Archived Empty Location Reports

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StackerMistress

What's a team lift?
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It seems like the same thing happens every year: we're super strong with getting the reports done every day for the first half of the year, then, as soon as BTS rolls in, followed by holiday crap, followed by "oh god I don't have enough time or people to get anything done," the audits go bye bye, management turns its head, and we start up again in January.

I am okay with this, honestly. I understand the importance of Empty Loc. I'm the one who's been doing them every day since January. I enjoy finding errors and fixing them. But when I have backstock that's been clogging up the backroom for days on end, I am going to forgo the report to take care of that. So last week, reports didn't get done, because I'm the only one who does them and I decided to prioritize backstock (with my TL's approval). On Friday, our new, Koolaid-drinking ETL rips BR a new one for not getting the reports done and tells me I have to do the entire week's worth, right then, right now. Meanwhile there's BTS backstock from LAST SATURDAY and no vehicles available to put pulls on. So I spend 2.5 HOURS straight doing those reports.

What do other people do? My last ETL was a super Brand, follow-the-rules kind of guy, and even he said if there's backstock that's over 24 hours old, skip doing empty locs and backstock instead.
 
In my store I captain up the Empty Location Reports and every TL, ETL, and even my STL is assigned an aisle or two (I take care of 3 aisles). They are to complete the report and have it on my desk by Friday so that I can review them and see where we keep having issues, correct them, and hold people accountable when we find out who's either not properly backstocking or burning batches.
 
Wow, that kind of cooperation sounds great! I'm technically the Empty Loc captain as well, but really that just means that everyone leaves them for me to do. We have them split up into chunks for every day of the week. Monday is electronics, toys, and luggage, Tuesday is softlines, and so on. It takes about half an hour for each day, more if you're being more thorough. If I don't work that day, it doesn't get done, and I have to play catch-up the next time I work. And I really only have time to do them if I'm opening. If I have a closing shift, forget about it, because I'm swamped with CAFs, price changes, backstock, and cardboard.
 
Your Empty Location Report troubles sound like the same issues my store is having, but we definitely have more worries than that. We are a high-sales, *TINY* backroom store, so the details count extra for us. Our new process is in the works, with an emphasis on all the reports, but nothing is finalized yet.

My advice is be sure to point out to leadership that by doing the Empty Locations you'll fix errors, find burned batches, and find otherwise unlocated merchandise. All of this will help to fill the sales floor, increase scores, and reduce truck size. Sure, backstocking is important, and if you get overwhelmed by backstock like we do most of your time goes there, but unlocated items on the backroom shelves get re-sent by the DC just like un-backstocked items do, so keep working those reports in somewhere (and re-pushing old backstock!) - Best of luck to you!
 
We only do the reports when b/s is clean or relatively clean. Which means during bts they aren't done. We are usually green+ when it comes to our % so not a terribly big deal for us.

Most of our backroom team enjoys doing them but backstocking is our number 1 priority. I do a mostly weekly check on bulk side but that is quick and easy and is mostly done because I have to rearrange paper so much.
 
I have my backroom team members do the empty location reports. They all know how and usually someone will jump on it whether its dayside or early morning. I follow up occasionally and go behind them to verify they are actually doing them. Once a week I run extra reports on the areas they haven't hit to do those just for my own piece of mind.
 
Just to address a couple of things that stick out in this thread.
The ETL was correct in having you do the empty location reports instead of backstocking BTS that's been sitting on a tub over the weekend. Here are a few reasons.
1. You let a heavy workload break your routines, they are not routines if they are done when you get a chance to do them.
2. The BTS needed to be pushed, your old ETL was wrong if he backstocked things that had been sitting out for over 24 hours.
3. When he walks with the STL or gets a visit, he can't say "oh, we had a lot of backstock so we didn't do the reports. even though I'm a new koolaid drinking ETL, my team said the backstock was more important, should I go get them to take this ass-ripping too?!"

I question how efficient your backroom is if it's taking you 30 minutes every day to do the audits. Is your team not backstocking like items together? Do they not regularly condense aisles to keep the product easily accessible? This just sounds like another TM who thinks they know everything but only thinks of their work center. You should try to look at it from another perspective, broaden your scope.
 
