Alright, so I'm going to break away from the trend here and tell you what you should be doing in order to be successful 🙂
1.) Make guests your priority. If that means being late on setting a checklane endcap (or some other task) then so be it, you need to put guest service first.
2.) 60% of your job (give or take) is simply your presence at the lanes... Granted, you shouldn't just stand there and stare blankly at guests/cashiers, but you should spend your time speedweaving and incorporating little tasks into that. Bring bags/receipt tape/etc. around to your cashiers, work checklane candy out, help a cashier bag items or put bags into a guests cart, take hangers off clothes to increase cashier speed, redirect guest traffic to different checklanes to minimize unnecessary backups. Set a checklane endcap if you have time. Greet and thank guests heading in and out the door (depending on your store layout.) Really take control of the checklanes and make sure everyone is aware that you're not up front to be a cashier, you're up front to run the lanes. Get little things done while showing guests and TM's that you're present and willing to help them.
3.) Stay logged in on your LPDA as GSA, and check the alerts you get. Makes it easier to facilitate communication between yourself and the checklanes/service desk.
4.) Don't stress out when it gets busy. Stay grounded and remind yourself that you're literally just selling toilet paper to guests. It'll make it easier to respond to 10 different things at once.
5.) Minimize the need for unnecessary assistance from other teams (including LOD's.) Be Bold, utilize the front end team efficiently, make it right for the guest, etc etc. You're up front so the LOD doesn't need to run up every 15 minutes. 😉 This one really depends on your stores front end layout and sales volume.*
6.)Don't be afraid to call for help when needed. Whether it's additional cashiers, guest service, somebody to help retrieve carts, or additional Team Lead/Supervisor presence. There will be times when guests literally flock to the checklanes like migrating birds, and if you can notice this early and call for backups that helps a lot. I always looked at it like "Will we be able to clear this within a few minutes or do we need help?" It's difficult to plan for guest traffic and, unlike Walmart, we're supposed to care about checkout times. The sales floor will probably be irritated about backing up all the time, but they can and will get over it. And if they can't, that's something you should pass along to your team leads and they can handle it appropriately.
7.) Lead by example. A GSA is not a team lead, so we can't coach team members. We're supposed to model ideal brand behavior, so to speak. We can "train" team members but cannot coach. I do quite a bit of observing and recording, then I turn it over to my GSTL.
8.) Similar to number 1, stay guest focused. You aren't asking for additional help for yourself personally, you're asking for your guests.
9.) Put some thought into writing a break schedule, and keep up with it! Really, you'll be thankful you did. Once you get into the swing of things, you'll notice various trends and identify the best times to schedule rounds of breaks. Peak sales hour isn't always completely correct, but it's a good point of reference for what your day will be like. You're still going to be short a person regardless, because they're on break, but a little planning goes a long way.
10.) The service desk TM will call you if they need you. Don't spend your entire day over there. Check in with them periodically, backup as needed, check their CRC bin, ask about anything you think needs to be corrected, but keep it short and sweet! Most of your time should be spent at the lanes!
11.) Redcards, Redcards, Redcards.
12.) If you have guests waiting to be helped, nobody should be standing around up front doing nothing.. Regardless of who it is. Guests are simple creatures of habit, who aren't capable of high-level thought. They see somebody in red and khaki, and they see that they're standing around talking instead of helping them. Little unofficial huddles look bad anywhere on the floor, but especially bad at the checklanes when guests are waiting.
As far as working at various volume stores goes, I've only ever done low-volume GSA, but here's what I've gathered:
Low volume: speedweaving isn't as big of a requirement, so you'll spend a lot more time ON a checklane covering breaks or just keeping up with guest traffic and minimizing backup calls. You might also spend a chunk of your day pushing carts, covering service desk or FA breaks. At night you might be expected to help the sales floor zone something near the front (we do girls and accessories.) Our Food Ave is usually dead, and the only thing people ever buy is icee's, so it's more efficient at my store for the FA-TM to spend a good chunk of time on the express lane, and I'll just keep an eye on the food ave counter.
High volume: Again, I've never done high-volume GSA, but from what I understand you spend a lot more time speedweaving and responding to supervisor/GSTL calls with a little less of the random tasks I do at a low volume store..
Also, you'll probably be the only one scheduled as GSA. Your GSTL might double-schedule the two of you as GSA/GSTL so he or she can have some off-site time, but typically you'll be the single person running the lanes. Fairly often, especially dayside, you'll have another GSA with you as service desk or cashier or something. Again, this is from a lower-volume experience. I did spend a little time at a nearby SuperT to help with their cosmetics transcend (they were very low on plano TM's) and it looked like they had an opening, mid, and closing GSA/TL. So they did have double-coverage for a while, but quite a bit of it was either the GSTL's offsite time or the GSA covering breaks/cashiering while the GSTL ran the lanes.
I'll go to huddle every once and a while, just to make sure there is a front end presence! But if you miss it, no biggie.
I'm sure there's plenty that I didn't mention, but I'm always willing to answer questions if you have any!
