Archived Is It Worth Training New Hires?

[60SecondsRemaining]

Man we just hired 70 just in 1 month. There are quite a few that just stand around on the sales floor not doing anything. Theyre giving these new hires 40hrs and pushing people who have had 40 hours consistently down to 20 and less. It's absolutely wrong. Idk if this is a corporate push down the line or what but people are very upset.

This is most likely directed from the DM level, as many dms (mistakenly) believe that you will increase churn if you don't give new hires hours. As in they will quit before investment, creating a hiring churn of quit/hire/quit/hire.

You can't effectively onboard 70 people at once without payroll backing you. This is a big problem target, and many other sharehold corporations have around the holidays. You need to staff seasonally, but the payroll isn't provided until xyz date.

You then get a massive influx of hires who are marginally trained, with no investment in your business, this pulls down morale and lowers the productivity bar.

At the same time, it gives the perception of "why are they getting these hours". In reality, there more more hours, but store level leadership has done a poor or nonexistent job of explaining how payroll works to their teams.

The result of all of this is seen every 4th quarter across most target stores, decreased morale, increased stress, and churn of good performers due to lack of a moderated work environment.

All of it points to the same thing, which is young, inexperienced leaders at store level, who lack the knowledge and communication ability to properly convey what will happen, and how they will navigate it to their team. They tow the company line, and nothing else.

Show me a store with experienced, strong communicators and planners in leadership roles, and I'll show you a store with low turnover and happy employees.

 

[HRZone]

Man we just hired 70 just in 1 month. There are quite a few that just stand around on the sales floor not doing anything. Theyre giving these new hires 40hrs and pushing people who have had 40 hours consistently down to 20 and less. It's absolutely wrong. Idk if this is a corporate push down the line or what but people are very upset.

Your store has awful leadership. I have posted here many times that corporates directive was to give priority in hours to our existing hires.

The only regular team members not getting hours are the ones with crappy availabilities. If you can only work from 9 to 3 Monday thru Friday, I am going to give the seasonal with 24/7 availability more hours then you. Not going to lie.

Yes some seasonals suck but part of it is you just need bodies this time of year. Seasonal reduction is a month away so you have them push (even slowly) and then cut them loose unless they show something amazing.

 

[Kartman]

Hallelujah!!!

 

[Him]

I can only speak for myself, but I personally enjoy training new hires, even if they don't last. Ones I have had have been very receptive and eager to learn. They asked plenty of questions and I made sure they had any concepts down cold. Even though some might have been seasonal, 1) it looked great on my part as a developmental standpoint. Number 2, it helped my reputation not only in one of my stores I previously worked at. It helped me gain notary farther than I even seen some people. I never would have thought certain people in the higher hierarchy even knew who I was. And one of the greatest points of all, it helped (and continues to help me) BEYOND Spot. I LITERALLY got another job based solely on 2 skills I learned with Spot. I never would have landed the job without those skill sets.

 

[Kartman]

What I like the best about training is that I make as much as the wingnut I'm training!

 

[SpilledTea]

Some of my issues in the past with training new hires has come from our HR. Ours specifically, not poking at any of you awesome HR peeps. They would schedule a trainee with the same hours as me and then FAIL to tell me I was training that day. Nothing more frustrating than being knee deep in workload only to have this strange new TM walk up, introduce themselves, and tell you that you're training them. Like *SURPRISE*

Or getting 3 trainees on a closing shift.

 

[tgtguy]

When I am training someone in the backroom I can usually tell pretty quickly if they are going to make it . I train them all the same just some people catch on faster than others and some are just lazy and don't give a crap. I treat them the way I wish I had been treated when I was learning years ago. I don't mind them asking questions in matter of fact that's the first thing I tell them. I would rather them ask the same question 50 times than assume something and do it the wrong way. If I get the feeling a tm just isn't going to cut it I will pass along the info to my etl and srtl. They usually will discretely put them on flow .

 

[Kartman]

When I am training ANYONE I can usually tell pretty quickly if they are going to make it .

ftfy

 

[qmosqueen]

 

[Parker51]

You must know these words to training new seasonal team member. "Your training instructor is Senior Human Resource Team Leader. This is the first person in your chain of command Assisting in the duties are Team leaders Logistics,
Team Leader Guest Service and Team Leader Sales Floor. Our goal is make each and everyone of you to become a nonunion Seasonal Team Member. A Target Team Member is characterized with one who has the highest retail workers. The worker obey orders, respect their seniors and management and constantly cross train to be the very best. Discipline and spirits are the spots of a target team member. We will give every effort to train each and every one of you when many of you will give quit on your own."

