Maybe stop cutting payroll so stores don't have a single person covering all of Hardlines for the first 6 hours of the day. Let your employees work, and you might notice an improvement.
Seriously, my last shift I had to leave electronics and do CAF pulls half the time because we had a shortage of cashiers, so our shortage of sales floor TMs all had to cashier, leaving me to solo the entirety of Hardlines for part of my shift. Saying employee performance needs to improve when it's the lack of payroll keeping guests dissatisfied and work not done is insulting.
Brian, I urge you to give us more hours. You're the captain of this sinking ship. Don't blame the crew because you decided to sail into an iceberg.