- 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 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.