Archived Coaching

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So...how is informal coaching done at your store? Say a team member is 10 minutes late or another team member is being a little too social with other team members and not social enough with the guests? Or if a team member is asked to do something and 30 minutes later it hasn't been done but the team member has had plenty of time and has not used that time wisely? Or they just did a slack job even though they were capable of doing a better job?

I'm just curious. Is it a more formal talk off stage? Or is it a casual, "Hey, you were ten minutes late today. What's going on?" on the spot?

I'm a fairly new in role TL and it's just not going well for me. If I take it off stage I find the team members really become defensive. Also, there's a big gap in time between the incident and the coaching because on the front end a team lead and team member can't just "disappear" for five minutes to chat. But if I try to do it discreetly on the spot, there's always an interruption or sometimes they become defensive and then there's bad juju on the floor. And if I wait to have the conversation, my ETL often asks if I had the conversation and then I find myself in a bad position -- because I know coaching should be immediate to be effective, but finding that right opportunity seems impossible when I feel tied to the front end and have to have someone cover shifts for myself and the team member. And then too much time has lapsed...you see my dilemma.

How's it done at your store?
 
I've always done it as a fairly informal immediate conversation.

Let's say I was a Price Accuracy Team Lead (I'm not, but just for example) and I see one of my Team Members scan the first item on a rack... a white shirt, and instead of only counting that SIZE, he/she counts ALL of that color and enters the number. I go over to him/her and say "Hey, just reminding you. We have to scan each size of each color to get the correct numbers for our score. If we just scan the first size and count all of the color, that's going to throw our numbers off and worse, if it's a FINAL markdown it will actually change the COUNTS in our system so when it comes time to salvage, it will throw our SALVAGE counts off as well! Ok?"

Boom. PDD. It doesn't have to be some long drawn out conversation. Just describe what the problem was and what you saw, explain the impact, suggest what to do differently next time... and if they keep it up, communicate the consequences if they continue to do it incorrectly. Of course, what you decide is PDD worthy and what I might decide is PDD worthy are two different things. I'd never PDD a person for being 10 minutes late the first time or two. I'd MENTION it to them, but not write it up... we, including ETLs are late sometimes, after all.
 
a documented coaching needs to be done off stage. Simple as that. Now in saying that you don't need to take them back to the office and sit them down and have some long drawn out conversation. I am a GSTL and a lot of the time if I need to have a quick coaching with someone I just take them into the front stock room, make sure no one is in there, and bam, i'm done! That room probably gets used for more serious conversations than the rooms in the office. Everyone uses it and I find it is not as scary and I get a better response from Team Members.
 
a documented coaching needs to be done off stage. Simple as that. Now in saying that you don't need to take them back to the office and sit them down and have some long drawn out conversation. I am a GSTL and a lot of the time if I need to have a quick coaching with someone I just take them into the front stock room, make sure no one is in there, and bam, i'm done! That room probably gets used for more serious conversations than the rooms in the office. Everyone uses it and I find it is not as scary and I get a better response from Team Members.

If you're not doing a documented coaching, do you just address it on the spot? I'm thinking that the issues I'm having don't HAVE to be documented coachings as long as they don't become habitual issues -- which some of them are trending towards. I'd rather try to have an EFFECTIVE immediate coaching and prevent it from getting to the stage where I need to do a document PDD. But I'm just not getting my desired results, so I'm thinking it must be something I'm doing or there must be something I could be doing better.

Thanks for your response and input!
 
It honestly depends on what the situation is. If it's something stupid then yes, i just shut off their light and wait until there's no guests around. If there's a lot of cashiers around and it's something I don't want them to hear but don't think it needs to be documented then i just pull them off their lane and walk a bit away from the other cashiers. I don't do documented coachings very often. When I first became a GSTL things were hell because the other GSTL let everyone do anything they wanted so to clean up that mess when she quit 4 months after I became a GSTL was terrible. I was doing coachings and CA's about every day.
Make sure you're really having meaningful conversations, holding them accountable, being fair, and most importantly, supporting and protecting your cashiers and gsa's and you'll be great!
If you ever had a specific question you don't want to post feel free to pm me. I would love to help!
 
Our ETL's have been enforcing a "2 coaching per week" rule. We must be filling out a coaching sheet twice per week, every week. We are to crack down on EVERYTHING.

My etl came up to me and told that I need to coach someone because "he isn't being FFF because he's not smiling enough." SMILING ENOUGH? seriously?
 
Our ETL's have been enforcing a "2 coaching per week" rule. We must be filling out a coaching sheet twice per week, every week. We are to crack down on EVERYTHING.

