MEGATHREAD Hang Me (The Softlines Thread)

So, last week our ETL-SL pulls us SL closers in for a huddle to talk about finger spacing of all things. She also tells us that we are empowered and SHOULD backstock overloaded racks and tables. Last night I decide to go through the C9 and Jerzees tables and backstocked a ton of overstock. I go back in tomorrow. Let's see what kind of trouble I get in.
 
The reality is, our store is a C volume store.. So not that busy, and we typically have had 2 closers, and a FRO. The Operator never leaves the fitting room, unless its close to closing and its dead and then she will fold mens tables and listen for the phone. With 2 closers though, they are lucky to get through the zone and do minimal abandons. If we had a third closer just to focus on abandons I think our store would turn over a pretty good zone. Our TMs separate One in Mens, Boys, Infants, Girls. The other in Shoes, RTW, Intimates, Acccessories. The one in RTW if obviously the one on the short end of the stick cause shoes and rtw are the worst, besides infants in our store :hmm:

It does help though that our PA team is super organized. Our PATL is constantly grabbing and backstocking things [when the bar cant extend anymore and its full, you have too much!] Our clearance racks are not only zoned by percentage, and size, but by shoulder-length and leg length and Tops and Bottoms go on separate racks as long as theres room. Tops always come before bottoms. The guests are always talking about our clearance racks as opposed to our other, (Bigger, and more volume) store about 10 minutes away.. It still winds up on the ground when its overstuffed.. but what can you do? :mda:
 
Fitting Room person in my store isn't the operator. A person in TSC (I guess, they're technically HR?) does it and one of the TLs will cover their breaks. Their hours have been cut recently though, so we've had to do it a couple times. They didn't really train us to though. I hung up on a few people the first time. Our fitting room attendant usually stays in the fitting room all night and they almost never close, so usually 2 people closing softlines. We usually get a pretty good zone done, but we almost always have a ton of reshop to take to the back.

Feels like we're always playing catch-up lately.
 
Anybody have this situation where the SL zoners find it more appealing to answer "guest first" calls than do their zone to the point that they'll run up to the front anytime the call goes out at the expense of their zone and then use that as the excuse for why they didn't finish?
 
This week it's been anywhere from 2(where we split up front/back- one starts in Men's, the other in girls and work toward each other then do the same in RTW) to last night we had 4(1: RTW + Sleepwear, 2: Mens + Hardlines Baby, 3: Infant Hanging + Shoes, 4: Boys, Girls, Accessories). We are a Low Volume 6AM store and our opener comes in at 9AM so we have to recover it at night.

When you do not have enough zoners to do the job and you know you don't have enough zoners to do the job... they need to be told to: 1) zone from the outside in, 2) make sure all tables are folded, and 3) make sure there is nothing on the floor. If they have to do any "half-assing" to get it done that "half-assing" needs to be toward the center where it's not as noticeable. I hate to say it, but when walks are done they are generally done from the "race-track" and so most of your LODs want to be able to walk by the dept and have it look good from the "race-track". Granted you don't want to encourage your zoners to do this as a rule but only when they're being stretched beyond their capacity. In other words, if you have 4 zoners on... they should do a bang up job and zone it right. If you have 2 zoners on... they're going to have to be more concerned with outer appearance than actually touching every single rack and table. Granted this is just my opinion and my observation from actual experience being on the zone team.
 
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Anybody have this situation where the SL zoners find it more appealing to answer "guest first" calls than do their zone to the point that they'll run up to the front anytime the call goes out at the expense of their zone and then use that as the excuse for why they didn't finish?

Nope. Our SL Prima Donna's avoid calls like the plague. If they ever respond to a call out on the walkie it's to let us all know that they are in the fixture room and "can someone closer help out with that". The adjacency is always #1, I don't believe that they know what the term "zone" means, and attitude is dished out daily.
 
See in my store, if they bring back a bunch of softlines at once, our ETL just tells us to leave it in a shopping cart, and they'll "rework" it when the push the truck.....saves us a lot of time backstocking, not sure it really accomplishes anything productive in the long run though.....
 
This phrase "SL zoner" does not compute. You guys have people whose only responsibility is the zone? Or do you just mean the closers? At my store, they rather us respond to walkie stuff and call buttons before anything else. If I'm running out of time and there's still a lot to be done, I don't respond until they call me by name. The other day they called me three times for backup and there was no line when I got to the front either time so I stopped responding for that night.

They tell us to zone from the outside in, because there's no way one or two people will get all the insides done when so few people work the earlier part of the day. This forum has informed me of all the corner cutting my store does lol. I went shopping yesterday night and didn't even see any SL TMs. There was probably only one person on last night.
 
