Archived My observations

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
May 26, 2014
Messages
28
Hello All,

I hope all of you are having a great Memorial Day and to all our men and woman who served this country I sincerely thank you for your service.

I had to come on this site and make a couple of observations and comments about my current employment at Target. I currently work at Target as a part time job, as a means of staying busy and meeting new people. I move to a new city and thought working at a job which I worked at for 5 years would be a great idea. Target is my second job, my first career job is that I'm a Molecular Scientist/Microbiologist. I don't depend on this job to survive but I do have years of experience at target. My target history is this: in 2006 I was hired as a seasonal employee shortly after I was permanent. I moved my way up to in-stocks team member, shoes specialist, and finally hard lines team leader. I graduated college and moved to a new city and two years after i quit i came back for the reasons i just mentioned.

Here are my observations: (This is for my current store and may not reflect every store)

1). Training - Is almost non existent! My first day back was watch a video and try to flag down a team leader to get a tour of the store. Granted I did have experience working for target but 2 years away and a new store, i thought my orientation would be a whole lot more informative. Also the first month i saw how many team members did not fully understand how to use their PDA, they didn't understand the correct way to zone.

2). Store Brand - Holy crap! How was I surprised to see how the store looked during our close. Never have I seen a Target store closed at night looking the way it did. Each zone was a mess and especially softlines. Clothes all over the floor, finger spacing and sizing non existent, tables and jean walls looking like crap. Is this the image we want our guests to be seeing when the store first opens for the day??

3). Leadership - Before I left Target for the first time they were transitioning ETL's to a fresh out of college entry level job. My store had experienced hard working ETL's who knew who to effectively delegate work. The store was being executed flawlessly, the backroom and logistics was amazing and right on point, the sales floor was achieving high guest scores. I remember my hardlines ETL having a conversation with my off-site asking if my workload was too much? What she could do to help. Does that even happen anymore? Today's ETL's that I've seen are young, fresh out of college, don't know how to lead a team, don't fully understand how each and every operation of target works, and for some reason are very good looking? Does that have to be a requirement for Executive Team Leader???

4). Team Member moral - This is the area that i had to speak upon, especially now that i feel that i can without fear of loosing my job. I have seen team members at my store: overworked, underpaid, under appreciated, under trained, and most importantly looked on as just a number. This whole My Time is making things worse in my store. From what used to be at least 4 people closing both softlines and hardlines is now 1 person closing softlines (which this one person includes the operator) and 2 people in hardlines. Now you tell me, how is this possible? When I say 1 person in softlines and two in hardlines i did not include the LOD and Team Leader closing for that night. In my store each ETL closing and Team lead just follow each other, having personal conversations, zoning one block (C) the whole night, whipping out their cell phones and texting, going up to starbucks to buy a drink, and sitting at food ave. I do not like to have someone tell me what to do when he/she does not contribute at all to the nightly tasks. Especially when there are fewer people on the sales floor and cashiering. Doesn't it make sense if we have less team members closing our expectations should be higher? These expectations are zoning more of the store, dealing with more go backs (foreign, reshop), and dealing with more guests. Then shouldn't the ETL and team lead should step up and help with the nightly close to ensure that the store is looking good and everyone feels like they are on the same level. Not like how it feels currently where we have a plantation owner spitting tasks to his/her slaves?

I loved target, I feel that Target has such a diverse group of people from every age to every culture. When I see a team member hate their job, and have to work so hard for a yearly raise of $0.15-0.25 it upsets me. Especially now that the workload is a whole lot more for each team member. This does include ETL's and Team Leads who i'm sure also have a whole lot of extra work to do. But unlike ETL's our pay is not increased at the same level as theirs. I hope to hear your opinions on this matter and similar stories from your stores. I know there are great stores out there where the STL to each ETL and team lead are amazing and caring workers. Who help out and get dirty with their team.

Thank you for your time. I hope one day target realizes that the story to their success is that they have such highly talented and hard working team members.
 
