Archived Morale aka the ship is sinking!!

[Vulpix]

Hi all, long time lurker, first time poster. I split my time at Spot between cashier and service desk and I'm wondering- How is morale at other stores? It's so low at mine right now- the majority of our front end staff is burnt out and incredibly frustrated. Several people are actively looking for new jobs. And yes, redcards are a huge part of it. We are all tired of trying so hard only to be told "More, more, more!" Plus, minimum wage was raised in our state, so now us seasoned employees are making the same or just cents more than new hires, which is breeding resentment. The general feeling is we are underappreciated and ignored by our management, and people are starting to get very vocal in my store. Is it like this elsewhere?? Or is my store a rare sinking ship?

 

[thatcashierdude]

I doubt your store is the only one. Tons of stories on here about burnt out front end teams, as well as salesfloor, backroom, etc. At mine we have OK management that doesn't retaliate over redcards (besides in yearly reviews so your minimum wage raise, if applicable, would be a ton more than your company provided one) so no termination for just that. We don't currently have a huge problem with people leaving but we might soon. Hopefully I won't be around to see it.

Funny thing, to keep pace with minimum wage I'd have to get a yearly review of .50 cents. So .50 / 8.50 = .059...there is literally no incentive to do any hard work because come August in Minnesota I would get a 50 cent raise regardless of what my review is because 5% is the maximum raise you can get. Sad. And I believe target likes to keep it's TMs at .50 above minimum wage for base pay, so that would be a 1.00 raise.

 

[Vulpix]

Funny thing, to keep pace with minimum wage I'd have to get a yearly review of .50 cents. So .50 / 8.50 = .059...there is literally no incentive to do any hard work because come August in Minnesota I would get a 50 cent raise regardless of what my review is because 5% is the maximum raise you can get. Sad. And I believe target likes to keep it's TMs at .50 above minimum wage for base pay, so that would be a 1.00 raise.

Yep I am also in MN. When minimum wage went to 8 bucks an hour there were a lot of unhappy team members that got bumped to match 8.00 and now made the same as new hires... my other job gave us all a small bump when minimum wage went up, and that's a much smaller company than Spot.

 

[PugMuffin]

You should of seen my store before I left. I can't imagine what it's like now with all of the electronics team and most of the hardlines team gone. I think every store is suffering right now from low morale.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

Search our threads, we have many stories about pay, leadership & corp.

 

[commiecorvus]

Actually in the time I've been on this site I've noticed that there seems to be threads like this pretty regularly this time of year.
Some common factors are the massive cutting of hours, the let down after the holidays, the general grumpiness that comes from February, and the butt end of winter.
But each year seems to have it's own kind of pain.

The one thing I have noticed about this year is people aren't saying 'Well, I'm just going to have to stick with it because there's nothing else out there.'
Things are getting better nationally and pay is getting better at other jobs.
Spot is going to be losing a lot of bodies.

 

[Retail Girl]

I doubt your store is the only one. Tons of stories on here about burnt out front end teams, as well as salesfloor, backroom, etc. At mine we have OK management that doesn't retaliate over redcards (besides in yearly reviews so your minimum wage raise, if applicable, would be a ton more than your company provided one) so no termination for just that. We don't currently have a huge problem with people leaving but we might soon. Hopefully I won't be around to see it.

Funny thing, to keep pace with minimum wage I'd have to get a yearly review of .50 cents. So .50 / 8.50 = .059...there is literally no incentive to do any hard work because come August in Minnesota I would get a 50 cent raise regardless of what my review is because 5% is the maximum raise you can get. Sad. And I believe target likes to keep it's TMs at .50 above minimum wage for base pay, so that would be a 1.00 raise.

Likes to keeps its TMs at .50 above minimum wage? God, I wish. Can I come work at your store?

 

[indigo25]

I was at 15 cents above minimum wage, and then it got raised so now I'm just at minimum. I want .50 above.

 

[thatcashierdude]

Likes to keeps its TMs at .50 above minimum wage? God, I wish. Can I come work at your store?

That's what it seems like. I think they'll do away with that when minimum wage goes to $9 an hour here, but when it got raised to $8 an hour I got bumped to $8.50 a few months after that. Apparently they had been starting the new people at $8.50 and had to get some kind of approval to give everyone else below that mark a raise.

 

[Life201]

Actually in the time I've been on this site I've noticed that there seems to be threads like this pretty regularly this time of year.
Some common factors are the massive cutting of hours, the let down after the holidays, the general grumpiness that comes from February, and the butt end of winter.
But each year seems to have it's own kind of pain.

The one thing I have noticed about this year is people aren't saying 'Well, I'm just going to have to stick with it because there's nothing else out there.'
Things are getting better nationally and pay is getting better at other jobs.
Spot is going to be losing a lot of bodies.

Spot will exploit the poor market & the employees for as long as they possibly can. Money in THEIR pockets is better than money in peon's pockets.

Once employees start having options they will have the opportunity to do what is best for themselves.

Once TLs & ETLs start defending the TMs and informing corporate that they need bodies to get the work done properly, we will see an improvement in the way stores look & NOT just for the scheduled visits. Less time trying out how to finagle the reports to make corporate happy & more time actually accomplishing REAL tasks.

 

[tgtguy]

On a scale of 1-10 ( 1 being terrible 10 great) I would say the morale in my store is a 4. We don't have great leadership, hell some days it feels like we have no leadership at all.