MEGATHREAD Hang Me (The Softlines Thread)

[DialMforMonkey]

Those of you who have started on E2E in your softlines dept, how is being broken down in your store? I'm just curious... We're heading that way soon ourselves.

I'm going e2e soon. I'm now responsible for making sure the truck is pushed, pricing in softlines, hanging backstop, in stocks, the rfid scan in softlines as well as home decor, and all Plano workload (but I already had that).

Thankfully as a habit I train all my team members in everything regarding presentation and backroom. That way they can pick up Plano shifts when the hours disappear. So transitioning to e2e, hopefully, won't be so painful. My goal is to get everyone in softlines on the same page, everyone knows everything.

 

[thechadness04]

SL will have all the TM's and the MBTMs will report to the leader of the area they work in. VMTL is to set the vision or something.

Yes, still very vague. Look at the guide on workbench.

 

[softlinessgal]

so our team lead is leaving our store/target in general soon, i was wondering how this goes. do they promote someone from our team as the new tl or do they have one come in from another store?

 

[Kaitii]

so our team lead is leaving our store/target in general soon, i was wondering how this goes. do they promote someone from our team as the new tl or do they have one come in from another store?

my store tries to promote, though they wont always be from that department

 

[soyaxo]

There is the rumour of fitting room operators being eliminated for stores that exclusively have them at the FRs. ASANTS, but what have others heard about how that will play out? FROs are very important to our store because they answer calls, zone, provide guest service, maintain a fitting room presence, etc. How is the style team going to effectively do their tasks and FRO tasks in such a high volume store without getting behind?

 

[Him]

so our team lead is leaving our store/target in general soon, i was wondering how this goes. do they promote someone from our team as the new tl or do they have one come in from another store?

If your store has someone already on "the bench", they might choose them. Otherwise, they might promote someone from within your store but only if they were prepared beforehand. Worst case scenarios is they either hire an external or someone from one of your neighboring Target stores. Good luck.

 

[SFSFun]

There is the rumour of fitting room operators being eliminated for stores that exclusively have them at the FRs. ASANTS, but what have others heard about how that will play out? FROs are very important to our store because they answer calls, zone, provide guest service, maintain a fitting room presence, etc. How is the style team going to effectively do their tasks and FRO tasks in such a high volume store without getting behind?

Our FR OP uses a portable phone and just takes it with her while doing things outside of RTW.

 

[squirrely]

At my store, service desk answers the phones.

 

[BigEyedPhish]

Yeah I looked that over on Monday, brought it to my etl's/stl attention, and was met with confused looks. Since we're expecting all these team members to know everything are they going to be getting a pay raise? Last I knew pricing/Plano tm's were paid more then sales floor.

Last I knew Pricing/Plano TM's will not be Pricing/Plano TM's anymore.

Who do you expect is going to do the training for this? It is almost as if Target is saying, hey sorry we gotta take your job, but can you train these new people first before you leave? KKthanksbye.

 

[HRZone]

so our team lead is leaving our store/target in general soon, i was wondering how this goes. do they promote someone from our team as the new tl or do they have one come in from another store?

ASANTs some will hire someone from the bench. Encourage a tm to apply. Some will open the position outside of Target.

Our newest TL worked at Abercrombie with no target experience and negotiated a good salary

 

[signingminion]

Last I knew Pricing/Plano TM's will not be Pricing/Plano TM's anymore.

Who do you expect is going to do the training for this? It is almost as if Target is saying, hey sorry we gotta take your job, but can you train these new people first before you leave? KKthanksbye.

Nothing new. I can't tell you how many hours we've collectively put into training each vml...

 

[Doglover89]

Last I knew Pricing/Plano TM's will not be Pricing/Plano TM's anymore.

My store is keeping plano but scheduling them under hardlines or softlines depending on which SPLs/adjancencies/POGs they're working on. Pricing is staying the way it is. I wonder if its an ASANTS/ADANTS thing.

