MEGATHREAD 2018-2019 Store Modernization Megathread

[GERTY]

Flash forward to Q4. Your frieght and pulls are massive. A bunch of seasonals are hired to help you. But, most of them are warm bodies who have no idea what they are doing no matter how many times you explain it to them. Your backroom area is overflowing with crap you don't have time or space to backstock. You're being screamed at every hour because your reshop bin is full again. Your zone looks like the inside of a hoarder's house. Flex is complaining to leaders that they can't find anything in your section. And, half your time is taken up answering guest questions. Oh, who is that you spot walking down the racetrack towards your section? Why it's DTL and HRBP in for a surprise visit.

I died. 😂 My store has the wonderful opportunity (as they like to call it) to have a visit nearly every day. They’re on the jet, and they’re on their way!

 

[NKG]

So before to get promoted to Senior you had to master your workcenter and be able to contribute to other areas of the store. Now that seniors are eliminated, what are they gonna be looking for from TL to ETL?

 

[15targetyears]

So before to get promoted to Senior you had to master your workcenter and be able to contribute to other areas of the store. Now that seniors are eliminated, what are they gonna be looking for from TL to ETL?

From what i hear the best way to get promoted now is being the closing team lead

 

[Xanatos]

So before to get promoted to Senior you had to master your workcenter and be able to contribute to other areas of the store. Now that seniors are eliminated, what are they gonna be looking for from TL to ETL?

Pretty much the same stuff that they’d look at if you were trying to promote to SrTL, but everything needs to be a step up. You’d need to have a great workcenter, but for the right reasons. If it’s great because you’re working your ass off, then that’s cool, you’re a great TL, but that style of leadership might not make a great ETL. Your workcenter needs to be great because of how well you get your team to perform, not because you’re carrying them to success.

 

[Little Mac]

Pretty much the same stuff that they’d look at if you were trying to promote to SrTL, but everything needs to be a step up. You’d need to have a great workcenter, but for the right reasons. If it’s great because you’re working your ass off, then that’s cool, you’re a great TL, but that style of leadership might not make a great ETL. Your workcenter needs to be great because of how well you get your team to perform, not because you’re carrying them to success.

This mentality is a joke, it should be based on individual performance at the TL level, and SrTL/ETL should be held to this expectation but honestly in the current environment its a joke to even expect that because morale is practically dead regardless of your efforts unless you manipulate and trick people which MANY of my locations managers have done in my experience.

Its borderline impossible to ethically get an entire team on board when the company is actively selling them a bad deal, and the practice of hiring active college students while being largely un-flexible both makes those people want to leave but also see no future with the company as a result. They can and often do take the first job offer from an external company as a result. From my experience most staff are getting 20 hours or less thanks to end to end, making them literally not care and they do the bare minimum while management whips away while getting nowhere. No amount of badgering will help motivate a team when the actual conditions and opportunities are terrible. the hours would not be that bad if you were rewarded with promotion for excellent work and could escape the terrible hours at the base level.

But at least from my experience they do everything in their power to avoid promoting the people who actually are qualified for the job and keep the place running, and instead hire management straight out of college, hire friends who have never worked for the company as management, or promote the biggest suck ups who basically struggle to even fill the role and rely on their team to do everything. So they good employees leave, and the unethical ones linger repeating the process over and over.

I wont lie, I wont sugar coat the reality everyone is faced with in this new model in my region/district to try to motivate them to get work done. That only ends in turnover when those promises go nowhere and the teams respect for your rapidly dies as the reality is quickly seen when nothing changes.

 

[Bluemoon]

I walked out of our meeting feeling good about most of the changes. Yes, we are to identify tm who have trouble with change (who will just complain and not make efforts to work with this) , work with those who have a lot of "inefficient" steps, uboats being smart sorted. Getting on best practice of stock, zone, backstock and scan. Where I'm nervous is adding in price change and revisions.
Reading some these posts I feel badly for those stores who are targeting people. It's about giving them straightforward information about their "new" job. Because we are all starting a new job.
It's going to take some time and there will be failure. It is "well that didn't work, let's try this" mentality. Metrics will go down for a bit but that's part of this shift of ownership. Through failure there is growth, that's how we get better at things.
I've been with Target for a few decades and have seen it evolve over the years. This is the biggest change ever and I'm up for the challenge.