I don't know, I think it varies by store.


We have a pretty good zone, and I did get training/tour among other things you listed
 
Good old days are gone. Spot wants to be guest focus, nowadays. If you are a tl, be lucky to have an other tm on the sales floor before 10am. With the my time rollout, spot has found a way to cut hours & processes for store, by hiring more tm's working with 4 to 6 hour schedules depending on the work center. With that reduction, less benefits to pay for tm's. Mytime rollout has started this week, at my store. The tm's complaints about the schedule are at an all time high.
 
I understand that My Time is more guest focused and scheduling team members when the guest traffic is at its highest. I do believe that this is a problem for closers and openers when there will be very few team members on the floor.

But this isn't the only problem! What it comes down to is management, like Barcode mentioned not all stores are experiencing these many complaints from team members. When an ETL or STL is right there with the team member, engaging them, zoning with them, getting to know them, a team member will feel valued. When a member of management coaches you, asks you to go above and beyond when they themselves are violating the things they coach on? Or are having a nice personal conversation with each other? How can this store be efficiently runned? My store is experiencing team members being worked to their very last point, some of these team members are older individuals who have been with the store 10+ years, still making only about 2 dollars more than me? How is that showing any value to your employees when your a big corporation with such a big yearly profit? It seems that when i first started, my management group was right there with us, they would get to know us, they would mentor us on opportunities or promotions. Now it seems to me that my executive management at my store is like a high school clique who only hangs out with each other. Working and having conversations together, going to lunch together, and then trying to make us team members go above and beyond?

I don't know how this website was started or how this leads to any change at Target. I do hope that upper management looks at this site to get an idea on what other team members are experiencing and saying. To the ETL's and STL's that are running efficient stores and truly care about their store and team I honestly thank you. Your experience and commitment to Target should be something that other STL's and ETL's be evaluated on.
 
I have been on this site for a very short time. After reading some of the posts, I realized , very quickly, that I am in a good store. Our STL and all our ETL's are very tuned in to the tm's. Our TL is right in the trenches with us. I have pushed many times with an ETL. I feel I have their respect and I respect them. We may not always agree, but we can have a conversation. I never hesitate to speak up. I feel for most of the tm's on here and hope everyone stays in place in my store. I know things can go to the crapper very quickly!
 
We've had our fair share of problems at my store, but I always remind myself that things could be so much worse.
 
Everything that made Target a good place to work at and shop at are now a thing of the past. Getting out when I did was the best choice I ever made. And my wife who used to love shopping at Target and spent way to much money there no longer has much interest in doing so. She complains about messy stores, long lines, no people and missing items. She now wastes my money at other places.
 
I understand that My Time is more guest focused and scheduling team members when the guest traffic is at its highest. I do believe that this is a problem for closers and openers when there will be very few team members on the floor.

But this isn't the only problem! What it comes down to is management, like Barcode mentioned not all stores are experiencing these many complaints from team members. When an ETL or STL is right there with the team member, engaging them, zoning with them, getting to know them, a team member will feel valued. When a member of management coaches you, asks you to go above and beyond when they themselves are violating the things they coach on? Or are having a nice personal conversation with each other? How can this store be efficiently runned? My store is experiencing team members being worked to their very last point, some of these team members are older individuals who have been with the store 10+ years, still making only about 2 dollars more than me? How is that showing any value to your employees when your a big corporation with such a big yearly profit? It seems that when i first started, my management group was right there with us, they would get to know us, they would mentor us on opportunities or promotions. Now it seems to me that my executive management at my store is like a high school clique who only hangs out with each other. Working and having conversations together, going to lunch together, and then trying to make us team members go above and beyond?

I don't know how this website was started or how this leads to any change at Target. I do hope that upper management looks at this site to get an idea on what other team members are experiencing and saying. To the ETL's and STL's that are running efficient stores and truly care about their store and team I honestly thank you. Your experience and commitment to Target should be something that other STL's and ETL's be evaluated on.