My etl came up to me and told that I need to coach someone because "he isn't being FFF because he's not smiling enough." SMILING ENOUGH? seriously?

That's piss poor management.
Do they really think they are going to get better performance out of people by beating them constantly?
That's pretty much been proven not to work, in fact it's been proven to cause out right rebellion.
 
GSTLs at my store have a daily checklist (it's for GSAs too but this section is only for shifts with actual GSTLs on the clock) - Coach 3 team members. List the topic(s) covered below.
 
With my recent learnings... it truly all depends on the situation. If the TM was 10 mins late and its the very first time... I will give them the benefit of the doubt and just do a seeks to understand and keep it informal but also caring because it may have been a rough day blah blah blah. On the other hand, if they are a repeat offender and it has been stated to a TM what a clear expectation is of them then I will take them off-stage and do a formal Coaching. Some stores aim for a coaching goal which I personally think isnt the right thing to do. We shouldn't be looking to coach just to coach but to teach and train then coach is behavior/performance doesn't improve. I think somewhere around 1-2 coachings every week or so isn't a bad thing if you're spreading it around... ie. your vibe score is 40%(not sure if this is possible) and nobody on your team is vibing, then you better be coaching everybody haha but one last note... if your not teaching/training and or coaching you probably arent doing your part as a leader to make sure you are doing what you can to develop your team. sorry for the novel but i dont comment much, but thought this time i could chime in a bit :)
 
Our ETL's have been enforcing a "2 coaching per week" rule. We must be filling out a coaching sheet twice per week, every week. We are to crack down on EVERYTHING.

My etl came up to me and told that I need to coach someone because "he isn't being FFF because he's not smiling enough." SMILING ENOUGH? seriously?
I think this is a case where it needs to be quality over quantity. There does not need to be quota. Also please let me know when my coaching is, as I have a had cold for the past week and I am sure that my smile has been non-exesstant.
 
A little off topic when I was about 6 months in at Target I was the electronics opener and my schedule was 7:30 am to 3:30 everyday. Then out of nowhere I was scheduled to come in at 7:eek:but I didnt pick it up when I wrote down my times. So when I get there at 7:15 the STL let me in and she says they had you scheduled at 7 for some reason. Even she thought it was kinda odd,I apologized for being late and she said dont worry about it.(it was my first and last time being late) So i get my keys and when I get back to the boat,the electronics TL was there and I was coached for being late. I always thought he was a ass for that. He was the reason why I left and applied for the signing position. On topic my PTL came to me the other day and she was saying that all the TL had a meeting and they had to coach people from their team and get it documented. She was confused because she feels like everyone does what they are suppose to. I see now,its to cut down on the raises.
 
Is it possible to coach someone for something they've done in a role they haven't completed a learning plan for? For example, a girl was scheduled for a sales floor shift and she was slacking. Is it possible to coach her if she never did a learning plan for sales floor?
 
If the reason for her coaching was something specific to softlines, then it shouldn't happen (the key word being shouldn't, not won't). But if she's just standing at the fitting room chit-chatting with the operator or anything like that, then by all means, yes.
 
If the reason for her coaching was something specific to softlines, then it shouldn't happen (the key word being shouldn't, not won't). But if she's just standing at the fitting room chit-chatting with the operator or anything like that, then by all means, yes.

She wasn't chit-chatting or anything. She just didn't put that much effort into the job.
 
Our DTL made it clear there are not enough coachings happening. Why? Because our store isn't perfect, it looks like crap, and there's very few coachings documented. He suggests once we do 1 or 2 coachings per area it will spread like wildfire and people will immediately pick up their game. But I also agree that once you begin doing multiple coachings eventually every team member will rebel against you and the store and soon enough its you against them. They won't want to go above and beyond. You need to pick your battles.
 
was she really not putting an effort in or did she just not know what she was doing? There's a lot of variables there and i wouldn't feel comfortable coaching her unless i saw the situation myself.
 
At my store, if there is a minor problem, it is confronted then and there. A little bit more serious problem and they are pulled aside and talked to.

It would be very unfortunate to be couched in front of all your co-workers and/or costumers. You would just create enemies in the work place. I used to work in this restaurant where one of the assistant managers would just blatantly coach you for anything and everything. He made enemies very quickly and people were unwilling to do tasks because of it. He was fired when he tried to rip our chef a new one in front of all costumers dining. Our chef who had been there for quite a while with flexible hours quite soon after because of the incident. I also quit because the moron tried to accuse me of stealing when he counted the damn cash drawers wrong. Sorry if that was long!
 
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