Making sales but still gutting the schedule

[Guest]

I know that Target is run by greedy selfish people but the gutting of the schedule at my store is just mind boggling. And nope, the "we're not making sales" excuse is not valid. The store is making sales. I know that ETLs get bonuses for all sorts of things such as not going over the allotted amount of hours they are given to the workforce each week and day. I know that those ETLs really really like bonuses because greed is a part of human nature. However, gutting the schedule just seems like a stupid move because it would seem like you are not really going to save any money. If you cut workers and hours in order to save money and by some chance, the day is really busy, the workers you have at the store will have more work since the store is stretched thin and will likely stay later.

That means that whatever you cut off the schedule for that day will just be added right back if workers stay late because of the work load. This week in the wonderful backroom, I have been coming in at 1pm while my help leaves at 1pm and of course with the awesome communication at Target, the person is already out the door by the time I get in the backroom.

Anyways, I just laugh at how the ETLs get all anal and upset over there being a full line of pulls and numerous shopping carts of foreign when they are the ones that are gutting the schedule. If you don't want the workload to build up then stop being so greedy. Situations like this are solely on the shoulders of the ETLs. If you want to have a good store and are in charge, you need to lead by example. You aren't a good leader when you lead by force and fear. That will just make people hate you.

 

[sigma7]

You do realize that your store leadership has district over their heads saying make payroll or else, who on turn has region over their heads saying make payroll or else, right? Hours suck everywhere in February. Add the data breach to the mix and hours are going to suck even more. It sounds like your ETLs aren't stepping up to the plate to help out when hours are low, but it's not their fault they are being forced to cut hours. It's not uncommon for a DTL to force "good" stores to cut payroll to make up for other stores that are overspending or to make up for an overall district sales slump even though some stores are making sales.

 

[Backroom81]

It's not uncommon for a DTL to force "good" stores to cut payroll to make up for other stores that are overspending or to make up for an overall district sales slump even though some stores are making sales.

F---ing this. I hate this practice with a passion.

"Great job guys in keeping things together the past couple of weeks. We made sales and payroll goals but.....you're getting cut even more because that other store can't get their crap together. No no, if you want hours you have to keep your availability open so don't look for another job. On the plus side, we have packages of ramen noodles in the break room and VIBE cards for everybody!"

 

[gun runner]

You're wasting your breath. Less than a year with Target and it's obvious it's just how they operate. I've been the ONLY person scheduled in the backroom on a Saturday or Sunday. It won't get any better.

 

[buliSBI]

Its the first of the year...hours suck no matter what. Even if your store is making sales. They still need to bank hours for later in the year. You probably won't see any dramatic increase in hours until a couple weeks before Easter.

 

[Huffington313]

Can we just put this to bed about the etl's getting "bonuses for all sorts of things"?? This just plain isn't true.

Here's how payroll works. HQ allocates payroll for each store every Sunday/Monday. The STL (or in some stores a single ETL who is designated the "payroll captain") goes in and readjusts the hours allotted. Ie- softlines/Hardlines/jewelry/electronics all come in as a big bundle of "Salesfloor" all the hours given to those workcenters come out of the bucket "Salesfloor". All other workcenters have hours tied directly to them. Ie- flow, backroom, pricing, POG, cashier, food areas, etc.

Tweaking comes into play for various things. Say there's a focus on a huge sales planner workload that week, they may give Hardlines a bit more hours. Or if the truck process is strangled, they may get more. And the other way too. .. Maybe your Pricing Team is so rock solid they always get done with their workload and whine about helping other areas... Those hours are then cut and given to another workcenter.

The main objective in ever single store is to spend EVERY LAST HOUR that is given by HQ. There is absolutely ZERO incentive to "save" any payroll from what's given. The only negative is if you OVERspend.

How does HQ get their allotment? It's all based on the forecaster and history of sales. Here's what the forecast is + here's what goal is / 2 *the weeks workload + the history of freight coming that week + the sales expected and the freight that SHOULD be coming etc etc etc.