This phrase "SL zoner" does not compute. You guys have people whose only responsibility is the zone? Or do you just mean the closers? At my store, they rather us respond to walkie stuff and call buttons before anything else. If I'm running out of time and there's still a lot to be done, I don't respond until they call me by name. The other day they called me three times for backup and there was no line when I got to the front either time so I stopped responding for that night.

They tell us to zone from the outside in, because there's no way one or two people will get all the insides done when so few people work the earlier part of the day. This forum has informed me of all the corner cutting my store does lol. I went shopping yesterday night and didn't even see any SL TMs. There was probably only one person on last night.

Yes "SL zoner" refers to ERT (Evening Recovery Team) or the closing shift. They do respond to "guest first" but the problem is when the GSTL/GSA or the LOD allows ONE of them to respond all night instead of saying "hey, you've been up here enough - let someone else answer". I like that you take ownership of your zone. I just wish all the SL closers on our side did the same. Instead they see running up for "guest first" repeatedly all night as a way to get out of zoning. (Yes, when asked why they didn't finish their zone they actually respond "I was up at Guest First most of the night") Let's not forget that a closing team consists of both SL zoners and HL zoners... If you're a low volume and you only have one or two people on the entire floor then I get that there isn't much choice. But when you have five to seven people zoning for closing in the whole store there is no reason why only one zoner on the SL side should be responding to the front lanes. That's when the LOD or the GSTL/GSA really needs to pick up the grid and start calling up those other zoners for their "turn" by name.
 
Anybody have this situation where the SL zoners find it more appealing to answer "guest first" calls than do their zone to the point that they'll run up to the front anytime the call goes out at the expense of their zone and then use that as the excuse for why they didn't finish?

Nope. Our SL Prima Donna's avoid calls like the plague. If they ever respond to a call out on the walkie it's to let us all know that they are in the fixture room and "can someone closer help out with that". The adjacency is always #1, I don't believe that they know what the term "zone" means, and attitude is dished out daily.

Dang... wish we could get away with that. lol But, no, we have to prioritize and when the night team doesn't complete their zone or there's too much reshop to put away those things come before the VA.
 
I only know one person that actually likes to go up for backup. Everyone always sounds so annoyed when they respond to backup calls via walkie. Personally, I think having a good zone for the morning is more important than going up so some guest doesn't have to wait in line behind 2 whole people. If the zone is bad at night, the day time people have an even bigger game of catch-up to play, so it's a never-ending cycle of catching up on everything.

There was crazy rain today so the store was empty enough the last few hours that the morning team (which I'll be part of :() shouldn't have too much trouble staying on top of things assuming there's no flooding and everyone comes in tomorrow.
 
I only know one person that actually likes to go up for backup. Everyone always sounds so annoyed when they respond to backup calls via walkie. Personally, I think having a good zone for the morning is more important than going up so some guest doesn't have to wait in line behind 2 whole people. If the zone is bad at night, the day time people have an even bigger game of catch-up to play, so it's a never-ending cycle of catching up on everything.

There was crazy rain today so the store was empty enough the last few hours that the morning team (which I'll be part of :() shouldn't have too much trouble staying on top of things assuming there's no flooding and everyone comes in tomorrow.

Yeh, there's a lot in our store that would prefer to stay in their zone too but I long for the old GSA we lost. Loved him to bits. When he called for back up on the lanes he was VERY mindful of the people he pulled off the floor. He would speed weave and keep the traffic flowing evenly to the open registers and then when it died down immediately start blocking off the registers of the floor team. He'd thank them for coming up to help and let them go and tried not to keep any of the floor team longer than ten or fifteen minutes tops. Needless to say he NEVER had any trouble getting people up to help when he called because they knew he wouldn't forget them. We have other GSA's that no one wants to go up for because they don't know how to speed weave, they stand around doing nothing, and once they get you up there it's like you've been kidnapped. >< And then there are those GSA's who panic and call up back up when they've got three people in line (I'm not sure what their gauge is for calling guest first). Technically guests should be first. If we don't take care of them right then they won't want to come back and honestly it's the things they buy that make sure we have a job. It's not the guest first calls that bother me so much as the fact that very few GSA's seem to know how to manage them efficiently.

You are right about the importance of the zone. It not only throws off the morning team but it also screws up the flow team when they're pushing to the floor and the instocks team as they do their research for outs. A good zone is not only appealing to our guests but it helps us find where things are supposed to go and helps us know what we need to push and what we need to request from the DC.

