Archived General payroll rant

[smashandthrash]

7-9 dollar raise when I went to distribution. Depends on the day. And we have to train people, otherwise you can't do the job at all. Period. It never ceases to amaze me how poorly store level employees are treated from pay to benefits.

 

[KingBear]

At this point I'm waiting to see how bad the November hours are and which team lead will be the first to spew the unfortunate bullshit of "fourth quarter is a slow period in retail"

Our HR guy claims that his objective is to get everyone with open availability a solid 40 hours, but I'm waiting to see how well he comes through. I told myself that I wouldn't consider leaving until after the season but I might not have a choice... I've got too many bills to pay to put up with this.

 

[RhettB]

Canada was a huge loss. The bathroom issues was a zero sum.
Spot probably gained as many as they lost from people deciding that they were going to shop with Spot because of the LGBTQA support.

I'd disagree on the sales gain, as comp sales % is down.

 

[SFSFun]

Canada shouldn't be affecting anything anymore. They took the loss and wrote off all expenses several quarters ago.

The main thing causing some stores to have payroll issues is the immense pressure from the top down to increase profits. It starts at the board of directors, then gets passed down through corporate onto the regions and groups. Since one of the most controllable expenses at the store level is payroll, that is what STLs get to focus on cutting back.

 

[BullseyeBabe]

We just has a visit by our group VP. The focus of the group was being more efficient, making every payroll dollar count. We are spending money on payroll and we must make sure we are getting great return on our investment!!!
The problem isn't a deficit of hours! We just need to work harder!

 

[Rarejem]

blablablablablabla....bullsneeze

 

[radiochu]

my department is pretty good with payroll

so jealous. our 'Bux is always the first place to lose hours when the heads have to roll. hell, we had two baristas scheduled together on the day shift for the first time in MONTHS, which was amazing because we actually had time to get caught up on some sorely neglected tasks. then the LOD bitched out our ETL-HR for having two people scheduled because he happened to walk by the one time they were standing still for two minutes to discuss what to tackle next. I have never been so pissed in my life as when I heard that. our DM has ranted at leadership, our cafe is a hot mess half the time and we keep getting chewed out for it, but no matter what, no hours. they're hiring baristas again because we're below minimum but I'm scared to see how much lower our hours are going to get when they hire some green beans. I get 20 hours a week if I'm lucky, now. two and a half hours by myself every night to try to close and clean without murdering anyone.

I'm so tired of the rationale for cutting payroll being 'we just don't have the sales to support it' when we'd HAVE the sales if we were just given the people to do the WORK. I get it. I truly do. but it's so stupid.

 

[redeye58]

We HAVE the sales to support our hours but leadership STILL skims 20-30%.
We were supposed to have a crap-ton of hours during several summer promotions but they cut until we were getting no more than before.

 

[HRZone]

The problem isn't a deficit of hours! We just need to work harder!

I noticed you wrote that in small print...

 

[Apapaia]

ULV store here. We're getting 1890 hours on a good week (that includes APTL, 1 TPS, and PMT).
One of our biggest focus is retention and we were told that one of the "tricks" to keep TMs is to bring their hours up to 30 so they qualify for benefits. When I saw that email from HR BP I thought it was a joke at first but he was damn serious.
Currently we're trying to take care of the team woth little games, incentives, and the breakroom filled with food. Hopefully nobody is going hungry without us knowing

 

[Xanatos]

ULV store here. We're getting 1890 hours on a good week (that includes APTL, 1 TPS, and PMT).
One of our biggest focus is retention and we were told that one of the "tricks" to keep TMs is to bring their hours up to 30 so they qualify for benefits.

Hmm give them basic human needs... I think you're on to something here!

 

[Westcoast7]

ULV store here. We're getting 1890 hours on a good week (that includes APTL, 1 TPS, and PMT).
One of our biggest focus is retention and we were told that one of the "tricks" to keep TMs is to bring their hours up to 30 so they qualify for benefits. When I saw that email from HR BP I thought it was a joke at first but he was damn serious.
Currently we're trying to take care of the team woth little games, incentives, and the breakroom filled with food. Hopefully nobody is going hungry without us knowing

That's like some conspiracy type shit. But it's so true

 

[redeye58]

Working 5-6 days a week & I STILL can't break 30.

 

[Noiinteam]

As a good flow tm I can easily get 40 hrs. My choice not to.

 

[masterofalltrades]

Im so over target at this point. My store is comping up 8% YTD, yet we never have more than 5 cashiers at peak on a saturday. Never more than 8 closers for the salesfloor total between 2 floors. Mind you my store has already done 67 million this year. Everyday I do the work of 5 people. My team is down too three people per day max, to do rigs, zone, scan , push, respond to backup, and answer all the call buttons.
Everyday at least one department doesn't even get touched. Flow never finishes. It gets left for us.
Everday its master go to backup. Master scan these extra aisles. Master push these 5 flats of clearence. Master why are you on break.
Hopefully with our new stl she will spend our extra flex payroll that the previous bastard was hoarding. Because we all know he eill just die without that golden contribuition bonus.
End rant. Damn that felt good.