Then... There's flex. Here's where flex comes into play. At every appx $180 in sales OVER forecast the store gets ONE extra hour in payroll. This goes both ways too. So if you MISS sales by that they DEDUCT one hour. What this is saying is that "hey, store... We know you killed sales and needed to add people, so here's hours." The crappy part in it is they also say "hey store... You sucked with sales, you need to give us hours back so we can flex them to stores that ARE making sales." ***this is all automated into a formula! the ETL, stl, and dtl have no involvement in this***

Because of flex, in the first week of the month the STL may hold back some hours to have in the "bank" so they don't have to call people and cut their shifts at the end of the month. (That sucks when that happens, doesn't it?) BUT if your store isn't losing flex by week 3, all those saved hours need spent before the month closes.

It's a long arduant process... But it's legit, no one is "saving hours to make bonus". And just so we are perfectly clear, Payroll is NOT on an etl's AE score, only your STL.

 

[commiecorvus]

Can we just put this to bed about the etl's getting "bonuses for all sorts of things"?? This just plain isn't true.

Here's how payroll works. HQ allocates payroll for each store every Sunday/Monday. The STL (or in some stores a single ETL who is designated the "payroll captain") goes in and readjusts the hours allotted. Ie- softlines/Hardlines/jewelry/electronics all come in as a big bundle of "Salesfloor" all the hours given to those workcenters come out of the bucket "Salesfloor". All other workcenters have hours tied directly to them. Ie- flow, backroom, pricing, POG, cashier, food areas, etc.

Tweaking comes into play for various things. Say there's a focus on a huge sales planner workload that week, they may give Hardlines a bit more hours. Or if the truck process is strangled, they may get more. And the other way too. .. Maybe your Pricing Team is so rock solid they always get done with their workload and whine about helping other areas... Those hours are then cut and given to another workcenter.

The main objective in ever single store is to spend EVERY LAST HOUR that is given by HQ. There is absolutely ZERO incentive to "save" any payroll from what's given. The only negative is if you OVERspend.

How does HQ get their allotment? It's all based on the forecaster and history of sales. Here's what the forecast is + here's what goal is / 2 *the weeks workload + the history of freight coming that week + the sales expected and the freight that SHOULD be coming etc etc etc.

Then... There's flex. Here's where flex comes into play. At every appx $180 in sales OVER forecast the store gets ONE extra hour in payroll. This goes both ways too. So if you MISS sales by that they DEDUCT one hour. What this is saying is that "hey, store... We know you killed sales and needed to add people, so here's hours." The crappy part in it is they also say "hey store... You sucked with sales, you need to give us hours back so we can flex them to stores that ARE making sales." ***this is all automated into a formula! the ETL, stl, and dtl have no involvement in this***

Because of flex, in the first week of the month the STL may hold back some hours to have in the "bank" so they don't have to call people and cut their shifts at the end of the month. (That sucks when that happens, doesn't it?) BUT if your store isn't losing flex by week 3, all those saved hours need spent before the month closes.

It's a long arduant process... But it's legit, no one is "saving hours to make bonus". And just so we are perfectly clear, Payroll is NOT on an etl's AE score, only your STL.

And if your STL assigns hours they don't have, even if makes sense, they aren't going to stay an STL for long.

So if you want to be pissed, be pissed at Spot.

 

[sigma7]

I agree with consumed up to the point where only flow understands that they have to cut to save to finish a bigger truck. In many stores, the only time flow gets cut is if a truck gets cancelled or they are only unloading at the end of the month. I'd say they understand it, but many times they are not the primary workcenter that suffers from cuts.

Sales floor really never has the chance to understand it because they are usually the first cut. Then cashiers get cut meaning that the remaining sales floor ends up backing up the front for an hour at least each night. Sales floor workload snowballs into a massive mess which affects other workcenters too. Bad zones, leftover returns, unbuilt salesplanners, leftover cafs, etc. means more work for backroom, flow, pricing, instocks, pog, everyone really. Then service scores tank and everyone gets the "we need to make guest service a focus" pep talk.

