Archived How do I save my struggling team?!

[Alaska 5000]

Hey guys! I have been with spot for over 10 years spending almost all of my years in Electronics, eventually becoming electronics team leader. Eventually I decided to switch stores for personal reasons demoting down to a team member until a team leader spot was available in my new store. After a month their DTL approved their store to get an extra team leader, with the plan me being in charge of in stocks and prince change. So in this process our Electrinics Team Leader left, leaving us without a Tron team leader. Our hr approached me and said they would like me to own Electronics and Price Change giving in stocks to the Backroom leader. I'm fairly new to the price change process but do know a few things but was willing to learn and meet my team.

So after a few weeks I quickly learn we have been behind consistently on our workload with price change for over a year. I also learned they haven't had a team leader in over 2 years and no etl really consistently oversees them. I learned I have 2 consistant team members, one of which is very slow and detail ortierented which can be good but slows her down. The other straight up just doesn't care about anything. She always frustrated because we are behind and is passive aggressive towards the other for being behind. She had another job too so once that time clock hits her end time, she's gone, she doesn't care. I also have a team member who works at nights 3 nights a week, but am finding the consistant disconnect in communication between ge early team and night team member is really hurting my team.

I am finding we are consistantly behind over and over again. I feel like we are never going to be able to catch up, let alone get ahead. I also feel my team has that same attitude, they don't see the point in going faster because they feel they will always be behind. My etl unfortunately isn't much help either. She is very nice, and I feel I can talk to her, it's just she's very young and very new to target. No experience with price change either and keeps saying we will learn this together. I like her but she really has no idea what she's doing. Any other etl I approache is very "why are you bothering me?" with their attitude.

Does anyone have any advise for me? How can I help get my team ahead in their workload? Thanks guys in advance!

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

Try to train your team correctly for starters. Work with all your team members. They finish anything uncomplete, just commicate on a common info board.

 

[SFSFun]

The price change workload changes drastically from month-to-month, and even week-to-week. Work with the other TLs and ETLs to get more TMs trained and available to help if needed.

We have just one price change TM at my store, who is an absolute beast at getting the workload done accurately and on time. But there's only so much one person can do when you have heavy weeks where half of home and domestics go clearance. So our price change TM gets help from cashiers and salesfloor TMs as needed.

For communication, do you have an office/desk or some common area where you could hang a whiteboard to leave notes? Just need to get your TMs in the habit of checking it every day.

 

[SrTLall]

Seems like you have a bad apple bringing down morale. I'd much rather have a tm who is detail-oriented than one who is just collecting a pay check and negatively affecting morale.

It's much easier developing someone (the speed of the detail-oriented tm) who actually cares about their work, than your other primary tm. Attempt to bring the bad apple back from the dark side, or cut them loose.

 

[Reddington]

Be as real as you possibly can with them. If they are not feeling that you're genuine and are simply giving out tried and true Target cliches, you will never get them on your side.

Try bringing in donuts. Everyone loves donuts.

Before you can get them to believe in your goals, you first have to get them to believe in you.

 

[BRBeast]

I say for starters the one with the passive aggressive attitude has to change. Your team will not improve with such a small team and 1 of them with an attitude like that, it will bring down the rest. Start documenting coachings and if nothing improves move on from there. If she isn't willing to change there are 1000's of other people dying for a chance.

 

[Him]

I agree with BRBeast and SRTlall.. You have to nip that tm who is affecting team morale.. Bad team morale is like cancer that can literally kill your vision and process. My suggestion as stated above is proper training of all tm's on your team.. It will take time but once everyone knows what's what.. You will see improvement.. Also since your etl is new and seems to be easy to get along with, teach them as well.. Superiors over me in the past and present are always happy to learn...

 

[Coqui]

I agree with everyone. Negative Nancies either need to change or be shown the door because it spreads. Don't allow it to destroy what you are trying to build.