Let me broaden your scope and tell you how this conversation goes down:

KoolAid Drinking ETL: Why didn't you do reports last night?
TM that knows everything: I backstocked that tub of BTS that was there for a week.
KADETL: Reports are the priority.
OR
KADETL: Why didn't you backstock that tub of BTS that's been sitting here for a week.
TMTKE: I was going to have flow re-push that tub, I did reports instead.
KADETL: You know we have to come clean every day, backstock is the priority.
 
This may come as a shock to you but BTS sitting on a tub over a week, right before school starts back, isn't backstock. It doesn't matter as long as we can talk about how wrong the ETL's decision was though, right?
 
On second thought, did you even read the OP? The complaint was that the ETL told them to do the reports, your comment has nothing to do with that. Now I love to circlejerk too but at least try to follow along, don't address someone's reply and treat it like it was the original comment.
 
This may come as a shock to you but BTS sitting on a tub over a week, right before school starts back, isn't backstock. It doesn't matter as long as we can talk about how wrong the ETL's decision was though, right?

Actually it's backstock. It needs to be backstock. If it's on a tub with a pink clip on it, it's backstock. It means it won't fit in the floor. It needs to be backstock. There's a reason why there's a backroom, so you can backstock the backstock.
 
This may come as a shock to you but BTS sitting on a tub over a week, right before school starts back, isn't backstock. It doesn't matter as long as we can talk about how wrong the ETL's decision was though, right?

Actually it's backstock. It needs to be backstock. If it's on a tub with a pink clip on it, it's backstock. It means it won't fit in the floor. It needs to be backstock. There's a reason why there's a backroom, so you can backstock the backstock.

Well I think what he is saying is that if it's been sitting there for a week, a lot of it will probably go out. So you can backstock it, but unless you use subt-9999 it will come right back out, meaning you wasted your time backstocking it in the first place. And if it's been sitting there for that long then you shouldn't be using subt-9999.
 
This may come as a shock to you but BTS sitting on a tub over a week, right before school starts back, isn't backstock. It doesn't matter as long as we can talk about how wrong the ETL's decision was though, right?

Actually it's backstock. It needs to be backstock. If it's on a tub with a pink clip on it, it's backstock. It means it won't fit in the floor. It needs to be backstock. There's a reason why there's a backroom, so you can backstock the backstock.

A tub of bts "backstock" isn't backstock after a day let alone a week. That has to be repushed, likely 90% of it goes out. The backroom team member would be better served to just push it himself than spend the time backstocking it and then repulling it.
 
This may come as a shock to you but BTS sitting on a tub over a week, right before school starts back, isn't backstock. It doesn't matter as long as we can talk about how wrong the ETL's decision was though, right?

Actually it's backstock. It needs to be backstock. If it's on a tub with a pink clip on it, it's backstock. It means it won't fit in the floor. It needs to be backstock. There's a reason why there's a backroom, so you can backstock the backstock.

I love your simplicity, you're completely wrong but there's an appealing quality to your simple way of thinking.
 
No, he thinks he's got to be on the other side or he won't feel like the smartest guy in the room.

The other side? You are aware that people can choose to do the right thing without being the enemy, aren't you? Just because someone doesn't play along with your circlejerk doesn't mean you should try to demonize them or try to proclaim they are against you.
 
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Yes, of course the BTS should have been pushed again... we had no one to do that. We had no one to even handle the CAF pulls that were overflowing on the line. And it wasn't just BTS, either. We had backstock clogging up the entire stockroom that just wasn't getting taken care of. I am well aware that best practice is to re-push old backstock, but that just doesn't happen when we don't have enough people to push it. And yeah, the reports take me half an hour to do. Checking every empty waco and especially getting up on the ladder to check all of the case stock locations that no one actually checks takes time. "Do they not regularly condense aisles to keep the product easily accessible?" LOL! I'll try and make some time in my schedule to do that.

Dr Laytex has it right. We choose to try and clean up a filthy backroom, we get reamed for not doing reports. We do reports, we get "Why hasn't this backstock been done?" And by we, I mean me, since everyone seems to think it is my sole responsibility to take care of these things. The morning guys won't do it, the other dayside TMs have been told to do it, but choose to leave it for me. I enjoy doing empty loc reports, I would prefer to do them, but I need it to be a cooperative effort.

