Call Out Accountability

[SuperTarget]

At my store team members have gotten too comfortable with some past leadership that was very lenient on attendance issues.

Since then the store director and ETL HR have been replaced and we are really cracking down on it. HR manages an email thread with the team leaders of attendance conversations that need to happen. We have been PDD’ing these for a while now and as a store have drastically reduced the number of attendance conversations. My store was one of the highest in the district for attendance.

For call outs they basically start as a seek to understand conversation but what things are other leaders looking for to elevate these to PDDs. My team loves to use the “I was sick” excuse. Are you excusing these at all or requiring they use sick time to cover the absence.

My team is expected to post shifts and get them covered or ask for the time off with enough notice. I don’t tolerate call outs as it impacts the guest and puts increased workload on the team.

Any pointers on how I can still be fair to the team member but also hold them accountable to ensure the needs of the business are being met.

 

[allnew2]

It’s not your job to ensure they use their sick hours . And it’s their responsibility to cover their shift .
Fair is being to your other tm that do show up and pick up someone else’s slack . Believe me the tm that do show up and see nothing is being done to these tm will surely not feel very appreciated by their leaders .
I excuse nothing when I see a pattern in a certain tm and for that reason alone they are on final and some will be let go this week.
I understand life happens and people get sick but if you see a pattern that’s just the tm saying F u you won’t do anything because no one did before .

 

[SuperTarget]

It’s not your job to ensure they use their sick hours . And it’s their responsibility to cover their shift .
Fair is being to your other tm that do show up and pick up someone else’s slack . Believe me the tm that do show up and see nothing is being done to these tm will surely not feel very appreciated by their leaders .
I excuse nothing when I see a pattern in a certain tm and for that reason alone they are on final and some will be let go this week.
I understand life happens and people get sick but if you see a pattern that’s just the tm saying F u you won’t do anything because no one did before .

Yeah one of my team members said “that’s not fair” when I put in a PDD for attendance and I just replied “it’s not fair that you call out and put extra work on the rest of the team” and it was crickets from that team member. That PDD still got put in. This team member had 4 attendance occurrences in a period of 3 weeks so I didn’t have much forgiveness.

 

[allnew2]

Yeah one of my team members said “that’s not fair” when I put in a PDD for attendance and I just replied “it’s not fair that you call out and put extra work on the rest of the team” and it was crickets from that team member. That PDD still got put in. This team member had 4 attendance occurrences in a period of 3 weeks so I didn’t have much forgiveness.

Just make sure you don’t put in any more pdds for attendance for this tm . The only way you going to get them to a CA.
Every time you put a new pdd it will start the time all over again . Like you didn’t give them time to improve .

 

[SuperTarget]

Just make sure you don’t put in any more pdds for attendance for this tm . The only way you going to get them to a CA.
Every time you put a new pdd it will start the time all over again . Like you didn’t give them time to improve .

Alright so straight to CA next time. And then it would go to a final if it happens while they are still on CA. I’m done giving chances

 

[Yetive]

Your HR can tell you if there is enough for the next step. They need to see if sick time was used and if the Pdds are ok.

 

[allnew2]

Alright so straight to CA next time. And then it would go to a final if it happens while they are still on CA. I’m done giving chances

Pretty much as long as your pdds have the consequences in it . It can’t be something like “ today I spoke with so and so about attendance …. So and so said they understood “. It has to show behavior impact and consequences, such as if your attendance doesn’t improve it will lead to corrective action up to including termination .
After that you let it be for a while and then a week or 2 you pull attendance again and if it hasn’t improved you go to hr lates , call outs with no sick hours will add to a ca . After the ca is approved you deliver and say again to the tm any lates or call outs from this day forward will be a final .

 

[allnew2]

Your HR can tell you if there is enough for the next step. They need to see if sick time was used and if the Pdds are ok.

Depends on the state they can only use certain amount of hours in a year . If sick wasn’t used when op goes to hr is on .
Yes tm Can use sick hour later on if they didn’t do it the week they call out , but if you are me and you catch them before they use it sucks for them .

 

[gracefulfillment]

Any absence covered by sick time is excused.
Any left early with my permission I'll excuse.
For everything else, HR regularly pulls the attendance. If your name is on it 2+ times, it's a coaching. Enough times is CA. And so on.

 

[Frontlanegirl]

I wish my leaders were like you guys. I am a HRE and it’s amazing how many team members are constantly late and absent and no follow through happens. Every day I print out lates and absences and they are sent to all leaders; It’s always the same names.

 

[Dream Baby]

At my store they are so afraid that they can't replace a TM that there is no accountability for excessive call-outs or lateness.

By not doing that it causes the good workers to leave.

 

[FlowTeamChick]

At my store they are so afraid that they can't replace a TM that there is no accountability for excessive call-outs or lateness.

Up until very recently, this has been the attitude at my store. We do have some TMs with legit issues (their own health or a seriously ill immediate family member) but a lot of it isn't. Conversations are taking place with problem TMs. And we're hiring some new TMs.