 

[Kartman]

How do you "nip that TM?"

Isn't it just about impossible to fire anyone if they haven't really done anything to warrant that?

 

[anathema]

Negative attitudes aren't brand and can be counseled under work performance. It's a long process but either someone is going to understand their behavior is toxic and fix it, or they're going to need to find another job.

 

[Coqui]

Behavior issues are usually under "conduct". I had a TM that yelled at two of her peers because she didn't want to do a task that they asked her to do and I put her on a final for unacceptable conduct. It can be done. It's not good for morale or culture.

 

[Bosch]

Can I take a slightly different tack from all the others saying just put her on a CCA for her attitude..

I can tell you that attitude is built over time by being left to twist in the wind. And someone coming in and saying "I am going to fix it" isn't really going change her overnight. Getting help and getting some support and actually showing that you are serious instead just spewing a bunch of "Brand Speak" cause when I hear that I would not believe one word you say. Now am I saying that somethings she says are out of line? Not all.. You can put her on notice to button it up for a while "give two months" for us to get somewhere..

And don't ever use her schedule against her. Seeing that comment that she leaves when her shift is over = doesn't care.. Yeah no.. That is what she was scheduled, you or your ETL wrote that. Whatever her reason for not staying is none of your business. No one is under ANY obligation to stay past scheduled hours and any insinuation that she should and not could be used against her is a quick way to undermine any trust you hope to build.

 

[qmosqueen]

ask her to work in a different department say cashier !!

 

[Ajax11]

And don't ever use her schedule against her. Seeing that comment that she leaves when her shift is over = doesn't care.. Yeah no.. That is what she was scheduled, you or your ETL wrote that. Whatever her reason for not staying is none of your business. No one is under ANY obligation to stay past scheduled hours and any insinuation that she should and not could be used against her is a quick way to undermine any trust you hope to build.

Very true right here.

Scheduling for price change requires a lot of follow up. If your 2 person team isn't getting done with a 1600 ticket day, then that's a speed issue, but if it's a 3000 ticket day that's a leadership/planning/scheduling issue.
Always follow up on the price change forecast report every Monday there are going to be changes, sometimes multiple thousands resulting in needing to add people. Also look at the price change report on workbench the day before to make sure there are no surprises. I always attempt to schedule for 100 tickets/hour per person depending on how much payroll I am given. The old official goal was 120 tickets/hour but they finally acknowledged that this number didn't take into account yellow labels / working product to the floor from back (officially this is a sales floor function anyway).



I have a two person PC team, but I have ~4 other people fully cross-trained that I can pull from for heavy / surprise days. If it is showing a 3500k ticket day of mostly hardlines then there needs to be 3 people scheduled at least. If it's heavy in softlines assume it's going to take half again the amount of time as a heavy hardlines area.

I've had ETLs challenge the team for taking a full 8 hours each when RTW "only" had 1200 tickets but had to scan the entire department to find the items. You need to be able to speak about the amount of time it takes when zone isn't maintained the day before PC is scheduled.


As for your lower performing team member be sure to look up the Price Change Detail by team member in MyPerformance and you can track the total number of tickets that each person is handling. If the "slow" team member is still within ~1k tickets of the other person doing the same number of hours, then it might not be a speed issue just a perception issue. You can also lookup the cashier report and see if your PC team is having significant backup time resulting in the workload not being complete. Always keep track of where the team is and speak up to the LOD "hey so and so spent 2 hours backing up on a register today so they are now going to be adding 2+ hours to finish price change" If it's a regular occurrence and you are not getting those hours back it is a good thing to bring up with leadership.

My price change team owns certain departments each week as well, instead of working areas together. This provides some accountability if you are finding errors in a given department. If department A has a large discrepancy in accuracy you know exactly who to follow up with and most likely they will have it in the back of their minds the following weeks. i.e. If they were missing an item with 100 OHs then when it goes further/final they already know to not spend a ton of time searching for the same thing over and over.