Let me broaden YOUR scope, usojelly: We don't have enough fucking people.
 
Just to address a couple of things that stick out in this thread.
The ETL was correct in having you do the empty location reports instead of backstocking BTS that's been sitting on a tub over the weekend. Here are a few reasons.
1. You let a heavy workload break your routines, they are not routines if they are done when you get a chance to do them.
2. The BTS needed to be pushed, your old ETL was wrong if he backstocked things that had been sitting out for over 24 hours.
3. When he walks with the STL or gets a visit, he can't say "oh, we had a lot of backstock so we didn't do the reports. even though I'm a new koolaid drinking ETL, my team said the backstock was more important, should I go get them to take this ass-ripping too?!"

I question how efficient your backroom is if it's taking you 30 minutes every day to do the audits. Is your team not backstocking like items together? Do they not regularly condense aisles to keep the product easily accessible? This just sounds like another TM who thinks they know everything but only thinks of their work center. You should try to look at it from another perspective, broaden your scope.

Your going to have to learn that many stores have far less hours and far less room than you do. You can not question anything until you go there and see the situation. And if the Team Lead said to work the BS instead of the reports then that is not a TM needing to broaden ones scope. Clearly if this store had any payroll they would not have BS sitting for days and a line full of CAFs that nobody is there to push. At this point if ones store has solid accuracy then best thing for the store is to get the stuff repushed and the backstocked ASAP. Filling out paper work when work that directly effects sales goes undone is not what is best for store.
 
No, he thinks he's got to be on the other side or he won't feel like the smartest guy in the room.

The other side? You are aware that people can choose to do the right thing without being the enemy, aren't you? Just because someone doesn't play along with your circlejerk doesn't mean you should try to demonize them or try to proclaim they are against you.

I was actually kind of seeing this guys point.

But now all I read is

"Omg etls are awesome!!! Hurr durr"
 
No, he thinks he's got to be on the other side or he won't feel like the smartest guy in the room.

The other side? You are aware that people can choose to do the right thing without being the enemy, aren't you? Just because someone doesn't play along with your circlejerk doesn't mean you should try to demonize them or try to proclaim they are against you.

I was actually kind of seeing this guys point.

But now all I read is

"Omg etls are awesome!!! Hurr durr"

sigh, this is why I get so damn annoyed with most of the people here. It's a bunch of whiny ass 'adults' who can never see when they are wrong. I didn't say anything about ETL's being awesome and we all know fresh out if college ETL's are ignorant and delusional. I was simply pointing out, why in this case, the TM was flat out wrong. Then the circlejerk decides they want to come post.
 
Yes, of course the BTS should have been pushed again... we had no one to do that. We had no one to even handle the CAF pulls that were overflowing on the line. And it wasn't just BTS, either. We had backstock clogging up the entire stockroom that just wasn't getting taken care of. I am well aware that best practice is to re-push old backstock, but that just doesn't happen when we don't have enough people to push it. And yeah, the reports take me half an hour to do. Checking every empty waco and especially getting up on the ladder to check all of the case stock locations that no one actually checks takes time. "Do they not regularly condense aisles to keep the product easily accessible?" LOL! I'll try and make some time in my schedule to do that.

Dr Laytex has it right. We choose to try and clean up a filthy backroom, we get reamed for not doing reports. We do reports, we get "Why hasn't this backstock been done?" And by we, I mean me, since everyone seems to think it is my sole responsibility to take care of these things. The morning guys won't do it, the other dayside TMs have been told to do it, but choose to leave it for me. I enjoy doing empty loc reports, I would prefer to do them, but I need it to be a cooperative effort.

Let me broaden YOUR scope, usojelly: We don't have enough fucking people.

So you knew the correct thing to do but still decided to whine about having to follow supervisors instructions, and not be able to backstock the stuff that needed to be pushed. So because you knowingly wanted to do the wrong thing, how many others does that impact? IS, BR, HL, instead of just pushing.

Keep the damn whining about not enough people, everyone has that issue
The diference is that some of us get our shit done, and some don't. Stop playing the damn victim and own your area, oh wait, then you might get positive results and we can't have that.
 
My STL wanted me to tell you guys that it should be backstocked and then an EXF shot. He says that's faster than pushing it, then backstocking. ::)
 
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