Archived Electronics Plus Mobile

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Velius

Electronics Plus Mobile/Cross-trained
Joined
Oct 30, 2018
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My store was one of the stores that phased out Target Tech back in August, and simply merged that position with Electronics, creating Electronics Plus Mobile. As an Electronics TM, I was given the choice of either sucking it up and doing the extra 40+ hours of training, or switching to cashiering while keeping my pay.

The clincher: albeit having to do 40+ hours of training and 200% workload, and no double coverage in Electronics, my fellow Electronics TMs and I have not received any pay increase.

The STL and ETLs are greedy, and do their jobs very poorly. I've witnessed 90% turnover in management in my 2.5 years here, and our Electronics department takes a *lot* of blame for other people (price accuracy, presentation, BDS, etc.) not doing their jobs. Getting mediocre reviews with a tiny raise before the pay bump erased it has me feeling pretty bitter towards this company.

I'm not the best with this kind of stuff, but how can I convince my ETLs/STL who don't appreciate our hard work to give us Electronics Plus Mobile TMs the raise we deserve?
 
our Electronics department takes a *lot* of blame for other people (price accuracy, presentation, BDS, etc.) not doing their jobs.
You must not have a good presentation/price change team. I am a part of that equation and we take partnerships with our electronics team. What specifically is your complaint because I take offense to you singling out the presentation/price change workcenters. BDS...you can complain about them. Half the time we end up doing their job because they don't come to our store when they are supposed to.

ASANTS... At my store, we do a lot! Minus making Starbucks coffee. So I'm legit asking you, specifically list your complaints and what are you blaming them for? Maybe you need to share this with your Electronics TL? Communication goes both ways. I find that you can't always assume it's their fault because by your post you don't seem to list what you are expected to do during your shift. I know what our electronics tm's do and they sometimes don't have the hours to finish what is asked of them but they communicate to each other and the leadership in the building.
 
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Our department is heavily neglected by price change and presentation in my store. New planograms are almost never set on time, often to the point that we end up with several outs after the d-code has been sold out. Electronics clearance is just a mess, always scattered everywhere and only half ticketed. If they need into a case to change labels, they'll usually ask for help, but about a third of the time, they won't bother with it and skip the in-case items. As far as BDS is concerned, half our our camera demos don't have power, and the majority of our 4k TV demos are running the same 1080p display as the rest of the wall. Any attempt to get the flash drives containing the 4k demo is met with "I'll bring it next time I come in."

When trying to communicate with the price change and presentation teams, we get told to do the work ourselves.

That stuff is all back burner though. My real concern is that we now have to worry about our job on top of dealing with cell phones and cell phone guests.
  • Post paid device activation
  • Prepaid device activation
  • Porting numbers between accounts
  • Device trade in and return shipments
  • Inventory management
  • Price tile updates
These are the main responsibilities we've taken on by taking over Target Tech, and we are still expected to get everything done.

Also, we don't have a TL that takes responsibility for electronics. The closest TL to that would be the salesfloor TL, and she has little to nothing to do with Electronics, and knows absolutely nothing about the Target Tech stuff. As per the handbook, our TL should be trained on the phone stuff as well, but nobody but the Electronics TMs are, so we have no line of in-store support, to top it off.
 
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These are the main responsibilities we've taken on by taking over Target Tech, and we are still expected to get everything done
Two things: one, Spot hasn't had a great track record with raises and paygrades for the workload we're doing. It might be worth transferring to a different workcenter or nearby store if it's getting to you this much. From experience, if you go to the ETLs/STL about a raise, they're not likely to offer you more than like 5 cents an hour (assuming they don't laugh you out of the office).