In summary, cutting hours sucks for every team and each person that gets cut. The only way to help yourself out is to get cross trained in as many workcenters as possible so you have a chance to get hours on short weeks.

 

[sigma7]

How did you, as an ETL, performance out 2 fellow ETLs?

 

[Retail Girl]

Wait, I'm confused...so come Monday of the scheduled week, the STL gets the hours for that week and has to make adjustments to the schedule that has been up for two weeks and we are already working? I have NEVER seen this happen at my store. Maybe it's because my store is already so barebones to begin with...but we are never sent home early or told not to come in on a certain day. Doing that would mean the difference between having a person in softlines and not having anyone in softlines (as an example).

Are your stores all so heavily scheduled that going without someone on the salesfloor doesn't mean that the entire department has no one?

 

[sigma7]

Well that wasn't you perform ancon gout two ETLs, that was 2 ETLs not meeting company standards that probably should've been gone a long time ago. But I can see where you get the idea that you're the one that caused then to be performanced out.

We stay 30 past close and that is it. I have to stay on top of my team to make sure we are getting cafs and returns worked and the aisles zoned up to decent before we leave, but I would never say that the floor is actually up to brand by any actual written standard. It meets the close enough to brand standard that has pervaded stores for the past few years.

 

[Retail Girl]

Wait, I'm confused...so come Monday of the scheduled week, the STL gets the hours for that week and has to make adjustments to the schedule that has been up for two weeks and we are already working? I have NEVER seen this happen at my store. Maybe it's because my store is already so barebones to begin with...but we are never sent home early or told not to come in on a certain day. Doing that would mean the difference between having a person in softlines and not having anyone in softlines (as an example).

Are your stores all so heavily scheduled that going without someone on the salesfloor doesn't mean that the entire department has no one?

The STL works two weeks ahead just like the TL's do with scheduling. They determine where to allocate payroll Monday and finalize by Tuesday. Schedules can be written on Wednesday.

Your closing TM's actually need an hour past close to get the store back to brand?? They don't get sent home early on a slow day?

An hour?! What world are you living in? They get a half hour, max. This time of year they are lucky if they get 15 minutes, and many times they are scheduled to leave at close.

Our entire closing sales floor team consists of one softlines, one hardlines, and one electronics. Sending even one of them home before close, unless they are sick, does not happen.

 

[redandkhaki]

m-thur we have 3-4 closing cashiers, service desk, 1 meat, 1 market, 1 produce, 3 hardlines, 1 electronics, 2-3 softlines, fitting room, HR, and two ETL's.

Friday-Sunday all of that plus 1 in each hardlines and softlines and plus 2 cashier. minus 1 ETL.

M-Thur we are scheduled until 10:15 and 90% of the time we are done at that time
Fri til 10:30
Saturday til 11
Sunday til 930

 

[Guest]

I can't put the "ETLs get bonuses for all sorts of things" because it's true. Their greed is so obvious that it is laughable. I have no sympathy for them either. They are getting the big bucks to baby sit minions that are basically the heart and soul of the store. Minions bust their rumps and make tons of sacrifices but get paid scraps. I know it's not going to change but I'm a person, Brett's a person, you're a person, that person over there is a person and I should be treated like a person.

The main reason why I kinda get annoyed but not to the point where I 100 percent care is how the ETLs get all upset and anal over the store being a chaotic wreck because they are the ones that gut the schedule. If you cut people's hours and shifts, you should expect negative consequences. You have no one to blame but yourself. If you don't want this stuff to happen, then you should be a better leader.

 

[sigma7]

What's a "better leader" mean to you?

 

[Barcode]

I agree with consumed up to the point where only flow understands that they have to cut to save to finish a bigger truck. In many stores, the only time flow gets cut is if a truck gets cancelled or they are only unloading at the end of the month. I'd say they understand it, but many times they are not the primary workcenter that suffers from cuts.