I would also recommend you work beside each of your people alternating with them each day for a week that way you can build up some of the trust with them, get to know their habits, learn some tips/tricks that they use and be able to provide some experience that they may not have.

Just a few thoughts I've had, I currently have a fairly strong price change team that's in the mid/upper 90s YTD for PCaccuracy. Let me know if you have any specific questions, and I'll do my best to help.

 

[HRZone]

Can I take a slightly different tack from all the others saying just put her on a CCA for her attitude..

I can tell you that attitude is built over time by being left to twist in the wind. And someone coming in and saying "I am going to fix it" isn't really going change her overnight. Getting help and getting some support and actually showing that you are serious instead just spewing a bunch of "Brand Speak" cause when I hear that I would not believe one word you say. Now am I saying that somethings she says are out of line? Not all.. You can put her on notice to button it up for a while "give two months" for us to get somewhere..

And don't ever use her schedule against her. Seeing that comment that she leaves when her shift is over = doesn't care.. Yeah no.. That is what she was scheduled, you or your ETL wrote that. Whatever her reason for not staying is none of your business. No one is under ANY obligation to stay past scheduled hours and any insinuation that she should and not could be used against her is a quick way to undermine any trust you hope to build.

Yeah there are often times people who are just complete downers but there is also often a reason they got that way. Showing some compassion and finding out why she is bitter may be the key in getting her attitude to change.

Regardless of what people want to say it's hard to fire someone for their attitude if they do their part. There's a reason every store has an ETL who is a total dick but he or she keeps their job because they gets things done.

 

[commiecorvus]

Communication and making people feel respected can go a long ways towards changing some of those attitudes.
As @Bosch pointed out sometimes those negative attitudes are earned the hard way.
I can't tell you how many people I've seen come on this board highly supportive of Spot, loving their store and job, only as the years go by to become hardened, cynical, and majorly snarky.
Often times knowing that a manager cares about the work you are doing, is trying to help you in every way they can, has your back, and won't feed you bullshit can make a huge difference in attitude.

 

[Kompa]

Behavior issues are usually under "conduct". I had a TM that yelled at two of her peers because she didn't want to do a task that they asked her to do and I put her on a final for unacceptable conduct. It can be done. It's not good for morale or culture.

You can't coach someone because they hate their job. Refusing to work "faster" isn't a coachable offense.

If that TM is working at an normal speed, they have no reason to "work faster". We has TMs in the backroom and flow that never work faster when we get a call out. They've also used the same "we still won't get done" reasoning. While I don't really approve of bring down moral, they are right.

Why should they work at a super rate for the same pay?

As for the OP, I'd see about getting an extra eager TM. You''' have a hard time phasing out the the TM that works but doesn't care about Target becuase PC is a skill that not everyone knows. Your ETL wont sign off on coaching and CA because your TM doesn't like their job but does it right. 90% of my backroom hates the backroom and they do the bare minimum. They can't be fired for that.

 

[buteeinnm]

Having been on price change before, dont be surprised if the reason your team is always behind are reasons out of their control. My store never gave us the hours we should have been allotted for our workload. we would figure it out each day..okay we have 3500 tickets today, we should have about 32 hrs of payroll scheduled, 4 team members for 8 hrs. Nope what do you think we have, 1 person for 8 hrs, and 1 person for 4 hrs. We approach them about it, do youthink they ever said okay ill send so and so over to give a hand and by the way you can stay 8 hrs instead of 4. Nope, they look at you like, what the hell do you want us to do, stop whining, get it done!. You do this day after day for a year, and yes they are behind. Also factor in the workload and payroll are assuming you have a zoned store, a store where flow puts things where they go, clearance isnt just thrown in tubs in the back room, and all other kinds of things. Hell Id be frustrated and have low morale if this was done day in and day out, and then they make it look like its your fault that the work didnt get done.