This...you would never catch my ETLs, STL or any TL slacking off...They are always right there with everyone else working hard. My STL and ETLS and LOD whoever that is at the time are routinely backing up and even grabbing carts occasionally.
 
Luckily our leadership team is not to bad, Stl and the etls help with zone and truck push plus cashiering, but right at the moment i thinks it's overwhelming them, especially because the number of visits have skyrocketed. I've been with target since 07 and right now target is pushing it's team members to the limit. Our sales floor/leadership team is constantly on a lane for most of the day.
 
you would never catch my ETLs, STL or any TL slacking off...

My store is almost the exact opposite. The only time you will see ETLs stepping in to help is when there is so much clearance in the back that our STL throws a fit. Grab carts or throw freight? Only 1 or 2 of them would stoop so low. Helping your subordinates complete the workload is actively discouraged (our Backroom TL was given an IE last year because he helps pull the CAFs when he's caught up on his own stuff). I have watched an ETL call a TM over the walkie to pick a napkin off the floor when he was only 10 ft from a trash can.

Our turnover is horrible. The dayside backroom team has seen a near 100% turnover over the previous year. Myself and my TL are the only 2 that have stuck around. Everyone else tends to last about 6 months before they take the first out they see.
 
I've been at a few different stores lately and feel pretty lucky to have the leadership team my store has. The ETLs are on the floor, our STL works with the team, and all the TLs are out on the floor working hard all day. The stores I've been at have ETLs and TLs sitting in offices talking and not doing any work (and calling for back up cashiers when no one responds instead of getting off their butt to respond). I'd hate to be a TM at their stores.
 
My question is this: if there is so much discrepancies from store to store in terms of executive team management and their work ethic. How then do they get reviewed? I'm sure it's on sales, scheduling, and guest scores, so I'm wondering if there are stores like mine where our store is so bad on many levels but our execs are kept and get awesome raises. Most of the success from stores comes from great team members. Not dictating, slave running execs. How can a team member put up with this treatment without representation from a union? They say they have open door policy but that to me seems to go nowhere. So Target excepts a $8.50/hr team member to work harder than was expected 5 years ago, maintain the vibe commitment, and be enthusiastic about target culture when after a year of hard work and sacrifice we get a 15 cent raise? Costco is a good example of how to make your employees a priority and keep them happy. This current work ethic, pay, and culture that target has currently developed is outrageous!
 
Last edited:
I've seen a big change in the last few months. Before, ETLs did not help with tasks on the floor at all. A couple of TLs worked their butts off. The others did very little. Their were times when we had trouble getting anyone on the walkie. They did not even come out if a guest asked for, "a manager."
Since the cutbacks, they have to help on the floor & they hate it! The days of them hanging out in their offices with their expensive take out lunches seem to be over. A lot of them have quit & SrTLs & TLs have steped down.
 
I've seen a big change in the last few months. Before, ETLs did not help with tasks on the floor at all. A couple of TLs worked their butts off. The others did very little. Their were times when we had trouble getting anyone on the walkie. They did not even come out if a guest asked for, "a manager."
Since the cutbacks, they have to help on the floor & they hate it! The days of them hanging out in their offices with their expensive take out lunches seem to be over. A lot of them have quit & SrTLs & TLs have steped down.

For everyone who has worked at a store when the TL or ETLS are in TMSC or hardly ever on the floor...what EXACTLY, are they doing with their time there? Just sitting in the office playing around? Makes me wonder how they can last long if they are just scared to go out on the floor.
 
