Archived Asking other Presentation Team Leads - Adjacency Calendar Questions

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How much of a discrepancy is there between your adjacency calendar and what your team is actually allocated? A lot, a little, the new releases revisions? I ask because of a number of reasons, more details below.

First off, I've been in this position since middle of November. I have trained at another store and been support help at a third. Both of the other stores had hours scheduled similar to their adjacency calendars. My store is overnight, one of the stores I went to is not overnight, but was for their retrofit, and the store I trained at was overnight as well.

So my store has had some serious issues with presentation team lately. A little over a month ago now, two team members were let go, one for NCNS (saw this one coming months ago) and one for, "a policy violation." The NCNS was not a big deal as all he did was handle the pulls and backstock, and slowly at both (he was on final for multiple CCAs), but the other TM was a shock to say the least. He was always one of the better workers, and things always got done.

About the same time that this happened, we got a new softlines ETL (new to being ETL, new to our store, been with the company for a while) who wanted to get the softlines hours back (my team was doing the tables, convertibles, etc since before I was PTL). She ended up getting them back for the next schedule. That schedule, my team had less hours than ever before and certainly far less than the adjacency calendar indication. My team is doing all the SPLs, all the pulls, all the backstocking, all the clearance remerch, all the push, all the setting and we are getting virtually nothing compared to what the adjacency says.

The schedule where we were severely cut (mentioned above) was the week of Lawn & Patio setting. I know I'm not alone in stating that L&P takes a lot to set, but we had less than half the adjacency hours for the week and New Releases was fairly large. This week and last week we have cosmetics and haircare resets (respectively). I don't remember the numbers off hand for last week's set, but this week we had 150 hours allocated to us and the cosmetics transition alone was slated for 235.8 hours on the adjacency. Furthermore, I had been told that all of the softlines POGs/REVs were going to be taken care of dayside by team members scheduled under "Zone". Okay, fine, I can deal with those being scheduled funny. But even then, there were only 198 hours there and approximately 300 hours of work there (discounting what should be softlines team's responsibility).

So right before I had to punch out to avoid OT I was having a chat with the ETL-SL who stated to me that the Store Specific Adjacency Calendar is supposed to be starting from scratch, including building the gondolas. This sounds to me like complete and utter BS and I did everything but call her out on it pointing out that both the other stores that I've been to have been getting close to their adjacency calendar's hours.

Oh, and, as if that weren't enough, we've had three visits (at least) in the past couple months and on every one, Transitions or signing has been an opp, but I can't get enough hours for the team to get TWT to 80%, muchless 95%, and the signing seems regularly capped at 30 hours (plus we don't have a bona fide signing specialist yet, working to get the guy who's doing the job properly trained, but that's a different issue for a different topic).

The thing that truly kills me about all this is that, on Wednesday night (which was my night off this week), my ETL was asking my team members if they could come in for another night, but all of them are already maxed out due to the fact that they get picked up by backroom or flow team when they're not in presentation because they are some of the hardest workers on overnight.

So this brings me back to my original question, how big is the discrepancy for others?

As an aside, I've tried to status with my ETL about half a dozen times in the past month (yes I'm talking February's status), but every time we're supposed to do it, he either has a schedule change or comes in late. I haven't seen hide nor hair of my ETL more than three times in two weeks. Am I correct in feeling a little shafted on this one?
 
Sounds like it. A few more questions. Have you express your concerns to your Stl? Do you know if sl has any brand specialists doing those tables? Hltl's should be doing salesplanners & clearance too. Your signing person can help you out too.
 
Yes, I have expressed concerns to my STL once or twice, but I'm planning on doing so again shortly. SL is doing their tables more and more within their regular day, so that's a big improvement. Again, not having a signing specialist and not having anywhere near the hours needed to get signing done to begin with doesn't help.

The thing that kills me is the comment from my ETL-SL about the adjacency calendar taking into effect the building of the gondolas. That sounds outrageous to me, or is that actually the case?
 
You should look into having an MMB (entertainment) team member to set all those new releases/revisions on monday and tuesday mornings. Give them salesfloor hours.
 
