactly the same in mine too. Until someone loses it which is often.

 

[MajorChomp]

We just have a hltm do it

Our hrs does it on fridays

 

[Ashfromoldsite]

And what was the reasoning from going away from overnight?

To put the payroll when the guests are in the store.

 

[can't touch this]

Narrator: Little did Target know, every other retailer on Earth has an overnight process for a reason. By the time this was discovered, it was too late... *ominous intro music*

 

[GreasyGary]

To put the payroll when the guests are in the store.

This. I'm sure the 8% cut by dropping shift differential didn't hurt, but the big savings comes from eliminating the old salesfloor people who would do zoning/reshop/help guests and have them also push truck.

I think it's pretty obvious that that's their goal as they are also folding pricing and backroom into that workload and even tried to wedge plano in there.

What I don't understand is that there haven't been any increases in efficiency between the old process and the new process that would account for those salesfloor, backroom, and pricing hours going away and not being added on to the stocking shifts. Stockers are still just getting 4.5 hours and expected to do more.

I think this business owner thing has its merits - a person "owning" an area could help make sure items get to the floor, but only if they have the time to research outs, etc. Which is basically a pipe dream at this point. Plus not having a dedicated backroom team seems to be tanking location accuracy. I find so much stuff not scanned in that may have actually sold if it were located or put on the floor. At the very least, they need to schedule someone to occasionally go through and audit the backroom to find things like that.

It just seems that they've backed themselves into a corner with this $15/hr thing and are desperately trying to come up with a system that allows them to meet that promise without increasing labor cost.

 

[NightHuntress]

I’m not buying that. The lights stayhalf way on anyway. Target is never completely pitch black for security reasons.

If your lights are on halfway during the night your closing LOD is not turning them off. You are supposed to do it at the alarm panel when arming the building for the night. There are just a couple lights that stay on but the store does go dark. When the first person entering in the morning walks in they automatically kick on

 

[Vince]

According to my "Store Director" overnight ate up payroll and the hours used by that team didn't match up with the work done. He said and I quote " pushing isn't rocket science and they milked it". Our DTL then said it's business needs first so during business hours is when team needs to be scheduled.

That’s very disappointing to someone like me who never milked shit. I utalized every sec of working with no guest in the store and EVRERYTHING got done. And while pushing freight is not rocket science it’s more than just opening boxes and stocking the selfs. Knowing all of the department #’s, future Planograms , researching what sells, second locations and BRLA and detailed zoning was all a nightly goal for me and with all that time traning was more thorough.

 

[Vince]

If your lights are on halfway during the night your closing LOD is not turning them off. You are supposed to do it at the alarm panel when arming the building for the night. There are just a couple lights that stay on but the store does go dark. When the first person entering in the morning walks in they automatically kick on

I exaggerate “half on” I suppose. But they few that stay on are the same as the ones that would stay on during overnight shifts. The lights were never on all the way overnight. And I am the first person to walk in at 3:25 am with my ETL. Lights are exactly the same

 

[gsa4lyfe]

If your lights are on halfway during the night your closing LOD is not turning them off. You are supposed to do it at the alarm panel when arming the building for the night. There are just a couple lights that stay on but the store does go dark. When the first person entering in the morning walks in they automatically kick on

You must be an old store because every store I’ve worked in the lights are controlled by FMOC and are automated by your stores closing time. The lights should be at 25% after store close. I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure every store went digital last summer when they installed LED lights in every store

 

[band_rules16]

According to my "Store Director" overnight ate up payroll and the hours used by that team didn't match up with the work done. He said and I quote " pushing isn't rocket science and they milked it". Our DTL then said it's business needs first so during business hours is when team needs to be scheduled.

So all 1,850 stores milked it and that's why we went to this? Everyone at my store has said how terrible Q4 was and we aren't fully modernized yet. We're also currently buried in softlines freight (which isn't their fault). There are NO HOURS. I feel like the claim of the hours for backroom/pricing/plano getting put into general merchandise is false. (Also - anyone else being buried in softlines freight? The amount that sits in the backroom would mean that softlines would be near empty, but it's not.)

 

[BackroomOG14]

So all 1,850 stores milked it and that's why we went to this? Everyone at my store has said how terrible Q4 was and we aren't fully modernized yet. We're also currently buried in softlines freight (which isn't their fault). There are NO HOURS. I feel like the claim of the hours for backroom/pricing/plano getting put into general merchandise is false. (Also - anyone else being buried in softlines freight? The amount that sits in the backroom would mean that softlines would be near empty, but it's not.)