 

[SilentCrow]

Post modernization you’re in the best role. Your job is to make sure people are smiling and friendly. That’s basically it. No more front end planos, pushing candy, or one spot ownership. Simple life. Wish I could go back now lol.

 

[FischerPrice74]

I wont lie, I wont sugar coat the reality everyone is faced with in this new model in my region/district to try to motivate them to get work done. That only ends in turnover when those promises go nowhere and the teams respect for your rapidly dies as the reality is quickly seen when nothing changes.

There has been so much turnover at our store and half of that comes from changing the truck from 4 AM to 6 AM. We're in a college town and we lost a lot of people who could do 4-8 for unload and flow, but can't do 6-10 Monday through Friday. It's basically all messed up because they want to save two hours of pay, when the 6-10 team member often stays until 10:45 anyway since they have to help guests.

 

[ntauctions]

There has been so much turnover at our store and half of that comes from changing the truck from 4 AM to 6 AM. We're in a college town and we lost a lot of people who could do 4-8 for unload and flow, but can't do 6-10 Monday through Friday. It's basically all messed up because they want to save two hours of pay, when the 6-10 team member often stays until 10:45 anyway since they have to help guests.

I took this job as a third shift position. Was getting 32-40 hours a week, often w overtime. Came in at 10 or 11, just before the store closed and we were always 'great by 8'. Then they pushed our start time to 3, then 4, now 6. Some days they have me coming in at 7, leaving at 11 and that's my whole week (1 day, 4 hours.) I don't know how they expect to find long term team members like they had and have now under these conditions. I'm hearing if you're good you'll get hours and if you suck you won't. Totally ok w that but I'm also hearing even if you're great don't expect over 20 a week. Target is expecting it's entire staff to bend over backwards and plan their lives around it, all to benefit the shareholder. And their reason is just to justify the $15/hour, which come soon in my state won't mean anything.

 

[TGTTGIF]

Post modernization you’re in the best role. Your job is to make sure people are smiling and friendly. That’s basically it. No more front end planos, pushing candy, or one spot ownership. Simple life. Wish I could go back now lol.

You also forget the strictness of post modernization..there’s no more cutting corners..catching someone ONCE not asking for red cards or not being the embodiment of guest service is immediate coachings. You gotta be able to stomach pushback and able to handle confrontation with your own team. Until the weak are weeded out through either performancing out or quitting, it’s gojng to be hell for the front end leadership.

 

[commiecorvus]

It's all about 4/1, baby.
So it belongs here.

 

[Yetive]

At least there will be 2 of you now.

 

[No I in Team]

They told us to write down the names of people who wont make it with the new expecations so they can be performanced out first. This is verbatim what my etl hr and stl said. I want to believe in modernization but if this is the mindset, no thanks.

That is so wrong on so many levels. That reads like "blacklisting".

 

[Mrt75]

So inbound just unloads truck then goes home in my store they unload then push pp1 pp2 but if they don’t unload and are scheduled pp1 do they just do pp1 then leave very confused how this is going to work

 

[Rolling CAFS]

Our meeting the STL literally just had us reading the damn thing out loud🤦🏻‍♀️ We lost no TL's but where we are double up...those will fill future needs in our store or other stores. You can only get scheduled under the area you're expected to be an expert of BUT if all has been done to cover shifts then going outside you're expertise may happen. They literally only want you to know your own area and eh with the rest.

 

[No I in Team]

Can't erase bias.

Whether anyone likes to acknowledge this or not, it will be the opportunity to just get rid of team members that a TL/ETL has friction with.

