Archived Average time for your team to warm up to a new TL?

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For a minimum of the last four months, our backroom has been without an official TL. Our ETL-Logistics or Flow TL would assume authority in the back, trying to keep everything running smoothly with mixed results, (many TM's wouldn't respect the Flow TL's authority as he had little knowledge of how things actually go down in our backroom).

This week, however, things changed. We found ourselves with a (still) very new, meek, and reserved Logistics TL with only two months of training via Spot. Upon first sight, many of us assumed that he was simply a TM from another store, simply helping us out as we finish our P-Fresh remodel. Upon introduction, however, we learned our assumptions were wrong. The entire Logistics team is still not sure what to think of this guy, (some are very confident that he won't even make it halfway through the 4th quarter). He supposedly graduated from a well-renowned military school/college recently and applied for an ETL position, but was offered the TL position instead because of his quiet and reserved manner. I can be the same way on certain days, though, so I recognize that many introverted people have the same (and sometimes, better) skills of their extroverted counterparts. I haven't worked directly with this person myself as of yet, and I have only observed him doing two things over the course of a week: backstocking and doing a business walk with our ETL-Log. So, yes, even I am wondering if he will last or not...

So, how long does it take your team to warm up to new "leaders", and so forth? Any unofficial 'tests' your team will put them through to see what they are really made of, etc. ?
 
Simple answer, have great numbers, respect & know your team, help out when needed, that is my daily test for new tm's.
 
Op and the backroom team at his store are children. Grow up, do your job and listen to what your TL tells you.
 
Honestly, this new TL sounds like he knows what he is doing so far... When a team is known to have culture issues (negative towards change, new leadership, full of know-it-alls), it is often advised to work your way in slow! Your new Log-TL is probably doing EXACTLY what the ETL-LOG has told him to do, which is to not make any changes or be too forceful with the backroom team... Target says at least the first 30 days to focus on getting to know everyone (while figuring out who your top performers, strongest supporters, and biggest problems are)... After this time period, you can focus on slowly changing and managing talent depending on who is giving the most trouble!
 
Taking time to get to know your team is a good idea, but just putting your head down and just back stocking and doing business walks is not doing that. Your new TL should be talking to each of his TMs, finding out who they are, asking them questions about what they think is working or not working, etc. He should also be watching the TMs and seeing how productive they are: checking the pull monitors, reviewing the backroom scores, etc. It's hard for someone new to Spot to come in, learn not only their positon but their TMs tasks as well. Many TL and ETLs are thrown in to a store these days with little or no real training on the hands-on tasks that TMs do. I started at a store that was a training store for ETLs and there would be a plan that was followed to expose them to all areas of a store and the duties that were done there. Now, they are just thrown in with little training or education. For example, we got assigned a new ETL who had to ask a TM where light-duty was!

Waiting 30-days to make changes is a good idea, as long as the TL is getting to know his TMs and how they work. Also, since the store is finishing up their P-Fresh remodel, upper management may think it better for the new TL to incorporate his changes with the changes that come with operating a P-Fresh store.

How long it takes a team to warm up to a new TL depends on a number of factors: how much he/she already knows, how open and easy it is for him/her to learn what he/she doesn't know, if they are willing to learn what they don't know from their TMs, the TLs general personality, if they are honest, if they give recognition, etc.

Our store doesn't have any un-official tests to see what a new TL or ETL is made of, Spots requirements of the postions plus the work centers DTK and Store Reports usually takes care of that.

My advice is try to get to know him a little, offer your help, and see how he does. In most cases it dosen't take that long for you and the rest of the store's team to find out what type of TL they have on their hands.
 
I haven't worked directly with this person myself as of yet, and I have only observed him doing two things over the course of a week: backstocking and doing a business walk with our ETL-Log.

How do you know he isn't interacting with his team and watching them while he works? Would his team respect him if he didn't work and simply stood around watching them backstock?
 
At my store we have a new STL, Senior TL, ETL Frontlanes, ETL AP, and 2 TL, me and the rest of my hardlines associates only do what our ETL hardlines says for us to do. The new Store team lead is from vegas and he has fired and replaced about 70% of the whole store. We usually try to get to know people and make things transfer smooth and lend some light since we have been a top store in the district for a while. The 2 new team leads are horrible though one is in charge of toy's electronics and seasonal and the other just domestics and they suck. Took one of them a full 8 to finish end cap audits for ad. and the other doesn't even know how the PDA works.
 
Mispic, same thing happened at my store. I have only 2 original etl's still here, everyone was fired or quit.
 
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