No rain here. Hope your day goes well tomorrow. I'll be thinking of you as I stand the opening watch for FRO. :p lol
 
Anybody have this situation where the SL zoners find it more appealing to answer "guest first" calls than do their zone to the point that they'll run up to the front anytime the call goes out at the expense of their zone and then use that as the excuse for why they didn't finish?

At my store, it's the opposite. They don't get their zones done because they spend half the night chit-chatting at the fitting room. They won't respond to back-up unless the LOD specifically calls them out. "All of hardlines is already backing up, can someone from softlines respond?"
 
Anybody have this situation where the SL zoners find it more appealing to answer "guest first" calls than do their zone to the point that they'll run up to the front anytime the call goes out at the expense of their zone and then use that as the excuse for why they didn't finish?

At my store, it's the opposite. They don't get their zones done because they spend half the night chit-chatting at the fitting room. They won't respond to back-up unless the LOD specifically calls them out. "All of hardlines is already backing up, can someone from softlines respond?"

In that case the LOD needs to make a habit of specifically calling them out OR the GSA/GSTL on duty up front. To my knowledge every GSA/GSTL that stands the watch has a copy of the grid just like the LOD and knows who is on the floor. In a perfect world everyone would be willing to go up and do their turn and be efficiently released immediately following the traffic dying down. Too bad we don't live in a perfect world, eh? :)
 
In a more perfect world, everyone would respond and get that backup cleared out in five mins and then get back to the floor, but that's NEVER the case lol.
 
A good GSA/GSTL knows how to manage the lines and knows when the back up will clear on its own, maintaining a 1+1 (which is the standard) and when it's just gonna get worse.

We aren't allowed to call out people by name or even work center or even suggest which side needs help. When we call for back up, everyone who is cashier-trained (which is just about everybody) is supposed to head up front. Do they? Uh, not until the STL (not even the LODs seem to have that magic tone in their voice) gets on the walkie. I laugh but it's annoying when we're backed up to the carpet and the same old, tired softlines lady from the farthest corner drags up every freakin time and I see TMs standing there, folding tables five feet away from the lanes. Your zone may be important, but the pressure of having 20 guests glaring at you and 4 guests yelling for more open lanes can get pretty tough. I go to each lane, while I'm waiting for imaginary back ups to come, and assure them that help is on the way. Of course it never happens, but at least I give the appearance that we care.

It kinda makes me want to stand at the cash lanes and watch the floor do reshop.zone after the store closes. Oh, did you want some help? Where were you when 8 lanes were 1+6?
 
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Where does it say they arent allowed to call out by name or workcenter ?
My STL won't allow it. The LODs will sometimes call out workcenters but we never call by name except to thank them for coming up.

At my store we had designated people for backup on each hour and they would be called up by name.
After they were called up it became a free for all as to had to come up.
 
Where does it say they arent allowed to call out by name or workcenter ?
My STL won't allow it. The LODs will sometimes call out workcenters but we never call by name except to thank them for coming up.

At my store we had designated people for backup on each hour and they would be called up by name.
After they were called up it became a free for all as to had to come up.

We did that for a while when I first became GSA. But the STL decided it wasn't brand.
 
It kinda makes me want to stand at the cash lanes and watch the floor do reshop.zone after the store closes. Oh, did you want some help? Where were you when 8 lanes were 1+6?

That NEVER happens in our store. The cashiers leave 15 minutes after closing while the closing zone team stays for another 45 to try and finish their work. If your cashiers are actually helping the floor side after closing, it makes me wanna go over there and strangle those unresponsive zone team members for you. LOL! I cannot tell you how many times I've heard from the floor how irritating the closing zone team thinks it is to go up front and spend half an hour or more helping the cashiers (and struggling to finish their assigned areas) just to watch those same cashiers walk out early while they stay behind. If the cashiers stayed behind with the zone team and helped out at night it wouldn't be so bad and what a great way to say "thanks for your help" by sending them to the zones of those who responded to "guest first". :)
 
Where does it say they arent allowed to call out by name or workcenter ?
My STL won't allow it. The LODs will sometimes call out workcenters but we never call by name except to thank them for coming up.

Every store has it's own way of doing things. In mine they actually *encourage* the GSAs/GSTLs to use names - to look at the grid and call TMs off the floor by name when no one is responding. They don't always do that, though.
 
GAHHHH!!! What a day. Temperatures over 100 degrees and everyone trying to get their summer wardrobe. I actually had people in line *waiting* to use the fitting room. Doesn't happen very often but today was the day. Then there was this bottomless cart next to my desk as a result. I couldn't get it finished for the people coming out and tossing on stuff that they didn't want. And then there were 4 carts of reshop in the back somewhere just waiting to be processed. Going to be a killer weekend ><. Hope we make sales for all this trouble. :p
 
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