 

[DialMforMonkey]

Last I knew Pricing/Plano TM's will not be Pricing/Plano TM's anymore.

Who do you expect is going to do the training for this? It is almost as if Target is saying, hey sorry we gotta take your job, but can you train these new people first before you leave? KKthanksbye.

Yeah that would be shitty. We're trying to share tm's across departments so that they don't lose hours. If anything I'm more then willing to absorb some of those Plano tm's. It seens like logistics is getting cut more and more. I used to think ETL Log was where I wanted to go, but with all these changes I can see that position going away/being changed drastically.

 

[moonlightlullaby]

My store is not a super target and i know we got rid of plano/pricing etc. Now, the person who is in charge of their own section has to do price change etc during the truck days. So BGI does their price change on tuesday after they finish truck. Which has been sucking because when they have a lot of truck items (or when someone else called out), they don't have time to do any price change.

The way things have changed, it's just more work added to softlines TMs that work during the day. Closing TMs haven't seen any changes. We still zone infant furniture/diapers etc and hardlines still zone cosmetics, domestics, bed/bath etc. (During the day its a diff story. One person does softlines, dom, bed/bath/cosmetics, RIGS and manual research/pulls for those. Plus cover FR breaks and do gobacks when FR is busy) for the same pay as closing TMs. Sometimes it's impossible to finish everything.

 

[RightArm]

We're being told there will be 2 people scheduled throughout the day and they will be responsible for zone and gobacks/reshop and guest service on the sales floor. Since it's supposed to be an all day thing zoning should become easier over time. Then someone will be scheduled under VML to push the zracks off the truck and merchandise the softlines salesfloor. I'm not sure when we'll get to the other "model" where some of you already are that has people doing everything in the departments they "own". It will be an interesting journey, I'm sure.

 

[Doglover89]

I just see this turning into one big cluster. My "home" is SL but I work all over the store. Therefore I understand the point of zoning properly, merchandising clearance correctly, taking care of rewrap/defectives in a timely manner, on and on. Most of the other sltms don't. I don't necessarily think its ignorance on their part (although of course there are exceptions), but simply they don't have the experience I have. Leadership says I have to share that experience with the rest of the team but its not easy. We are high volume and getting swamped. I'm afraid our new tms are going to quit. I don't think we've come clean on reshop since we started e2e about a month ago. Its disappointing. What little morale we had left is withering away.

 

[squirrely]

I see this being a good thing in the long run. Being global allows you to see the impact of all work centers. This will allow you to own your area. I know it's going to suck at first, but it will be good in the long run.

 

[Noiinteam]

I am a flow tm and starting Monday I will be responsible for shoes and accessories. I can't wait. Sure it will be a cluster for awhile, but in the long run I feel it is a positive change. I wish the whole palletized freight thing was happening at the same time. No doubt this will be a challenge. Only the strong survive!

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

Wally World does it, why can't do spot do it too?

 

[RightArm]

Depends on your individual store leadership and how they tackle the changes. It could go either way. Right now I'm not hearing the level of change at our store that's hitting others. Guess we'll see what time unfolds.

 

[Tessa120]

I'm just in a really, really annoyed mood and need to let off steam. Forgive me.

#1 - The absolutely easiest section in all of softlines to do ad takedown is baby hardlines. So why am I finding around six missed ad signs every week? And if I have no reason to go into baby hardlines on a given week, how do those signs missed signs stay up an additional week?

#2 - When I am folding shirts, why am I constantly finding a few nicely folded shirts that belong elsewhere in the middle of a stack of shirts? The folds are nearly perfect and there tend to be at least 2 together, so it's not the guests doing it. Most of the shirts aren't identical in appearance, just close, so you can see they don't belong. And even if your eyes miss it, the cloth feels different, and if I can feel the difference, so can you. And don't get me started on the v-neck Mossimo shirts, both black and white, I've given up trying to keep the two separated. Sure they look identical, sure they have identical color names, but one is slightly softer and the other is slightly stiffer and I can tell them apart by how they feel (and that feeling is why I looked at the dpci in the first place), but no one else seems to care they are different and the stacks are mixed back together when I get in the very next day.