 

[SuperTarget]

I’m a new leader for Specialty Sales for Home and Seasonal and since I took over we have made a lot of progress but attendance continues to be a challenge.

When I took over I had a level-set conversation with all my team members regarding the expectations and re-explained the process for requesting time off or swapping shifts. I have been documenting these attendance occurrences and emailing them to my ETL-SS and we have been having conversations with these TMs. My ETL-HR is aware of the pattern from a few of these TMs and is fully supporting me in terms of pushing these issues to the next step. I am also trying to be as understanding as possible but not making excuses for these TMs. My TMs know that I won’t play favorites and it’s my job to look out for the business and ensure workload is being completed and attendance has a big impact on that. I have two TMs which are currently in the “quiet quitting” stage where they are only doing the bare minimum and not bringing any value to my team. My ETL-SS is going to aggressively hire to find new talent for these areas and move these TMs to inbound which will most likely result in a cut to the number of hours they will be getting.

They refuse to have any weekend availability, help in other areas, support fulfillment, and want to work no more than 6 hours a day. They have gotten these exceptions from previous leadership and it realistically doesn’t fit the staffing needs of my area.

Edit: I should be clear they have a split shift with Inbound currently. Where the first two hours of their shift is unload and then they switch to Specialty to push. So I get roughly 4 hours out of them give or take meals and breaks. I plan to cut their Specialty hours completely once we hire new TMs and move them back under the ETL-GM for just strictly inbound.

 

[allnew2]

My ETL-SS is going to aggressively hire to find new talent for these areas and move these TMs to inbound which will most likely result in a cut to the number of hours they will be getting.

That is not fair , give your problem away to a different work center ? Do the job and get them out , not give your problem to a new lead . And if I was the inbound lead at your store I would say no thank you , especially with not working the weekends where most of the call outs happen .
You can cut their hours too .

 

[Dream Baby]

That is not fair , give your problem away to a different work center ? Do the job and get them out , not give your problem to a new lead . And if I was the inbound lead at your store I would say no thank you , especially with not working the weekends where most of the call outs happen .
You can cut their hours too .

At my store they promoted a TM back to a TL after stepping down several years ago.

Whether that TL is qualified or not it just seems lazy for our store do this. Then again maybe no one wanted to do it because our store is so understaffed.

Secondly If I was "on the bench" to become a TL in my district I would be really pissed that happened.

Conveniently this newly promoted back TL person is married to my former TL that no longer works at Target.

 

[commiecorvus]

At my store they promoted a TM back to a TL after stepping down several years ago.

Whether that TL is qualified or not it just seems lazy for our store do this. Then again maybe no one wanted to do it because our store is so understaffed.

Secondly If I was "on the bench" to become a TL in my district I would be really pissed that happened.

Conveniently this newly promoted back TL person is married to my former TL that no longer works at Target.

We had a TL who was pregnant so she stepped down to very part time TM, maybe once or twice a month.
After a year or so she went to regular hours TM and when a spot opened up they made her a TL again.
I have issues with this but I can see why they went that route.

 

[allnew2]

We had a TL who was pregnant so she stepped down to very part time TM, maybe once or twice a month.
After a year or so she went to regular hours TM and when a spot opened up they made her a TL again.
I have issues with this but I can see why they went that route.

I don’t know how they allowing this . One of my tl just demoted and I transferred them to a new store as a tm .

 

[commiecorvus]

I don’t know how they allowing this . One of my tl just demoted and I transferred them to a new store as a tm .

They probably went with it because their other option was holding the TL job open for her while she dealt with the medical issues she was having while pregnant and the maternity leave she would get afterwards.
This way they could fill the position.
I'm glad she could trust them to not screw her on getting her back into a TL position once she was ready but I can see a lot of stores where this could have gone horribly wrong.

 

[happygoth]

At my store they promoted a TM back to a TL after stepping down several years ago.

Whether that TL is qualified or not it just seems lazy for our store do this. Then again maybe no one wanted to do it because our store is so understaffed.

Secondly If I was "on the bench" to become a TL in my district I would be really pissed that happened.

Conveniently this newly promoted back TL person is married to my former TL that no longer works at Target.

We had a TL who was pregnant so she stepped down to very part time TM, maybe once or twice a month.
After a year or so she went to regular hours TM and when a spot opened up they made her a TL again.
I have issues with this but I can see why they went that route.

At Sears I stepped down from salaried manager to hourly to regular employee and back up to hourly manager. Happened in various ways with other leaders too.

Speaking from the other side, it's sooo much easier to put someone in a position that already knows most of what is required for the job.

 

[SuperTarget]

That is not fair , give your problem away to a different work center ? Do the job and get them out , not give your problem to a new lead . And if I was the inbound lead at your store I would say no thank you , especially with not working the weekends where most of the call outs happen .
You can cut their hours too .