 

[Apapaia]

Hmm give them basic human needs... I think you're on to something here!

Yeah problem is divide 1980 by 70 and see how many people get their 30 hours. OR if you want to be more accurate you could take out 40 hours for each one of the people that have 40 hours guaranteed each week 40x8=120. Take 120 hours away from the bucket 1890=1660. Now divide 1660 by 60-70 TMs=23-27
When they suggest you to give TMs enough hours so they qualify for benefits but you barely got enough hours to get the store open, it feels like a joke. We are asked to make a meatloaf out of leftovers crumbs...

 

[redeye58]

In that case, my store's been trying to make biscuits out of floor sweepings for the past YEAR.

 

[Cooliobum]

payroll is so bad we had our STL zone seasonal

 

[keynesian]

Im so over target at this point. My store is comping up 8% YTD, yet we never have more than 5 cashiers at peak on a saturday. Never more than 8 closers for the salesfloor total between 2 floors. Mind you my store has already done 67 million this year. Everyday I do the work of 5 people. My team is down too three people per day max, to do rigs, zone, scan , push, respond to backup, and answer all the call buttons.
Everyday at least one department doesn't even get touched. Flow never finishes. It gets left for us.
Everday its master go to backup. Master scan these extra aisles. Master push these 5 flats of clearence. Master why are you on break.
Hopefully with our new stl she will spend our extra flex payroll that the previous bastard was hoarding. Because we all know he eill just die without that golden contribuition bonus.
End rant. Damn that felt good.

I was in a similar situation a few years ago. A new STL from a ULV store came to our high volume store with the intention of "trimming the fat". As soon as she did more than half of the store quit because they were all being squeezed to get everything done. I think flow/backroom didn't come clean for a solid 18 months straight.

Finally a new HRBP asked why the store always looked like !@#$ when she was well under her budgeted hours - and things quickly turned around. It took our overnight shift even longer to recover though, because in general its harder to hire for. I think for a solid year our morning instocks/pricing shifts had to push all of domestics and housewares from 6am-8am. The SFT/PMT would usually push for the first hour of his day too.

 

[Rock Lobster]

We HAVE the sales to support our hours but leadership STILL skims 20-30%.
We were supposed to have a crap-ton of hours during several summer promotions but they cut until we were getting no more than before.

Yeah, its beyond store leadership though! There is no reason to not spend your payroll as a leadership group, which many TMs claim (they are saving hours so they get their bonus). I get the same bonus whether I make payroll for the year by 1 hour or 1000 hours... I hate not being able to spend payroll! The reason it is tight is because much of the company projected sales DOWN for October by anywhere between 4-10% for many stores. Its a payroll saving trick because only the top dogs care about payroll, not the STL/ETLs in that manner. If they make the forecasts smaller, the payroll we spend is less because its MUCH harder to spend flex (asking people to pick up) than it is to just schedule it.

They are doing this because many of the process changes are supposed to save us payroll (and more to come). Theoretically, they are just taking their ideas for a test run. If the market changes are supposed to save payroll, then project the store down for October. You effectively cut their payroll without having to explain you are testing if the market changes are working, you just have to say "sales are down, so payroll is down".

 

[SilentCrow]

It's to the point I expect our extremely high traffic store to only have 5 cashiers on my shift. Back up city, but the sales floor only have one TM in each department. Store looks like crap but drive red cards. Our goal is 65 today team -__-

 

[Cart king]

Target cares about money and doesn't care what has to be done as long as you make Target money. Imho payroll will continue to get tight until you get to a point of a company wide walk out on black Friday right after open

 

[SilentCrow]

To me sales will be better if we had more staff. Zones will be better, lines wouldn't be so long, overall experience will be better. I would think a great shopping experience will entice people to shop more. As it stands everything becomes reshop because the guest are tired of standing in line.

 

[PassinTime]

To me sales will be better if we had more staff. Zones will be better, lines wouldn't be so long, overall experience will be better. I would think a great shopping experience will entice people to shop more. As it stands everything becomes reshop because the guest are tired of standing in line.

Right on point. Sales are trending downward, so let's cut payroll. I think Target will have to increase payroll to make in store shopping more desirable than online shopping. The brick and mortar experience isn't as profitable as online sales , but can still generate profit. (Of course, Target hasn't quite figured out how to run it's online presence yet). So corporate, WAKE UP before Target is the butt of jokes that Walmart currently is.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

Then, Brian Cornell gets a pay raise, at store expense...