Sales floor really never has the chance to understand it because they are usually the first cut. Then cashiers get cut meaning that the remaining sales floor ends up backing up the front for an hour at least each night. Sales floor workload snowballs into a massive mess which affects other workcenters too. Bad zones, leftover returns, unbuilt salesplanners, leftover cafs, etc. means more work for backroom, flow, pricing, instocks, pog, everyone really. Then service scores tank and everyone gets the "we need to make guest service a focus" pep talk.

In summary, cutting hours sucks for every team and each person that gets cut. The only way to help yourself out is to get cross trained in as many workcenters as possible so you have a chance to get hours on short weeks.

Interesting insight. I cut my flow team to a 4-hour day if they have a small truck (schedule them the usual 5 and 5.5 hr staggered shifts) and that can bank anywhere from 15-20 hours. From that my STL knows not to get prissy if we overspend on a large truck PLUS I use some of these hours to call in a midshift salesfloor TM to work CAFs if necessary.

I think we can chalk this up to poor store leadership and managing execution. I know I had to change a lot when I moved stores and promoted from TL to ETL; even performanced out 2 of my fellow ETL's. If there is that communication to the team and you utilize smart huddles (30 mins with 5-6 TM's can build multiple salesplanners or do a detailed zone of a department) a lot of the workload can be completed with less hours. Now if we could only eliminate some of those unnecessary cashiers with self-checkout I could give more hours to my floor!!

I could say the same about those etls...

 

[Cel]

Now if we could only eliminate some of those unnecessary cashiers with self-checkout I could give more hours to my floor!!

Having worked both salesfloor and front end...this is most everything I despise in certain ETLs summed up in a sentence.

 

[Retail Girl]

C'mon, Cel...you're ULV...you know what it's like to have two cashiers the entire day, and lines backed up all over the place while back up cashiering and getting carts and trying to help the guests/cashiers. Surely we all know that two cashiers is two too many!

 

[The Dude Abides]

Wow, Consumed comes off like a complete and total self absorbed douche bag who is completely out of touch with the reality of the store.

You are the embodiment of everything we hate in our store's leadership.

 

[Cel]

We must live in a future where we've taught the checkout robots to zone, provide guest service, stock salesplanners/candy/DVDs/CDs along with stock balancing what we don't get in pulls, get carts (even if by hand), remove baskets and strays from on top of coolers/endcaps, clean themselves, bring their reshop up to the sort cart behind the service desk...

Wait if the robots can do all that already why aren't they running the store?

Edit: Oh, and if our guests have pricing issues and whatnot while interacting with a live person cashiering who has a brain and a body of experience and knowledge to pull from, I shudder to think how much work whoever's managing our robot overlords will have to put in.

 

[Backroom81]

Now if we could only eliminate some of those unnecessary cashiers with self-checkout I could give more hours to my floor!!

Target deems self-checkout lanes to be contrary to the brand of service they provide. As much as I hate backup cashiering, I agree with their sentiment. "Great Guest Service" used to be one of the main buzzwords back in the day and we were given payroll both on the lanes and the floor to reflect that.

They way you speak about payroll, I would think you would flip the hell out if you saw the amount of hours that used to be allocated 15 years ago as well as the number of TL and ETL positions there were. Additionally, base pay was quite a bit higher (relatively speaking). For all that, Target was still able to turn over a large profit AND finance an extremely large (and in retrospect, overly ambitious) expansion. We hit 1000 stores somewhere around 99-01 (I forget the exact year) and the plan was to hit 2010 stores by 2010. When they started building several more stores in my area, people flooded Target with applications because it was recognized as a good place to work and paid well compared to the local grocery stores.

 

[EMFlow]

I agree with consumed up to the point where only flow understands that they have to cut to save to finish a bigger truck. In many stores, the only time flow gets cut is if a truck gets cancelled or they are only unloading at the end of the month. I'd say they understand it, but many times they are not the primary workcenter that suffers from cuts.