 

[Ahem]

Guess it depends on how you look at it. I hate doing takedown in baby. It's the worst one to me. It's the only one in SL with a million of those stupid sticky signs and the only dept you have to bend down to take signs off for. A lot of tms in my store are short so sometimes they miss a couple because they forgot to look up lol. And I think sometimes people forget about end caps. I often forget to check the whatchamacallit that the crib displays are on. Focal?

 

[jenna]

I'm just in a really, really annoyed mood and need to let off steam. Forgive me.

#1 - The absolutely easiest section in all of softlines to do ad takedown is baby hardlines. So why am I finding around six missed ad signs every week? And if I have no reason to go into baby hardlines on a given week, how do those signs missed signs stay up an additional week?

#2 - When I am folding shirts, why am I constantly finding a few nicely folded shirts that belong elsewhere in the middle of a stack of shirts? The folds are nearly perfect and there tend to be at least 2 together, so it's not the guests doing it. Most of the shirts aren't identical in appearance, just close, so you can see they don't belong. And even if your eyes miss it, the cloth feels different, and if I can feel the difference, so can you. And don't get me started on the v-neck Mossimo shirts, both black and white, I've given up trying to keep the two separated. Sure they look identical, sure they have identical color names, but one is slightly softer and the other is slightly stiffer and I can tell them apart by how they feel (and that feeling is why I looked at the dpci in the first place), but no one else seems to care they are different and the stacks are mixed back together when I get in the very next day.

Wait til Back To School hits. You will find mixed up Boys & Girls Polos, shorts and pants. I'm finding mixed up jeans, now. Even though they have a different Dept. #.

Also Girls Capris & Leggings are usually mixed up, too. Or when we have the folded Cat & Jack elastic waist shorts/pants in boys. Those also get mixed up even though it will often say PANTS or SHORTS on the size sticker.

Welcome to softlines!

 

[Tessa120]

Speaking of polo shirts, how does everyone else handle it when a female guest asks for polo shirts? We don't have polo shirts in the RTW area, nor do we have any school uniform polo shirts left in the girls' area. I've been judging size and then directing the ladies to either the men's department or suggesting an XL boy's polo shirt, but a lot of women are upset over having only a man's/boy's shirt to choose from. And the answer is always "I started a new job and I need it for tomorrow" so I can't suggest Target.com as an alternative.

Same thing with non-slip shoes. The answer is always "tomorrow" when I ask how soon a pair is needed, so what can I suggest that will be non-slip that is carried in stores?

 

[Tessa120]

Guess it depends on how you look at it. I hate doing takedown in baby. It's the worst one to me. It's the only one in SL with a million of those stupid sticky signs and the only dept you have to bend down to take signs off for. A lot of tms in my store are short so sometimes they miss a couple because they forgot to look up lol. And I think sometimes people forget about end caps. I often forget to check the whatchamacallit that the crib displays are on. Focal?

It just seems that ad takedown in the actual clothes area involves wandering around in circles looking for the signs and checking both sides of the signs advertising the line in case one got stuffed there. Plus I'm also short so a good chunk of the sign takedown involves smacking the holder on the bottom with an empty holder until it finally raises up enough to fall down and I just have to hope it won't hit me on the head.

Baby hardlines, start at the end of an aisle, take a four foot section, start with the upper left section and do a digital "2" pattern - across, down a level, across the opposite way, down a level..... until every peg or shelf has been looked at and dates verified. Then turn around and do the 4 foot section behind you. Then step sideways and do the next four foot section. When you get to the end, check the right endcap and then the left endcap. Easy to catch every one and you aren't wandering in circles or having signs fall on you.