Archived Color Vs. Reality

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Heres the thing. I work at a ULV store and I wear many hats. One of those hats say Instocks. I absolutely enjoy being an instock team member. It's a pain in the ass sometimes, but I seem to feel more accomplish at the end of the day than when I'm in any other work center. Its extremely disheartening to see the current state of things. The other day, we were notifed that how scores have been extremly high for a month now. Good right? Leadership is happy. However, its because we are not doing instocks correctly. We've been "challenged" to do all that we can to make sure we have a high no backroom locations. As a result, we are not following best practice and we have many holes through out the store. Because of this, I feel like we are missing sales. We are usually under by anywhere from $200 to $1500. Instead of working with us to make sure the floor is filled, they are content to instead push service plans on the team.

My TL, who is awesome, is leading towards the leadership perspective. I've had several "***** sessions" with her where I explained that we are not headed in the right direction. Her suggestion was to write down the DPCIs and pull them after scanning. I've argued that this is a waste of payroll because it adds additional work on an already stressed out team. I seriously feel like I need to print out best practice and carry them with me in case on the the ETLs challenge me on it. But as long as the score is green, they don't seem to care.

So, I'm stuck. I believe that the scores are an indicator towards the health of the story. Going red is not a problem, as long as you use it to acknowledge an opportunity and begin to develop the team to adjust to it. I feel like my store is sick. And since we are fudging instocks, the ETLs and STLs are refusing to see any of the problems. The other day, they even said "We are green because instocks is shooting accurately".

Any advice for me? I've sat down with a couple of the ETLs and told them how I felt. I get some understanding, but mostly they seem not to really care because of the scores. Its insane how much I wish someone would come in an audit us. Anyways, has anyone gone through this and have some suggestions?
 
Yes I have been in a similar situation! It sucks and feels hopeless... If I were you and everything you have told us is accurate you should have a sound mind! They know best practices and the leadership team prefers green numbers with poor processes! At this point it is time for you to be supportive and go with the flow! You are not a leader and it is technically their process to crash, not yours! I would hate for someone who has a good head on their shoulders to fall victim to childish politics!

I do promise however, that a store like this will not be in a slump forever! Eventually stuff falls apart when you fake it to make it! Stuff keeps piling up around the store and best team surveys crash and turnover increases! As new leaders cycle in (usually higher talent to help with issues) word gets out what the previous leadership team left for them and they don't make it too far! Things begin getting fixed and it starts with leadership... If your current leadership team doesn't have the chops to handle it someone will after them... And karma always catches up with them!
 
Good advice, Rock. As hard as it is I have had to bite my cheeks and tongue, paint on a big smile and nod like a bobblehead while I tell myself that longevity is mine. I make sure that I document everything that I do or don't do and who told me to do or not do it. If they don't know BP, it is absolutely their job to learn it. Scores and numbers and how to make them LOOK good is what's going on now. That will change.
 
Cheating for green scores is very common sadly. And the thing is it tends to start above the store level. You DTL sees you have green numbers and all they have to do is do some random checks with a PDA on items out of stock to see if the job is being done right. Most likely they do not care because they are being judged by how their scores look compared to another district. And that is the problem. If other stores are cheating and green and they have the same hours etc. then those above the store level say all those stores are green you should be to. Try telling them other stores are cheating, that is not something you can sell. So with a broken process and no time or payrole to fix it, your STL and tells your ETL fix the score however you have to or else, you ETL tells your TL the same. So now you are cheating the system and if you push back they will most likely just push you out. It is common through out almost every area measured by DTK or whatever they use now.
 
The sad part is that in the long run that kind of stuff has a way of biting people in the ass.
Instocks will creep up and after a year or so, completely fall apart.
Then some poor bastard has to come in and clean up the mess.
It is almost never the people who caused the problem in the first place.
They have usually been promoted.
 
Hold in there. There is a roll out within the next two months for a new IS process. It's back to x areas on x days, with an all scan day. It's still all research. It will slaughter everyone's score, unless they've been working on how to fix that before the roll out.
 
I'm willing to play the game. Honestly, I've been doing it for quite a while. Something like this happened to us once before under different leadership. The results was the TL setting us down and reading us best practice, and another ETL telling us that we "were the worst instock team in the district". Few things get me fired up, but that did. I explained that we were following what the leadership's direction and perhaps the reason why was that the leaders didn't understand best practice. I then offered to train them in it. The ETL that said it got upset, but my STL jumped in stopped it from escalating. He left a couple of months later. Instead of taking up for us, my TL went with the ETL flow, so I don't have much faith in her. Which is why I've been writing down what someone tells me what to do and what not to do.

No, I'm not a leader but I feel as if my opinion matters, or at least did. I'm pretty knowledgeable about most things I get into, and if not I always go with best practice. Just the thing gets me is that when someone says "Our score is green because instocks is scanning accurately" or some DTL comes in and wants to talk to me about my instock process, or if I feel like our empty spots with BRL is causing us to miss sales, I wonder what the point is. I'd be much more content if they acknowledge things were broke and tried to fix them instead of celebrating weakness in the store. Its frustrating, but its not worth my job. I just know that soon the sky will crash down and heads will roll. I'm just wondering who.

Artforoxygen, where have you heard of this new process? Is there a place where I can read up on it? I'd like to start working to prepare the store so it doesn't crash down on us.
 
I'm in a pilot store. There should be info somewhere on workbench. Basically there are areas you scan everyday determined by your sales, i.e: market, plastics, diapers. Then everything else is broken up into certain days of the week. The major problem with it is missing rainchecks unless you do an ad walk because the rigs just don't cover everything. Other problems are areas not replenishing quick enough and finishing the task list by 9am. I've heard it has improved from my team mates as I've been in other workcenters.

The nice part about the new process is being able to do more with PTMs and being available for the sales floor. There shouldn't be any days where there's concern for not finishing everything, including drastic count. The only thing you may want to prep for is making sure you know what is in each fill group in the backroom since the list will be determined by that. I'd also make sure rainchecks are available somewhere on the floor for other team members to grab when a guest wants a raincheck and you're not there.
 
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