Archived Fun huddle ideas???!?

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I'm not saying huddles are a must, but I think it's a great attribute for a leader to incorporate some sort of fun into the workload. For me my entire team and I compete to see who makes the best foam and do different latte art designs for the guests. The guests love it and the team has fun creating great moments for the guest. It's a good way to remind each other that we are all people, not robots.


At my store there is NO attempt to incorporate any fun into Morning Huddle. It consists of 5 minutes (or more) of waiting for everyone to arrive. Then 2-3 minutes of the LOD calling out stragglers by name (so that they have enough people for the planned project after huddle). Then 10-15 minutes of recognition and the same information that we heard at YESTERDAY'S huddle. Then we get broken up into huddle project groups. This extra work is in addition to our normal work (I'm on a process team), re-shop schedule, sales floor calls, back-up calls & guests that ask for help. The Huddle projects would be a little easier to stomach if we dispensed with the 20 minute waste of time that Huddle (IMO) is.
 
Honestly, I kind of love huddles, regardless of the content. I'm a damn hard worker and almost always end up skipping my last 15min break, so I'm definitely not gonna complain that I'm getting paid to stand around and listen to people talk.

The only advice I have has to do with recognition. Basically no one in my store wants to speak up and recognize anyone, which is totally cool/fine. BUT we have a group of leaders who "just want to recognize the whole team" at every.freaking.huddle.- sometimes twice within the SAME huddle- and it feels fake.

Don't even bother trying to recognize people if you're just going to try to "be fair"...work isn't fair. I bust my ass while other people take half-hour 15min breaks and hide in the corners of the break room.

I got paired up with one of those TMs recently. They announced they were going on their 15, and 20 min later I got tired of waiting for them to come back so I went on mine. I ran into them in the break room, and then they were STILL in there when I walked out around the 12min mark of my 15min break- that's insane. ...two hours later we had a huddle, and that was when they got TM of the month. ...seriously?!?!

It's obvious our leadership is just making their way through the team to ensure everyone gets it once. WTF is the point of that?? I was the first person to get it when they started doing them, and as dumb as it sounds I was kind of proud...but it feels kind of meaningless now that I've seen some of our worst TMs get it as well.
 
How about for those who want to have fun and be engaged in and enjoy their job we do really fun huddles with snacks while the complaining losers who want to "effectively utilize the 15 minutes of payroll" stay on the floor and work like dogs to cover all of our workload until they become bitter and complain and eventually quit and we hire new people who also join our huddle and our fun!!! Huh? Huh? ;)

Yeah that min huddle turns to a 20min whine about redcards our guests don't want, then a 45min smart huddle fixing or pushing truck crap. Don't, BS me.
 
My TL only does huddles when he has a joke to tell lol.

"Team, huddle in 5 minutes. So... Why did the chicken cross the road?" 2 minutes later, "Ok, good job earlier, back to work!"
 
Yeah that min huddle turns to a 20min whine about redcards our guests don't want, then a 45min smart huddle fixing or pushing truck crap. Don't, BS me.

I wish you worked at my store so I could fire you. Too bad
 
I've only been to about three huddles total. At one, the ETL-AP led a race to see who could spider wrap the fastest. I'm glad I opted out. Idk how to spider wrap lol.
It's not that hard. Plus it's part of everyone's job to spiderwrap, not just AP.
 
I wish you worked at my store so I could fire you. Too bad

As a SRTL you don't have the ability to fire an employee.

What is your deal? You've been with Target 6 weeks? On here a month? You've insulted numerous members here already. Dial it back would you please.

Don't like being called out on your BS? My ETL and STL would laugh you out of the office. My workcenter has been green for years, come at me with something besides your bruised ego. I got shit to do besides listen to a brat who thinks he is the second coming.

I wish Ross was actually a SrTL so I could wish I didn't work at his store.
 
Thanks for the great idea TM's!! We're doing a marshmallow contest on Friday!

Keep bringing on the ideas!

Yes, I give flow all the food in the world, even out of pocket I bought breakfast from McDonald's last month.

As an ETL log I am always annoyed with huddles that are timely, time is money! However, I want fun huddles that are all about bringing us together. Today's huddle was 2 minutes long and we talked about dual locations and then I gave the team a 17 minute break. Friday we will do a marshmallow contest and not talk about work. I know how annoying it can be to be talked to like your an idiot, I think it's just the leader who does it. Someone straight out of college with an ego that doesn't work side by side with a team may make for someone hard to listen to at a huddle.

Keep the ideas coming please!!
 
What I like to do at my huddles is ask if any team members want to cross train or if there's something in the store that they don't know how to do. Usually it gets some pretty good results that will help the store in the long run. Just be sure to make that time to follow up and that the training sticks.
 
I had a dream the other night about a huddle. The LOD was telling jokes while three or four fatties were being passed around.

Crazy dream!
 
On a very slow night my etl hr had a huddle with a Target trivia game where the prizes were 15, 10, and 5 dollar gift cards that had to spent that night and on Christmas clearance only, hahah. It was fun and I ended winning like effectively 30-35 bucks worth of stuff.
 
Thanks for the great idea TM's!! We're doing a marshmallow contest on Friday!

Keep bringing on the ideas!

Yes, I give flow all the food in the world, even out of pocket I bought breakfast from McDonald's last month.

As an ETL log I am always annoyed with huddles that are timely, time is money! However, I want fun huddles that are all about bringing us together. Today's huddle was 2 minutes long and we talked about dual locations and then I gave the team a 17 minute break. Friday we will do a marshmallow contest and not talk about work. I know how annoying it can be to be talked to like your an idiot, I think it's just the leader who does it. Someone straight out of college with an ego that doesn't work side by side with a team may make for someone hard to listen to at a huddle.

Keep the ideas coming please!!
Can you be my ETL-LOG?

Last huddle our LOG held was basically a 40 minute rant about how we don't work hard or fast enough.
 
Target just doesn't hire great leaders. Most of it deals with our infrastructure but I get it, just sad to see when it could be a whole lot easier with the right people in place.

So no more ideas?
 
So, how does one hire Great Leaders?

What is the secret?
 
I'm not saying huddles are a must, but I think it's a great attribute for a leader to incorporate some sort of fun into the workload. For me my entire team and I compete to see who makes the best foam and do different latte art designs for the guests. The guests love it and the team has fun creating great moments for the guest. It's a good way to remind each other that we are all people, not robots.

Starbucks is a little different than the rest of the store though
 
Flow team member here. I like it when we have a huddle before break on the last truck day of a particularly rough week where our ETL-LOG acknowledges that we've had a rough week of big trucks and short hours, thanks us for doing our jobs, and hooks us up with donuts and cold brew coffee. That's fancy.

But mostly I like it when during our huddles not just our faults are mentioned. Criticism works best when it's constructive, and pointing out strengths as well as weaknesses is important.

Our "smart huddles" just consist of us doing our jobs as usual. Calling them smart huddles is just silly.
 
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I thought that was when everybody pitched in on a particular chore and knocked it out.
 
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