Archived Moving up in leadership

[mickeymau5]

Hi all!

I was wondering, what would be the path to become ETL?

I've been working at the spot for almost 9 months now. I started off as a team member and shortly, I was promoted to team lead. I've been in role as a team lead for a few months now. I also have a good relationship with my STL and all of the ETLs.

I also have my degree if that helps.

I also saw a post about becoming senior before ETL.

Process for becoming ETL?

I was approached about being a senior too. Though I am not sure how I should approach it. Shoot straight for ETL? or Go for Senior than ETL?

Any thoughts and suggestions?

 

[Kartman]

Join the Navy instead!

Become a Naval Aviator!!!

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

Be an intern. I am assuming that you are global & stellar too. It depend on hiring needs in your district, it may take some time. Talk to your mgt about moving up. They might be holding you back too. Ck out other retail stores, they hire you as a mgr on the spot.

 

[Firefox]

I'm gonna preface my post by saying that I'm not TL, Sr. TL, or ETL but this is just some information that I've gathered during my time here and with Spot. My store is also very weird, in that our store is high volume but we're staffed like we're B volume and our district is all about internal promotion, so take what I say with a grain of salt because all districts, stores, and leadership teams are not the same.

If you are going for an ETL position, Sr. TL might look appealing but I think it would hurt your chances. The issue is that as a Sr. TL you are expected to be LOD x number of days a week, so you are basically running your workcenter on reduced hours for yourself so being a Sr. TL in certain task-based workcenters can be very difficult to manage when you spend half of your time as an LOD. And if you have any issues at all of balancing your time spent as LOD and as a TL of your workcenter, and if your scores are anything but green, it's unlikely that you will be considered for promotion to ETL until you can bring your workcenter back to green across the board. I may be wrong in this, but I also believe that you would have to spend 18 months in the Sr. TL role before you could be promoted or transferred elsewhere. Two of the Sr. TLs at my store feel like they are trapped and can't move elsewhere, and some feel like a poor-man's ETL where they are expected to be the LOD several times a week but are not part of the ETL team. There are also people like @Xanatos who stepped down from Sr. TL to TL because of various reasons, and I'm sure he could explain it better than I can.

I think you would be better suited to apply directly for an ETL position or at least to look into the internship program. I think that would be your best bet without getting trapped in the Sr. TL position.

 

[kingpin003]

Alternate hot take: SrTL can be a great opportunity. I jumped right into as my first TL role. Time management was difficult at first because I didn't have a chance to get my workcenter under control before taking on LOD shifts. I think that incremental steps would have better prepared me, but I loved it. It gave me the opportunity to schedule more team members while I was there and direct projects I needed accomplished. I learned how to balance a ridiculous amount of work with my team since I had less time to do it myself. It allowed me to work with various teams around the store and understand how my job and their jobs helped each other. This is crucial and will help me drastically if I ever am able to promote to ETL. I had to prioritize at the store level and determine which tasks would drive sales the most or have the greatest impact on the business. I could do this as a TL, but being a SrTL presented more chances to do so.

If you want to be an ETL, SrTL is the perfect stepping stone because you can begin to understand what the job is like. My STL treats each SrTL as peers to the ETLs which is great at helping them work together. If someone cannot run a green workcenter as a SrTL, they would not succeed as an ETL. Anyway, I think you need to gauge the support you have from your leadership team. If they are behind you all the way, shoot for ETL. The interview process for ETL is much more rigorous, and more demanding. Your leaders are not going to want to send you off for interview they don't think you are ready for(it makes them look bad if people they pass on do poorly in later interviews).

 

[Tired Grunt]

Honestly, there's no problem with going through the entire process of TL-> Sr. TL-> ETL. Its great for getting the experience you need for all the areas of the store. With that being said, the biggest downside is the 18 months you are required to be in your role before you can move on to the next. Though 18 is not set in stone, it's what most stores like to follow, and it just wastes time in my honest opinion and sets you up for a really big risk.