Ours was bad 2 weeks ago. At one point we had to put pallets in an empty trailer until they could get it broken out.

 

[FlowTeamChick]

cannibalize your sales floor

Exactly. Heard over the walkie yesterday when one of our SFS pickers was looking for a large quantity of a certain product in cosmetics (probably for a re-seller) and had to take everything off the shelf plus much of what came in on the truck that day. There was some left for in-store guests, but not much. Get enough people shopping in the store and unable to make their purchases enough times, that business will be lost and likely lost permanently.

 

[flow4areasonuno]

Ours was bad 2 weeks ago. At one point we had to put pallets in an empty trailer until they could get it broken out.

I feel sorry for our softlines breakout TMs. That's all they do, all day, for 5 hours. Used to be they would hang up stuff and sort the non-hanging back into the repacks, which would be pushed by other people. Now they have to breakout for all of softlines into specific shelved vehicles, with half the amount of people. They never even leave the backroom--and naturally this creates a huge bottleneck in two places

And sometimes shit gets piled up anyway because we're all on 5 hour shifts, no going over

 

[FlowTeamChick]

My STL says it saves energy (less lights, less heat) to not have the team in overnight. Also they were able to do away with shift differential.

I call BS on that energy-savings "reason." The lights are on only halfway and they're high efficiency fluorescents anyway. And I'm pretty sure the heat wasn't turned up to the level it is when the store is open - which didn't really matter because flow isn't exactly sitting-down kind of work.
The shift differential though, I expect that's really what it's about.

 

[Black Sheep 214]

The only time my store pushes anything close to overnight is Thanksgiving week. 12AM a couple times, then back to 4...but this year, who knows? Can you just imagine trying to push during Q4 with this system?

The straw that will break the camel’s back is coming and it’s name is 4th quarter...soon to be set up by it’s companion Back-to-School...

 

[flow4areasonuno]

I call BS on that energy-savings "reason." The lights are on only halfway and they're high efficiency fluorescents anyway. And I'm pretty sure the heat wasn't turned up to the level it is when the store is open - which didn't really matter because flow isn't exactly sitting-down kind of work.
The shift differential though, I expect that's really what it's about.

I know at my store they don't turn on the heat at all until opening hours

The straw that will break the camel’s back is coming and it’s name is 4th quarter...soon to be set up by it’s companion Back-to-School...

Can't wait. Hope to be gone before this shit show comes on though, so I can watch from a distance.

 

[Tainted Kool aid]

I bring up a corporate blunder that ended up losing billions of dollars and the goodwill of a whole nation too much? It hasn't even been a decade yet. That's hilarious. Of course you dont "feel" like getting into Canada. It's a legitimate comparison. You're right though, it was obnoxious blunder and so is this whole modernization thing. We disagree on it.

I agree if they stumble so badly into Canada why are we to just to assume everything is gonna go perfect this time. The argument is not about Canada, it's about planning, organization and overall common sense in rolling out HUGE company changes. To fail on the scale of modernization would be catastrophic to Target. in the end Brian Cornell with many other executives have golden parachutes so why would they care. Just like steinhoffel. if they cared so much they would take pay cuts first before cutting hours of stores. What's Brian getting now a days $20 million a year? Maybe more

 

[The Dude Abides]

I agree if they stumble so badly into Canada why are we to just to assume everything is gonna go perfect this time. The argument is not about Canada, it's about planning, organization and overall common sense in rolling out HUGE company changes. To fail on the scale of modernization would be catastrophic to Target. in the end Brian Cornell with many other executives have golden parachutes so why would they care. Just like steinhoffel. if they cared so much they would take pay cuts first before cutting hours of stores. What's Brian getting now a days $20 million a year? Maybe more

The entire point of this is to free up capital for more stock buy backs. Long term profitability does not matter, it's all about short term stock price increases.

 

[unknown]

I agree if they stumble so badly into Canada why are we to just to assume everything is gonna go perfect this time. The argument is not about Canada, it's about planning, organization and overall common sense in rolling out HUGE company changes. To fail on the scale of modernization would be catastrophic to Target. in the end Brian Cornell with many other executives have golden parachutes so why would they care. Just like steinhoffel. if they cared so much they would take pay cuts first before cutting hours of stores. What's Brian getting now a days $20 million a year? Maybe more

The last estimate I saw for our dear CEO was total compensation of $19.2 million.