At my store I regularly email the STL on Mondays so that she knows how many hours Adjacency Calendar says it should take and what the major resets are going to be and she tries to give me as much as she can.
If you hit the "i" button on Adjacency Calendar it will break down how the hours are supposed to come from, I've never heard of time to rebuild gondolas.

Signing will always get allocated 30 hours by HQ regardless of workload, you just need to find the right candidate for the job and get them trained up with someone experienced. There is no amount of computer training that can relate to the various activities Signing has to be able to figure out, it is one of those jobs where you constantly have to make your own fix. It's always fun to do 70 hours of Signing workload in a 30 hour week, luckily you'll get a 12 hour workload shortly after.

New Release we normally allocate 4 POG hours and the rest salesfloor for the brand TM to set on Monday nights, he's very good at what he does though. This week was 18 hours worth of Entertainment and he got it done in one night (with only 1 other HL closer on the floor).
We also have the Electronics brand TM do the Video Game revisions on Monday mornings.

This week I was about 100 hours short scheduled vs adjacency calendar, but we still ended up getting it accomplished since we ended up getting to go overnight for part of the week.
 
You should look into having an MMB (entertainment) team member to set all those new releases/revisions on monday and tuesday mornings. Give them salesfloor hours.

I'm not sure what volume OPs store is, but at our ULV this does not and cannot happen with our payroll and lack of experienced TMs.

I'm not the POGTL, but have been allocating their workload for them over the last couple of weeks since the TL just up and quit. We are also having the exact same staffing issues (termed TMs back to back!) Our plano hours scheduled are ONLY covering the hours of POGs. No salesplanners, revisions, signing, etc... and even then there is the problem of scheduling TMs with absolutely NO plano experience (to fill the role of "warm body taking up schedule slot") who make a 1.5 hour POG take 3. Salesfloor TLs are consistantly rushing to finish up on Fridays and Saturdays. It's not pretty.
 
At my ULV store we still have our former Entertainment Specialist (Now TM obviously). This person works 2 full shifts with presentation hours to complete all the entertainment revisions and pogs, reguardless of fluctuating workload. If he finishes early he will help the rest of the time. We also have a dedicated revision TM who works on revisions starting monday and once finished at any point in the week joins the rest of the team.
We get the hours that are listed under Presentation Set hours+ a few more to complete sales planners, however not all. If the calendar says there are 50 hours for sales planners, we might get about 10.
In the 3 years ive worked at this store the sales floor team leads have never done a single sales planner and im willing to bet they dont even know how.
On the softlines side our SLTL and Brand TM are responsible for the POGS and Adjacencies. They are listed as "Softlines" shifts when they are working on this, which is always Tuesdays. Our Softlines brand TM and TL work on the POGS throughout the entire week as time allows them. We only do the SL revisions on plano.
We did all 6am shifts this week for cosmetics and even finished most of stationery for next weeks workload.
TL;DR We get the number of hours allocated to Presentation sets under the adjacency calendar+ a handful for completing the weeks sales planners.
 
this week our calendar had 498 hours. we got 210 + 32 hours for signing. we set everything in the store except tables and checklane endcaps. we pull, push, backstock, ptm/clearance. it's ridiculous. i have to battle every single week to get the stl to come off payroll. it got to the point i was approaching him monday, wanting to know what he forecasted into max, then following up via the weekly scheduling dashboard. the hl etl was giving all our hours to sf (which doesn't even do planners----what exactly do they do now all day long at my store??). i also printed the adjacency spreadsheet for the year that breaks down the workload by week. still battling payroll. it's getting better though. i think he's just tired of getting a lecture every week ;)
 
I am astonished at how many of you pull and backstock in your hours. Our backroom pulls all salesplans and POGS. The flow team backstocks all of it. They even backstocked the 3 cartfulls of loose cosmetics the POG team just tossed into the carts. No rubber banding no organization at all.I lost quite a bit of respect for that team after this reset because of their total disregard of another workcenter.
 
I am astonished at how many of you pull and backstock in your hours. Our backroom pulls all salesplans and POGS. The flow team backstocks all of it. They even backstocked the 3 cartfulls of loose cosmetics the POG team just tossed into the carts. No rubber banding no organization at all.I lost quite a bit of respect for that team after this reset because of their total disregard of another workcenter.