The risk is this: If you enter the role as a TL or Sr. TL but you cannot keep your work center green, you will not be considered as ETL moving forward as mentioned before... You'll have to work on it, meaning more time needed to get it green on top of the intiial 18 months and once again show leadership you can be an ETL based on performance. If you enter right off the bat as an ETL, sure there's no guarantee you will do any better, nor make everything green and perfect, but you are already in the role. You can work and do all the adjustments as an ETL, on the ETL payroll and ETL status, not having to waste time under the 18 months and whatever more time you need to waste keeping your work centers green.

If opportunity should come up, aim for that ETL if that's your goal. But remember, all stores/ districts are not the same, best talk it over with some of the leaders in your store and feel it out. Good Luck!

 

[Yetive]

We've had interns and Sr. TLs promoted at my store.

 

[Xanatos]

Becoming a SrTL does not set you back 18 months.

I'd say that if you want to be an ETL, becoming a Sr is a great idea. It'll give you some experience running LOD shifts and give you more experience with the store as a whole. You'll get to work with different ETLs and the STL and get to learn from them and see things from their perspective. You can learn more about what their jobs entail.

The downside is that you are still expected to run your workcenter at least as well as you have been running it, although now you'll need to do it in 60% of the time. That's what stressed me out to no end. After 2 years as a SrTL, I stepped down to just be a TL again at the beginning of April and it was the best decision I've ever made. Slight decrease in pay, 95% decrease in stress. But to be fair, I didn't start hating the position until our store got a new ETL-SF/GE and my areas had a lot of turnover.

I like to compare it to GSA because they're both underpaid hybrid positions. They're great for development and if you want to get promoted, but not a position you want to get stuck in for a long time.

 

[mickeymau5]

Alternate hot take: SrTL can be a great opportunity. I jumped right into as my first TL role. Time management was difficult at first because I didn't have a chance to get my workcenter under control before taking on LOD shifts. I think that incremental steps would have better prepared me, but I loved it. It gave me the opportunity to schedule more team members while I was there and direct projects I needed accomplished. I learned how to balance a ridiculous amount of work with my team since I had less time to do it myself. It allowed me to work with various teams around the store and understand how my job and their jobs helped each other. This is crucial and will help me drastically if I ever am able to promote to ETL. I had to prioritize at the store level and determine which tasks would drive sales the most or have the greatest impact on the business. I could do this as a TL, but being a SrTL presented more chances to do so.

If you want to be an ETL, SrTL is the perfect stepping stone because you can begin to understand what the job is like. My STL treats each SrTL as peers to the ETLs which is great at helping them work together. If someone cannot run a green workcenter as a SrTL, they would not succeed as an ETL. Anyway, I think you need to gauge the support you have from your leadership team. If they are behind you all the way, shoot for ETL. The interview process for ETL is much more rigorous, and more demanding. Your leaders are not going to want to send you off for interview they don't think you are ready for(it makes them look bad if people they pass on do poorly in later interviews).

I thought about shooting straight to ETL, and at the same time, going from senior to ETL would make me more comfortable running LOD shifts. My STL also treats her SrTLs pretty good too. I am been green in my work center, and have been able to maintain it. I have a pretty good relationship with my STL and ETLs. I don't know what they do have in store for me, but they are a quite supportive. It's not everyday coming across management like that.

 

[mickeymau5]

Becoming a SrTL does not set you back 18 months.

I'd say that if you want to be an ETL, becoming a Sr is a great idea. It'll give you some experience running LOD shifts and give you more experience with the store as a whole. You'll get to work with different ETLs and the STL and get to learn from them and see things from their perspective. You can learn more about what their jobs entail.

The downside is that you are still expected to run your workcenter at least as well as you have been running it, although now you'll need to do it in 60% of the time. That's what stressed me out to no end. After 2 years as a SrTL, I stepped down to just be a TL again at the beginning of April and it was the best decision I've ever made. Slight decrease in pay, 95% decrease in stress. But to be fair, I didn't start hating the position until our store got a new ETL-SF/GE and my areas had a lot of turnover.

I like to compare it to GSA because they're both underpaid hybrid positions. They're great for development and if you want to get promoted, but not a position you want to get stuck in for a long time.

This is what got me thinking. I thought about how I can keep my work center green as well. I do have a solid team on the floor which is great. What catches my attention is how they'd do when my responsibilities are turned elsewhere.

SrTL is a position I'd want to use as a stepping stone but definitely not stay in.