Army or Marine Corps?

That's not intended as a slam, by the way. Just that your terminology ("chain of command") and culture/doctrine in your writing style ("The worker obeys orders" and "Discipline and spirits are the spots of a Target team member") suggest military experience. I assume that these are you own words? I would be very surprised if these were direct quotes/talking points from a Headquarters-authored training manual. I suspect subjecting seasonal employees to, "This is my PDA. There are many others like it, but this one is mine. You will give your PDA a girl's (or guy's) name, etc., etc." wouldn't go very far in my district, just because new hires didn't expect that they were joining an Army (and even the Army pays full time wages and benefits). A more nuanced carrot vs. stick leadership style tends to work better with young people these days.

Also, just curious about the seemingly deliberate insertion of the adjective "nonunion" in the words above. Never seen that before at Target. Does your district have particular challenges/worries about team members trying to organize into collective bargaining units?

 

[HRLady]

Also, just curious about the seemingly deliberate insertion of the adjective "nonunion" in the words above. Never seen that before at Target. Does your district have particular challenges/worries about team members trying to organize into collective bargaining units?

Target doesn't like unions in general. The older orientation DVDs actually contained some anti-union propaganda.

 

[Bullseyerc]

We have so many new seasonal cashiers and turnover that I’m forced to have seasonal cashiers train seasonal cashiers while I️ am the only GSTL on duty doing a billion alcohol overrides (we have a lot of minors and I️ mean a lot) and helping out at guest service. It’s imposible to focus all my attention on just one cashier.

 

[Leo47]

We have so many new seasonal cashiers and turnover that I’m forced to have seasonal cashiers train seasonal cashiers while I️ am the only GSTL on duty doing a billion alcohol overrides (we have a lot of minors and I️ mean a lot) and helping out at guest service. It’s imposible to focus all my attention on just one cashier.

Sounds like my store. I am really feeling for all the GSTLs/GSAs right now, it’s nuts up here. Will only be one of them running the front at a time (no mid on some days) and there’s long lines at GS, long lines at the front, blinkers on, getting called to SCO, LOD screeching over the walkie about the lines. It’s insane

 

[Bullseyerc]

Sounds like my store. I am really feeling for all the GSTLs/GSAs right now, it’s nuts up here. Will only be one of them running the front at a time (no mid on some days) and there’s long lines at GS, long lines at the front, blinkers on, getting called to SCO, LOD screeching over the walkie about the lines. It’s insane

This is why I️ have made sure to have every single team member/leader in the store cashier trained... some even guest service trained. I️ will call people out by name and push the guest service button at guest service when it is severely backed up and it’s myself assisting along with my team and call for guest service trained TMs to guest service.

 

[can't touch this]

I've had pretty good luck with the seasonal people this year, so far only one of them turned out to be useless. Most of them have a retail background and understand the basics already which is cool because my STL likes to have me train people for some reason.

They really went heavy on the barely legal set this year, I'll say. Over half are 18 and dividing their time between work and school which unfortunately means shit availability...oh well, more hours for me

 

[Bethy]

Any advice for a “seasonal” TM hoping to stay on (and move up in the company) who didn’t get any training?
Should I bring up to someone that I was never trained or just suck it up and figure things out?

My first day of work:
watch a cashier ring up 2 purchases
she watched me ring up one
“Okay looks like you got it now so I’ll head over to SCO”


I’ve done a great job since then (a week ago) and have even been helping other seasonal TMs with questions and getting lots of compliments from my supervisors (sorry I don’t know the correct acronyms for their titles yet). However, I feel like I’m missing a lot of basic info that I should’ve been taught in training. I don’t want to be let go after the holidays just because nobody told me this stuff and I don’t know who to ask.

Are policies and procedures basically the same in all stores? Like could I ask questions here so I don’t have to bother someone higher up at my store?

 

[Yetive]

Most things should be the same. You can ask questions, of course. There are also some threads on here already with some good info for cashiers.

 

[Anelmi]

Cashier training basically is exactly what you described. Throw you to the wolves and see what happens.

 

[Kartman]

ALL SPOT training basically is exactly what you described. Throw you to the wolves and see what happens.

ftfy