Two, if you don't have a TL ready to advocate for you, see if you can do something differently with what you've got. If not done already, start by prioritizing mobile, the boat, and the areas around the boat that you can reach while working on phone activations. Nail that, and you can then move on to areas outside of that.
For pricing and plano team, try partnering with them every once in a while. This might look like checking with the PPTL to see what they're expecting from your area, then seeing if you can reach a solution that's better for both of you. If nothing else, you could try to spend like 2-3 minutes on the electronics clearance after every break or something to keep it manageable.
For BDS, if it's getting ridiculous, partner with the PMT to see if they can escalate the issue or follow back up with BDS for the issues you're having.
I know mobile takes huge chunks of time, but the more we do it, the better we get at both the process and the troubleshooting. Then, that in turn saves us more time to do other things.
Last piece: make yourself heard to the TLs/ETLs to the point that they have no excuse to not know about the problems. From there, if they bring you feedback about something, you can speak to it and everything you have on your plate. Vocal, consistent communication is something Spot sees as a good quality and trait for review time, as is accepting feedback.

Hope that helps!
 
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It might be worth transferring to a different workcenter or nearby store if it's getting to you this much.

When given the opportunity to leave Electronics during the merge, we were specifically told "we cannot give you jobs that aren't there," denying hardlines positions, and saying that only cashier positions were available. I may see about transferring to presentation, making the case that they need more help with the electronics area specifically. And sadly, the closest Target to us is 98 miles away. That commute, especially when snow falls, would not be a fun one.

You have some really good advice in here, and I think in a normal working environment where management cares about all areas of their store, it would be useful. We in Electronics are typically really good about communicating what we need and what is being neglected, our TLs legitimately just don't prioritize us.
 
We in Electronics are typically really good about communicating what we need and what is being neglected, our TLs legitimately just don't prioritize us.
This. It's certainly not ideal, but if they won't pay attention, just keep communicating to cover your butts and take care of what you can take care of. Don't add work to your plate, but if you own your area where you can and band together as an electronics team to do everything you can, then that'll help make life easier.
Last thing that might help, just remember that when you walk out that door at the end of your shift, it's not your problem anymore. And when you walk back in the next shift, just start somewhere and do what you can do.
 
I was under the assumption that the stores that consumed mobile did not get a pay increase because of it.
 
I was under the assumption that the stores that consumed mobile did not get a pay increase because of it.
That's 100% correct, which makes it a slap in the face for any experienced TMs in the area. They never justified it to us, and I'm pretty sure electronics doesn't even get a pay bump from other areas anymore.
 
That's 100% correct, which makes it a slap in the face for any experienced TMs in the area. They never justified it to us, and I'm pretty sure electronics doesn't even get a pay bump from other areas anymore.
Electronics should be 50 cent over base, I think. I never got it because I've been there so long and when they implemented that I was already making more than base pay for electronics. Which is why if I'm ever told we have to do mobile, I'm switching departments and my pay won't be effected because I earned all my pay increases from reviews.
 
Electronics should be 50 cent over base, I think. I never got it because I've been there so long and when they implemented that I was already making more than base pay for electronics. Which is why if I'm ever told we have to do mobile, I'm switching departments and my pay won't be effected because I earned all my pay increases from reviews.
I fully support that decision, Spot doesn't know what they're doing with the gutted mobile payroll (or they're ignoring the warning signs). Also, if they try to roll plus mobile to high volume stores they're crazy.
 
Spot's view is and always has been that if you want more money, you need to promote. I'd first go to your ETL and ask which TL oversees electronics. Then go to that TL and ask how sales are in Electronics, and what they see as the biggest wins and ops in the department. If nothing else, this should get you some buy in from your leaders, so they neglect you guys a little less.
 
Spot's view is and always has been that if you want more money, you need to promote. I'd first go to your ETL and ask which TL oversees electronics. Then go to that TL and ask how sales are in Electronics, and what they see as the biggest wins and ops in the department. If nothing else, this should get you some buy in from your leaders, so they neglect you guys a little less.
I don't want more money, I just don't want more work with less hours. I'm not a fan of fighting an uphill battle.
 
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