The part regarding having very few people in HL and SL is definitely true at my store. A couple nights ago, I worked a 7.5 hour (not including my 45 min lunch) mid-closing shift in HL and I was the only one there that whole time aside from one of my co-workers who does 4x4s (which she said is a mix of zoning and cleaning the shelves themselves to make them look nice), and literally nobody but the operator in SL (I dunno who she got to cover during her breaks). It went okay until the last hour or two when we were down to one cashier. At first it was okay since the cart attendant helped out for a while, but near the end of the night when the LOD and CA had to work on defects or something like that (I'm sure CAs know what I'm talking about assuming they do that in most/all Target stores), and the 4x4 was already gone, I was running back and forth between the area I was zoning and the front because the lines got long-ish fast. It wasn't a particularly busy night, but it was busy enough that I got a definite workout. At least the closing LOD wasn't mad and understood why I couldn't finish my work on the floor, so that's a definite plus.

I remember late last year when I was hired on shortly before they started getting the seasonal people, we had a few people in both HL and SL by closing, which made some sense since Christmas was coming up and we were getting a lot of business. But, there are some nights where I start to curse out the MyTime system since our store uses it and whoever tells it which days might be busier than others.
 
The thing I don't get about 4x4s is that zoning to planogram shouldn't be another special task. That's zoning. Auditing fixtures and signage shouldn't be another special task. That's what the presentation TL and/or that area's TL should be doing and following up on. Cleaning and making sure signs and labels are up and correct...I'll give them this. Cleaning needs to be done more often than once every six months or so when POG comes through, but we don't have the hours to wipe down shelves every week. And auditing promotional signing was much quicker before HQ decided we didn't need the sign audit application in RF Apps anymore! Now I have to scan every item in an aisle to see if it's on sale the toggle to batch the signs I need. It used to be that we could scan the signs that were up in the aisle and then batch what was missing in one fell swoop. I loved the sign audit function.
 
At my store, the ETLs and TLs are in the AP office just talking and eating candy. This usually happens around power hour and/or the last hour of their shifts. Mind you this does not include all of the leaders. The LOG and HR ETLs are on the floor helping out all the time. The Team Leads are in the office sitting in a chair, stuffing their faces complaining how they don't have enough time to get the work done. The team members who make the least amount of money in the store are busting their asses trying to work pulls, vibe, back up cashier, work the 4x4s etc. The team leads (at this store) are entitled little brats. I have never been in a store where team leads spend so much time talking and eating and so little time on the floor. They have learned it from their ETLS
 
I've seen a big change in the last few months. Before, ETLs did not help with tasks on the floor at all. A couple of TLs worked their butts off. The others did very little. Their were times when we had trouble getting anyone on the walkie. They did not even come out if a guest asked for, "a manager."
Since the cutbacks, they have to help on the floor & they hate it! The days of them hanging out in their offices with their expensive take out lunches seem to be over. A lot of them have quit & SrTLs & TLs have steped down.

That's the one positive in all this.

On the other hand, now Target is paying a higher salary to TLs & ETLs to do what lowly TMs used to do. How smart is that? About as smart as teaming up with Neiman Marcus.
 
I work in a great store management wise. The ETL's for the most part zone, pull CAFs, etc when needed to get the work done... It is common to see our STL on a lane when the guests are lined up and there aren't enough cashiers due to the ungodly amount of call ins, myTime staffing issues etc. Mind you I have been in the workforce for over 30 years and have been in management for many of those years (I am a part timer at the store). My store's major problems aren't the local managers... they are staff shortages due to the excessive call ins and the scheduling. I have always wondered why closing team members are at the store as much as 2 to 3 hours after the store closes when if there were more scheduled, the closing team could be clocking out around closing time... same amount of work to be done whether it is done by 8 people or 14... and the 14 would provide faster fast service on the lanes....
 
Last edited:
I'm lucky in the sense that I'm in a store where the ETLs are out getting their hands dirty for the most part. ETL salesfloor was helping with entertainment revisions this week, our hr is generally the first to respond for backup because her office is closest, etc. However, scheduling is such a joke right now and it's weighing on everyone - and our store looks like a tornado hit it. Our vibe scores are suffering and the guest comments are embarrassing. But you can't do something with nothing. Everyone is at their wits end, and people are quitting in droves. My ETL said it best a few days ago when he said that it's like we're all just trying to weather the storm at this point.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top