Question for fulfillment TLs (TMs can chime in too):

With the understanding that there are at times good reasons to skip around a little bit in the OPU queue, what would you think of a TM who when doing the OPU batches that have accumulated overnight always grabs the batch with the greatest number of eaches thus leaving the smaller batches for others and increasing their own personal pick productivity?

So say you have:

Pickup 1 23(23)
Pickup 2 23(24)
Pickup 3 23(25)
Pickup 4 23(23)
Pickup 5 23(40)

So this TM is going to take Pickup 5 and after finishing take Pickup 3 if still there. Would you put a stop to this?

If they're all on the same time, no I don't think so, especially if you have slackers. As long as none of them end up late, it doesn't really matter what order you go in for the overnight queue.
It's when the store is open and people are grabbing later orders and leaving the older ones with less time to do, that it becomes a problem.
 
I have one TM who will skip anything under an hour and get a 2 hour plus batch. I talked to her twice and documented the 2nd one. I told her if it happens again it would be a write up. In that case it is screwing over other TMs because she's letting them run down even more for the next TM. You take them in order, that's our rule.

I love the sort update.

I lost a tiny earring at work on Saturday and I found it today. What are the odds?
 
It's exploiting an discrepancy between working in batches and the productivity metric that we're judged by. Let's say that someone does a 23(23) OPU batch and finishes in exactly half an hour. Their UPH is going to be 46. Someone else who does a batch that is 23(30) and also finishes in exactly half an hour is going to have a UPH of 60. That second person is going to look a lot better on paper even though they are not working harder and going faster. So, if someone always takes the largest eaches batches for themselves their personal metrics look better than other TMs and they haven't helped the team as a whole at all. If they take enough of the largest eaches batches, they can actually go slower than everyone else and still look better on paper when leads look at things later.

I did not know this was a *thing* - I've always just picked the batch at the top of the list. I don't pick often, though.
 
I also think INFs are sometimes a complete crap shoot. Sometimes I have like 2-3 my entire shift.

Other times, the guest is picking up the One item that I need for my batch - so INF it is. That happened with the last pair of a kids' pajamas.
or the zone is shit.
or counts are just way off.
 
No black, when did that come down? I was off today.... we currently wear either black or red, up to the TM based on their mood.
 
No black, when did that come down? I was off today.... we currently wear either black or red, up to the TM based on their mood.
It was in the September communication for 4th quarter prep for Fulfillment. It said that we won't be altering our dress code or something like that.
 
My store is a unicorn. We don't have Starbucks and it's not in the FOS remodel plans to get one. (Yes, we still get Starbucks cups abandoned around the store.)

I have no idea why. Are you in some podunk town where nobody drinks anything but the local coffee?

We have three starbucks within two blocks
 
I have no idea why. Are you in some podunk town where nobody drinks anything but the local coffee?

We have three starbucks within two blocks

Hmm....don't want to give too much away. I'm in a very old, old Target store. Built way before SuperTarget's were even a spot in Bullseye's eye. So, we're on the smaller side spacewise, but not anything close to a small format. We're in a decent size metro area and the only Target in it. (For size reference, we have 4 Super Walmarts in the metro.) We're ideally located for a retail store in town with extremely cheap rent, so relocating to a bigger space isn't an option. There are 5 billion coffee shops within a mile or two from the store, including at least 6 Starbucks that I know of. Adding coffee wouldn't gain us much in sales, but we need all the space we have up front after finally knocking out the cafe so we can better handle our OPU volume.
 
What is your guys’ average pick productivity rate as a store? At our store we’re usually at 58-62. I wanna know if that’s too low for us.
 
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