You just described my day!! I had my backroom team pull plano's batches so meticulously for easy filling, and then we got carts of absolute torturous messes in return for backstock. Yarrg!
 
If my plano team every delivered backstock that was unorganized, had fixtures, clearance, etc, then our ETL-LOG would be on our ass until we did it and tell his BR team to refuse to backstock it until someone comes and cleans it up. We get clean organized pulls from them, the expectation is we do the same with backstock.
 
The thing that kills me is the comment from my ETL-SL about the adjacency calendar taking into effect the building of the gondolas. That sounds outrageous to me, or is that actually the case?

Definitely not the case. If you pull up the i-button and the best practice documentation, you can see exactly what the hours account for: clearing off merchandise, removing fixtures, cleaning, putting fixtures back up, putting labels up, pulling, stocking, signing. Not remerchandising, not backstocking, and certainly not building gondolas. In fact the best practice also indicates that the sales floor team should be clearing merchandise out of the aisles that are to be set the next day/night as part of their closing routine, but good luck getting that one to happen if your store doesn't already do it.
 
If my plano team every delivered backstock that was unorganized, had fixtures, clearance, etc, then our ETL-LOG would be on our ass until we did it and tell his BR team to refuse to backstock it until someone comes and cleans it up. We get clean organized pulls from them, the expectation is we do the same with backstock.

Bless you. I guarantee your backroom team is eternally grateful :)
 
It has been a constant struggle for me since I took the position. I don't know if anyone ever noticed, but the hours for revisions do not drop in until a week before the sets. So when the ETL/STL is allocating payroll, most revision hours are not accounted for yet. I've been through 3 ETLs and 2 STLs and have explained this several times, asking for a few more hours to cover that time that drops in afterwards. I think I've gotten them once.
The MMB TM completes all revisions for that area, but my team completes the video game revisions. I schedule the MMB TM under presentation hours to complete the revisions.
Also, my team doesn't set salesplanners, or softlines revisions or POGS (tables), nor are we given 'extra' hours to complete them -- softlines complete them all.
As far as presentation workload, at my store, if i'm lucky the backroom will pull a pog fill or two, but most of the time is it up to my team to pull them. We also do our own backstock. However, we do not remerchandise clearance. That is up to the salesfloor to complete.
 
What we started at my store a couple years ago for pulls:

The day before we tie and drop all of the following days pulls into the gun as early as we can and name them so that the backroom knows they're for tomorrow. That allows the backroom to work on getting them pulled during any slow time in the afternoon and keeps there from being anyone bugging them asking if the pulls are ready yet.
 
Yeah, my team doesn't get the fortune of having the backroom or flow teams' help much at all. We do a decent level of volume (not really sure what rank we are, but we outsell nearly every store in the area and we're not a supertarget) so flow is always pretty busy, and, as of lately, we're getting virtually no support from anyone dayside.

Can someone tell me how to get to the i-button so I can provide ample documentation on this the next time that I speak with the SL ETL and not just anecdotal evidence, I'd appreciate it. Meanwhile, I'll follow through on her recommendations and show that the hours I invest in organizing are merely being taken away from my team's productivity at this point (I have a great team that knows what needs to get done and works well, and in this light I'm very lucky).

Regardless, I'm starting to consider a transfer. Target was never intended to be my career path, but if I can't get my store changing these bad practices that they're in such habits of doing, I'm going to look to leave this store. Right now I've got some bites at other jobs that are in my career path of choice, but I really want this fixed for my team (like I said, a great team, bunch of great people that get no recognition from dayside at all) before I leave, or at least improving.
 
I would say that there is probably a lot going on in your store and it will be difficult for us to see it without actually being there... Talk to your STL, who is the one who allocates your hours, and find out where they are going! Just say you want to be able to speak to it with your team and your peers and right now you feel you can't! There are lots of reasons an STL might not allocate you the full amount on the calendars...

Also, this is a test for a leader... Being resilient and adaptable right now is extremely important and the #1 thing I think you need to personify in this difficult situation! If you were to become an ETL and they wanted you to go into a red scoring store and help fix it, they would want to be able to see you can handle these major workloads not getting done (at least for a while) until you could fix them! Its difficult to repair a major process like a truck or presentation (sometimes taking up to a year or more to fix) but how you handle yourself through it is whats most important!
 
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