 

[anathema]

You can't coach someone because they hate their job. Refusing to work "faster" isn't a coachable offense.

If that TM is working at an normal speed, they have no reason to "work faster". We has TMs in the backroom and flow that never work faster when we get a call out. They've also used the same "we still won't get done" reasoning. While I don't really approve of bring down moral, they are right.

Why should they work at a super rate for the same pay?

As for the OP, I'd see about getting an extra eager TM. You''' have a hard time phasing out the the TM that works but doesn't care about Target becuase PC is a skill that not everyone knows. Your ETL wont sign off on coaching and CA because your TM doesn't like their job but does it right. 90% of my backroom hates the backroom and they do the bare minimum. They can't be fired for that.

are you a TL or a TM? So much wrong info here.

 

[Kompa]

are you a TL or a TM? So much wrong info here.

TM. During my review I was told that my ETLs dont like my attitude. When I asked my TL what he meant, he found it hard to put into words. I wasn't necessarily doing anything wrong, but the closing ETLs didn't like how I wasn't...brandish?

Like, if one of the peppy closers and didn't finish something, they'd give a "brand" answer as to why such as...

"I didn't come clean because I was partnering with so and so to make great moments for the guest while driving sales"

Ask me why I didn't get done and it's

"Flow didn't come clean and I didn't have enough time to finish."

At the end of my review my TL told me not to dwell on it too much because ETLs won't push for termination for people who are doing their job correctly. There are tons of things out of my control including huge price change batches. I can't get writting up because my pull goal time target sets way exceed my work time. It doesn't matter if I move at sweating speeds. Our flow TMs can't get wrtting up because 4 other people called out. It's unrealistic for people to push themeselves further than adequate speed because another TM is slow as fuck.

 

[smashandthrash]

I guess it's a miracle half of the team I worked on wasn't fired

 

[smashandthrash]

I'm sorry. Termed.

 

[SrTLall]

You can't coach someone because they hate their job. Refusing to work "faster" isn't a coachable offense.

I wouldn't get too comfortable thinking along those lines. I guess it's up to the leaders in a specific department on how hard they want to push the team, but, REFUSING to work faster is definitely a coachable offense. Technically, you can be termed on the spot for failure to follow direction if you simply refuse to perform your tasks as outlined in your core roles.

 

[Kompa]

I wouldn't get too comfortable thinking along those lines. I guess it's up to the leaders in a specific department on how hard they want to push the team, but, REFUSING to work faster is definitely a coachable offense. Technically, you can be termed on the spot for failure to follow direction if you simply refuse to perform your tasks as outlined in your core roles.

Probably but it's not in your cole roles to pick up others slack. If op had to to term the TM that didn't care because they are always behind, then they have to do the same to the one that does the work right but works slow.

 

[WalmartDrone]

You can't coach someone because they hate their job. Refusing to work "faster" isn't a coachable offense.

If that TM is working at an normal speed, they have no reason to "work faster". We has TMs in the backroom and flow that never work faster when we get a call out. They've also used the same "we still won't get done" reasoning. While I don't really approve of bring down moral, they are right.

Why should they work at a super rate for the same pay?

As for the OP, I'd see about getting an extra eager TM. You''' have a hard time phasing out the the TM that works but doesn't care about Target becuase PC is a skill that not everyone knows. Your ETL wont sign off on coaching and CA because your TM doesn't like their job but does it right. 90% of my backroom hates the backroom and they do the bare minimum. They can't be fired for that.

Yes, you can be coached for not working faster if they are failing to complete their task. You're not completing your work, you can be coached for that.

Probably but it's not in your cole roles to pick up others slack. If op had to to term the TM that didn't care because they are always behind, then they have to do the same to the one that does the work right but works slow.

Your core roles is to finish your job, but attitude plays a big part on the coaching. No good leader would coach someone that tried their hardest but didn't get their work done. But if someone did the bare minimum and didn't finish, they deserve a coaching.