Archived How many of the problems at your store are corp related, or ETL/STL related?

[RetailWorld]

At my store, I can't help but feel like we have a strong(not perfect) staff, but what is really holding us back is shit coming from higher ups and all the trimming of payroll. The expectations and the level of productivity is so insanely high that there is no hope in getting our store back in the condition it was about a year ago.

Luckily we have a leadership staff that is not holding our TM's to impossible expectations(TL comes in at 10:30-7, works all CAFS. 1 TM comes in 3-10 or 11, is supposed to zone the entire hardlines or softlines or market salesfloor, do the assigned 4x4, work all go-backs, be available for guest first, and assist all guests on the floor), but it's still demoralizing to see a store you worked hard to maintain turn into a Wal-Mart level of a mess.

Anyways, yea, our problems are stemming from payroll and not taking into consideration processes, not our leaders. How about yours?

 

[cooljoey]

The only problem I can see caused by corporate for my store is their high demands on red cards. Everyone is really stressed out because next week in order for cashiers to get a green conversion they have to have a 3.5 or higher. We live in a small town where you can sell red cards to the tourists that come thru which isn't much.

 

[paidtosmile]

The complete lack of payroll was definitely the biggest struggle for us. We couldn't get anything done ever, and all the ETL's were putting in an extra 15-20 hours a week, working on the sales floor because we literally did not have anybody to get workloads done.

 

[Ringwraith917]

The complete lack of payroll was definitely the biggest struggle for us. We couldn't get anything done ever, and all the ETL's were putting in an extra 15-20 hours a week, working on the sales floor because we literally did not have anybody to get workloads done.

This. Is it cheaper to hire & train more ETLs (when the current ones quit from being overworked) vs paying hourly TMs to do the work?

 

[salesfloor10]

The complete lack of payroll was definitely the biggest struggle for us. We couldn't get anything done ever, and all the ETL's were putting in an extra 15-20 hours a week, working on the sales floor because we literally did not have anybody to get workloads done.

This. Is it cheaper to hire & train more ETLs (when the current ones quit from being overworked) vs paying hourly TMs to do the work?

No, it's not. A lot of time, effort, and money go into hiring a new ETL. They go to "business college" and train at other stores for 6 weeks. That's a lot of time and money put into training someone--a whole lot more than hiring, training, and scheduling an hourly team member.

 

[Leonhart621]

I'm not even sure anymore.

We haven't come clean on a truck day in the backroom for months. Every single day there's pulls and backstock from the previous day.

We lost pushers on non truck days. So basically we have to do the pulls and push. This wouldn't be a problem if we're clean or very little backstock in the backroom.

Ever since we got a new ETL months ago, we're fucked in the backroom. The last two ETLs for the past years trusted the backroom TMs and let us do our job because we're more knowledgeable how the backroom works. Not this time. You want to run it, go ahead. Don't blame us because we're just following your damn orders.

Our backroom is a mess. We haven't updated for months. Research batches aren't pulled in time. We have the people but given the wrong tasks. Why the hell you want us to backstock BTS?! why the hell you tore down BTS to get ready for Halloween on the first week of school?! Most of our BTS are in tubs, flats, and locations in the backroom.

We can't handle BTS, we are so damn screwed for the 4th quarter.

 

[TiedAndDropped]

Our store has excellent TMs TLs and pretty good ETLs. Corporate is a lot of the source of most problems. They are stingy with hours. They are stingy with equipment. Their IT absolutely is the pits - some POGs won't print, computers are dog slow, and half the time " X is not available now, please try again later." And I am sick and tired of label strips not coming until two weeks after a POG is set, or they are on time but don't match the spacing of the product on the shelf.

 

[Retail Girl]

Part of ours is a corporate issue: not enough hours and crappy equipment. The other part is a communication problem. Part of that stems from corporate and part of it is a store leadership issue.