Sales floor really never has the chance to understand it because they are usually the first cut. Then cashiers get cut meaning that the remaining sales floor ends up backing up the front for an hour at least each night. Sales floor workload snowballs into a massive mess which affects other workcenters too. Bad zones, leftover returns, unbuilt salesplanners, leftover cafs, etc. means more work for backroom, flow, pricing, instocks, pog, everyone really. Then service scores tank and everyone gets the "we need to make guest service a focus" pep talk.

In summary, cutting hours sucks for every team and each person that gets cut. The only way to help yourself out is to get cross trained in as many workcenters as possible so you have a chance to get hours on short weeks.

Interesting insight. I cut my flow team to a 4-hour day if they have a small truck (schedule them the usual 5 and 5.5 hr staggered shifts) and that can bank anywhere from 15-20 hours. From that my STL knows not to get prissy if we overspend on a large truck PLUS I use some of these hours to call in a midshift salesfloor TM to work CAFs if necessary.

I think we can chalk this up to poor store leadership and managing execution. I know I had to change a lot when I moved stores and promoted from TL to ETL; even performanced out 2 of my fellow ETL's. If there is that communication to the team and you utilize smart huddles (30 mins with 5-6 TM's can build multiple salesplanners or do a detailed zone of a department) a lot of the workload can be completed with less hours. Now if we could only eliminate some of those unnecessary cashiers with self-checkout I could give more hours to my floor!!

What kind of etl are you? Logistics or sales floor?

 

[bckrmbulldog]

i disagree Jack. as a leader, and as a TM when hours got cut I knew/ know that it means i have to work a little bit faster and a little bit more creatively to get my job done. staying positive and just getting it done goes a long way. If i have to work in order to survive, then i am going to make the best of it. i sure as heck refuse to sulk and be miserable and perform poorly because i disagree with how hours our distributed.

 

[NOP]

They way you speak about payroll, I would think you would flip the hell out if you saw the amount of hours that used to be allocated 15 years ago as well as the number of TL and ETL positions there were.

After AE14 rolled out, one of the TLs who has been there for a long time, was talking to some of the TMs in my store and telling us about how it used to be. Every department had its own team lead. They did all their own research, salesplanners, zone, label maintenance, stock balancing, etc. They were much more hands on with their department than they are today, when you have one or two TLs for the salesfloor.

I miss the old days, the stores used to look great. Full, impactful, team members were available and not always in a hurry to rush back to what they were doing/reluctant to help guests, TLs had knowledge of their department, especially the products and locations. We used to stay anywhere from 1 to 3 hours after closing, every day, just getting the store back to 100% brand.

Now it just looks dingy since the POG team doesn't clean anymore, messy since we don't have time to do the zone, and overall, an upscale version of Wal-Mart. The clearance endcaps and PTMing are atrocious. We have so much clearance sitting in the back, it's ridiculous. Not to mention that the clearance that is out on the floor has been picked over and thrown on whatever endcap it will fit on (whether or not it is in the same department). Always fun to see chemicals in toys.

 

[commiecorvus]

i disagree Jack. as a leader, and as a TM when hours got cut I knew/ know that it means i have to work a little bit faster and a little bit more creatively to get my job done. staying positive and just getting it done goes a long way. If i have to work in order to survive, then i am going to make the best of it. i sure as heck refuse to sulk and be miserable and perform poorly because i disagree with how hours our distributed.

I'm curious though, don't you ever reach the point where you look around and realize that no matter how hard you work you are not going to get the work done?
Doesn't that weigh heavy on your soul after a while?
When you scramble day in and day out, being questioned as to why you aren't keeping up?

And maybe you do catch up, only to see your hours get chopped back so that you're right back where you started from.
At what point does that creativity start to slip and a little anger start to surface?
Do you have a right to that anger?