The situation here is kind of unique. This TM is coded as an Inbound Expert and was using GM hours to push Storage up until May when our store added me as an additional TL for Specialty and we started charging their hours out of the Style bucket for push. They still technically fall under the ETL-GM in Workday being coded as Inbound Expert. Since this TM has no interest in meeting the needs of the business for Specialty sales we decided not to schedule these hours to this TM in the near future. The ETL-GM wanted to continue to keep them for Inbound which is the reason why HR never moved them fully under Specialty and we are keeping them as an Inbound Expert just pulling the Style hours

 

[Rarejem]

The situation here is kind of unique. This TM is coded as an Inbound Expert and was using GM hours to push Storage up until May when our store added me as an additional TL for Specialty and we started charging their hours out of the Style bucket for push. They still technically fall under the ETL-GM in Workday being coded as Inbound Expert. Since this TM has no interest in meeting the needs of the business for Specialty sales we decided not to schedule these hours to this TM in the near future. The ETL-GM wanted to continue to keep them for Inbound which is the reason why HR never moved them fully under Specialty and we are keeping them as an Inbound Expert just pulling the Style hours

Well, that seems fair to the Style tm's who are getting their hours cut to accommodate a tm that doesn't want to meet the needs of the business.

 

[allnew2]

The situation here is kind of unique. This TM is coded as an Inbound Expert and was using GM hours to push Storage up until May when our store added me as an additional TL for Specialty and we started charging their hours out of the Style bucket for push. They still technically fall under the ETL-GM in Workday being coded as Inbound Expert. Since this TM has no interest in meeting the needs of the business for Specialty sales we decided not to schedule these hours to this TM in the near future. The ETL-GM wanted to continue to keep them for Inbound which is the reason why HR never moved them fully under Specialty and we are keeping them as an Inbound Expert just pulling the Style hours

Okay . Does etl gm owns the push ? If so then the hours would come from gm .
However if you guys are still on modernization and this tm was a dbo for plastic the hours should technically come from specialty.
The reason why I ask who owns the push erl gm or etl ss?

 

[SuperTarget]

Okay . Does etl gm owns the push ? If so then the hours would come from gm .
However if you guys are still on modernization and this tm was a dbo for plastic the hours should technically come from specialty.
The reason why I ask who owns the push erl gm or etl ss?

The hours for push comes from ETL-SS from Style but the TM is an inbound expert under ETL-GM. I oversee this TM since they push in Storage and I own Home and Seasonal. I don’t agree that the TM should be split across two departments like this. For me with the TMs availability and the first two hours being charged out to GM for Inbound that leaves me with a TM that really only has time to push and cannot spend an hour in the morning on zone or pulls. They are expected to grab reshop before push. They have productivity issues already so they push at a pretty slow pace. My Stationary TM doesn’t help on truck and the full shift comes from Style hours. They are able to complete pulls and zone while truck is unloaded and shift straight to push after their first 15.

My store is a little confused with how they have these TMs scheduled and structured. Mostly because we just barely made the change of Specialty owning the Home and Seasonal push and not GM. Slowly figuring out what works and what doesn’t.

 

[allnew2]

The hours for push comes from ETL-SS from Style but the TM is an inbound expert under ETL-GM. I oversee this TM since they push in Storage and I own Home and Seasonal. I don’t agree that the TM should be split across two departments like this. For me with the TMs availability and the first two hours being charged out to GM for Inbound that leaves me with a TM that really only has time to push and cannot spend an hour in the morning on zone or pulls. They are expected to grab reshop before push. They have productivity issues already so they push at a pretty slow pace. My Stationary TM doesn’t help on truck and the full shift comes from Style hours. They are able to complete pulls and zone while truck is unloaded and shift straight to push after their first 15.

My store is a little confused with how they have these TMs scheduled and structured. Mostly because we just barely made the change of Specialty owning the Home and Seasonal push and not GM. Slowly figuring out what works and what doesn’t.

I see . So you guys are still with dbos .
Well in that case cut his/her hours and gm can figure out from there .

 

[lucidtm]

At my store they are so afraid that they can't replace a TM that there is no accountability for excessive call-outs or lateness.

By not doing that it causes the good workers to leave.

This is how our store operated when we had our old SD. With COVID, attendance became more lax. Target seemed to care more about health and wellness.

As COVID became less of a priority to the world Target wanted us to go back to being more stern about attendance. Because our old SD was concerned about losing the good, seasoned employees we, as TLs, were never really asked to follow up on attendance. In a lot of cases it became a HUGE issue.

Then we got a new SD. She gives absolutely no effs how good you are. If you have a pattern of lateness or poor attendance, we're expected to talk to you or WE get the documented convo. Each time. More than half the store's TMs called the bluff so they eventually quit or have landed on a CA. A couple are on finals. The only area that seems to skate by is inbound. Though, they've been hiring for that shift so I imagine their time is coming. A lot of other TMs have been noticing that they don't get in trouble for all of the things everyone else gets in trouble for.

TBH, since we've been on top of attendance - it isn't much better. Even all this time later. Turnover is now incredibly high as well. Even with new hires that appear to be doing a good job. There has to be a balance and until Target realizes you can run a business and still care about people a little it'll continue to be that way.

Funnily enough, most of those that have quit have tried to come back and only one has been allowed. She was truly a stellar employee, though she continues to be an attendance issue. 😅