 

[tgtguy]

The issues within my store are mostly due to poor leadership. Payroll is an issue...especially the last week of the month....but leadership is poor all the time . If payroll is cut, then work centers struggle to get their jobs done. Ie, you have a truck...to push so you cut flow team members not by a few hours...but some by a whole shift. We had one Stl years ago...who had this motto...if hours get cut the job still well get done. You may ask how? He made the etls push the truck, backstock etc...so, when they had to cut hours....those etls knew they better have their box cutter handy. They would also have to zone, set pogs, run the front end.....and here is the shocker....the Stl was right there with them. Sadly, those days are gone.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

The issues within my store are mostly due to poor leadership. Payroll is an issue...especially the last week of the month....but leadership is poor all the time .

If sales are not strong enough at the end of the month. Hours will be cut at spot.

 

[konk]

The complete lack of payroll was definitely the biggest struggle for us. We couldn't get anything done ever, and all the ETL's were putting in an extra 15-20 hours a week, working on the sales floor because we literally did not have anybody to get workloads done.

This. Is it cheaper to hire & train more ETLs (when the current ones quit from being overworked) vs paying hourly TMs to do the work?

No, it's not. A lot of time, effort, and money go into hiring a new ETL. They go to "business college" and train at other stores for 6 weeks. That's a lot of time and money put into training someone--a whole lot more than hiring, training, and scheduling an hourly team member.

New ETL saved her hotel receipt to the desktop. $3000+

 

[bullseyekindaguy]

My experience... Store leaders and execution.

When I was at my store... We were a ULV store with a solid team of long-term team leaders (with the exception of the backroom/instocks TL) who knew best practice like it was the back of their hand. My old STL allowed them to use their best judgement and rarely had to correct or suggest anything to them. The store was green, outside of some of the backroom/instocks metrics because of the aforementioned nincompoop TL.

Once the good STL was shipped off to a higher volume store, we got a crappy STL with this "green is never green enough" way of thinking. Even if we were green, with solid process, she wanted SOMETHING TO CHANGE with the process. When the process fell to yellow, or red, she just chalked it up to incompetence and made suggestions that made no sense or went against best practice.

If we went back to a way that was previously used, or if the team continued to the same process for a few weeks, she'd get mad and said we were being complacent with our results and weren't pushing hard enough. It's a ULV store with solid processes... It's not rocket science!!

We're going to stop wave stocking and go back to individual departments. Oh that doesn't work.. Let's try individual tubs and flats. Oh that doesn't work either. Let's try an "all hands on deck" method of unloading the truck (Anyone in the store was to be back in the store until the truck was unloaded), oh that doesn't work. When we went back to BP standards... Oh it went back to green.

Another problem was store leaders misinterpreting or misreading new initiative rollouts. They would read the objective paragraph, and the "how to steps" but don't read the volume level-specific sections or another important information. The in stocks TL royally screwed up the new in stocks process (even I tried to help him understand it), but he insisted the information was different... Surprise DTL visit! He was wrong, I was right... He blamed the in stocks TMs

 

[scbman]

Our's is a combination. We have a new STL who is really set on negative reinforcement and sounds extremely fake when they actually praise someone (which is 95% of the time for getting a red card). This, plus the ridiculous amount of attention put on red cards when the rest of the store is struggling to deal with cut hours and rising expectations, has caused a lot of good people to find jobs elsewhere.

 

[redeye58]

Lack of payroll to get things done is the largest problem at our store, followed by crap equipment (including software updates that further slow down processes) & hiring anyone with a pulse.
Once in a while, we'll find a diamond in the rough but they'll eventually leave for greener pastures & the crappy ones either self-term or linger until they're performanced out (which often can't come soon enough!).

 

[BigEyedPhish]

I'd say, at my store 80% of our problem is the higher ups at corporate with their "Amazing" ideas. the other 20% are the higher ups in my store buying into it.

 

[oath2order]

Our store has excellent TMs TLs and pretty good ETLs. Corporate is a lot of the source of most problems. They are stingy with hours. They are stingy with equipment. Their IT absolutely is the pits - some POGs won't print, computers are dog slow, and half the time " X is not available now, please try again later." And I am sick and tired of label strips not coming until two weeks after a POG is set, or they are on time but don't match the spacing of the product on the shelf.