 

[ntauctions]

So inbound just unloads truck then goes home in my store they unload then push pp1 pp2 but if they don’t unload and are scheduled pp1 do they just do pp1 then leave very confused how this is going to work

In my store, a few months ago, all the uboats we're clean at 6am. Just had to get them lined up and by 630 the truck unload was underway. Recently however, and I'm not sure why, most of pp2 is still on the boats when we come in at 6. We spend a couple hours pushing and don't start the unload until 8. If it takes two hours it's 10 by that point and time for us to punch out. That leaves pp1 for dayside. No idea what's going on and I'm not sure if our leaders know either.

 

[No I in Team]

I heard target is preparing, ready, and anticipating a 50% employee turnover by June.

That's not good at all. You can't prepare for that,nor can you be ready for that type of loss. I've heard of a 20% loss and it dealt the organization a crippling blow. A 50% turnover may not be survivable for a retail store.

 

[No I in Team]

In my store, a few months ago, all the uboats we're clean at 6am. Just had to get them lined up and by 630 the truck unload was underway. Recently however, and I'm not sure why, most of pp2 is still on the boats when we come in at 6. We spend a couple hours pushing and don't start the unload until 8. If it takes two hours it's 10 by that point and time for us to punch out. That leaves pp1 for dayside. No idea what's going on and I'm not sure if our leaders know either.

We run into poor zone or "re-shop dump and run" from time to time and it grinds push to a crawl until zone can be resolved. Sometimes it makes absolutely no sense at all given that nothing else is going on.

 

[GreasyGary]

In my store, a few months ago, all the uboats we're clean at 6am. Just had to get them lined up and by 630 the truck unload was underway. Recently however, and I'm not sure why, most of pp2 is still on the boats when we come in at 6. We spend a couple hours pushing and don't start the unload until 8. If it takes two hours it's 10 by that point and time for us to punch out. That leaves pp1 for dayside. No idea what's going on and I'm not sure if our leaders know either.

My store is the same way. The difference for us is payroll. Not only were all the uboats clean, the line was set because we even had a backroom closer who could almost always set the line.

Even before Q4, it seemed like they had basically unlimited payroll to throw at the truck. I remember my ETL telling me something to that effect, probably because the process was new. But he said that at some point they'd probably want to reign that in, so I think a combination of that and the usual Q1 belt-tightening is causing the rollovers like we've been seeing.

 

[ntauctions]

My store is the same way. The difference for us is payroll. Not only were all the uboats clean, the line was set because we even had a backroom closer who could almost always set the line.

Even before Q4, it seemed like they had basically unlimited payroll to throw at the truck. I remember my ETL telling me something to that effect, probably because the process was new. But he said that at some point they'd probably want to reign that in, so I think a combination of that and the usual Q1 belt-tightening is causing the rollovers like we've been seeing.

I've been asking leadership at my store if modernization will eliminate the need to cut hours every January and they have no idea. Even if I get a consistent 30 it's not worth it to stay if a quarter of the year I'll only get 4.

 

[Mrt75]

So nobody knows if hours are going to be low with all this especially for inbound is this all speculation?

 

[SilentCrow]

You also forget the strictness of post modernization..there’s no more cutting corners..catching someone ONCE not asking for red cards or not being the embodiment of guest service is immediate coachings. You gotta be able to stomach pushback and able to handle confrontation with your own team. Until the weak are weeded out through either performancing out or quitting, it’s gojng to be hell for the front end leadership.

That’s what we already been doing though. Nothing has changed from the front besides less work and they’re not letting weak Front Leaders cruise on by.

 

[rog the dog]

Hours are going to be on the low side until Summer, even then they'll only really jump up when back to school starts. This is nothing new with Spot, and has nothing to do with modernization.

If you are one of the Team Members who excel in their work center and normally get high hours, I wouldn't worry about your hours getting cut unless you are refusing the new guidelines.

 

[ntauctions]

Hours are going to be on the low side until Summer, even then they'll only really jump up when back to school starts. This is nothing new with Spot, and has nothing to do with modernization.

If you are one of the Team Members who excel in their work center and normally get high hours, I wouldn't worry about your hours getting cut unless you are refusing the new guidelines.

I used to get 30, now I get 4. Two others who each got 40 get 12. All of us inbound have been asking for more but are told to expect our hours as thru are now. Both of those TMs are now looking for other jobs.