I wish we could print our own fricking label strips.

 

[Bosch]

I love you get a new best practice and get a visit who tells you the exact opposite of it. So I will blame some corporate and some ETL's who won't listen to the TL's and TM's who have been doing this for years when are straight out of Business college. And don't know their butt from a hole in the ground.

 

[whippingboy]

I'm having to remind our food etl what best practice is... and she's been there for years! My guess is our STL told her to ignore best practices and just get the job done.

 

[Bosch]

I'm having to remind our food etl what best practice is... and she's been there for years! My guess is our STL told her to ignore best practices and just get the job done.

I know, but just getting it done gets you finding blocks of cream cheese that expired in June and have mold growing on the packages and the shelf..

 

[BigEyedPhish]

Honestly, having worked in market for the past year and a half if I followed best practice 100% of the time 50% of what I get done, would not get done.. Anything food safety related is best practice and then some.

Everything else, is done in whatever time allows, so I can keep to those practices mentioned above.

I am willing to bet it is not Best Practice to only give 50% of the time to allow the following of Best Practice.

 

[Bosch]

Honestly, having worked in market for the past year and a half if I followed best practice 100% of the time 50% of what I get done, would not get done.. Anything food safety related is best practice and then some.

Everything else, is done in whatever time allows, so I can keep to those practices mentioned above.

I am willing to bet it is not Best Practice to only give 50% of the time to allow the following of Best Practice.

I found today where that showed and in the worst way possible.. ew.

 

[RunForACallBox]

Our store has excellent TMs TLs and pretty good ETLs. Corporate is a lot of the source of most problems. They are stingy with hours. They are stingy with equipment. Their IT absolutely is the pits - some POGs won't print, computers are dog slow, and half the time " X is not available now, please try again later." And I am sick and tired of label strips not coming until two weeks after a POG is set, or they are on time but don't match the spacing of the product on the shelf.

Good gosh thank you with the late POGs and spacing issues! Get it together! And to top it all off on REDwire they has a message that because of Labor Day labels for week of 9/14 will be late... are you kidding me...?!

 

[mrknownothing]

Our store has excellent TMs TLs and pretty good ETLs. Corporate is a lot of the source of most problems. They are stingy with hours. They are stingy with equipment. Their IT absolutely is the pits - some POGs won't print, computers are dog slow, and half the time " X is not available now, please try again later." And I am sick and tired of label strips not coming until two weeks after a POG is set, or they are on time but don't match the spacing of the product on the shelf.

I wish we could print our own fricking label strips.

YES. Single labels are a pain in the ass during ad takedown. Plus, the strips look better anyways if everything is spaced correctly.

 

[consume]

Honestly, having worked in market for the past year and a half if I followed best practice 100% of the time 50% of what I get done, would not get done.. Anything food safety related is best practice and then some.

Everything else, is done in whatever time allows, so I can keep to those practices mentioned above.

I am willing to bet it is not Best Practice to only give 50% of the time to allow the following of Best Practice.

I know what you mean, a friend at another store was changed to have the market TM come in at 8. And they're usually made to help work the 50 baskets of stray left over from the night before.. They may get a chance to cull after all of that, then in between power hour and 4x4.. Br works out pulls and they don't check dates or rotate.. A steritech disaster waiting to happen

 

[oath2order]

Our store has excellent TMs TLs and pretty good ETLs. Corporate is a lot of the source of most problems. They are stingy with hours. They are stingy with equipment. Their IT absolutely is the pits - some POGs won't print, computers are dog slow, and half the time " X is not available now, please try again later." And I am sick and tired of label strips not coming until two weeks after a POG is set, or they are on time but don't match the spacing of the product on the shelf.

I wish we could print our own fricking label strips.

YES. Single labels are a pain in the ass during ad takedown. Plus, the strips look better anyways if everything is spaced correctly.

I hate when they just don't send the label strips for aisles such as the damn printer ink or anything in MMB.

There's really no reason we shouldn't have the ability to do a label strip.