Archived New-ish Salesfloor Team Lead Advice

[AfraidOfHeights]

I've been with Target 2 and a half years. Started out at Guest Service but made my way around to pretty much every work center before being on the bench (which I was on for several months). The old salesfloor TL was terminated for "performance issues" (still not 100% sure what went wrong, she was also a SR. TL), and I took that spot in October.

4th quarter was an absolute mess, I had no time for actual training because my store is "low volume" and most of my hardlines team members are...not very good, I was needed the entire 4th quarter to be at my store. I did a good job with basically doing all of my ETL's tasks that I was given and told I was doing a great job.

However after 4th quarter, the very beginning of this month, I had maybe a 30 minute "learning session" with my ETL who taught me certain things such as planning/checking detailed sales, and just that short amount of time completely clicked with me. Since then I've been planning all SPL's, literally organizing the salesfloor plans every day, understanding the softlines adjacencies, and just becoming very independent to take stress off of my ETL who's been basically doing her job as well as being salesfloor team lead.

Here comes my questions...

Because of certain things I really do feel like I have the Sr. TL and ETL's respect. I really would love to become a senior Team Lead sooner rather than later. I know I'm still fresh in role, but I've been allowed to become "closing LOD" on my closing shifts where I can do everything except for obviously lock up and other random things. From the few talks I've had, my HR ETL told me I was on the right path, and my Sr. Pres/Pric TL told me that him and the LOG Sr. TL have had extensive talks with several other ETL's about me and that I would make an excellent Sr. TL and I should be there soon. On our STL's closing night a week or so ago he asked me to write the closing email and said "you'll be writing them for me soon enough anyway."

So with that, what advice could I have to fast tracking my way to SR. TL?


Also, what other advice does anyone have to make my role run a little smoother? My store is super low volume and during the day the only Salesfloor we have is basically me, softlines, and POG/pricing. We never, ever have overlap in hardlines or softlines during the day. My main priority is obviously making sure visual adjacenies are done on time and making sure my workload in TWT is 100%, but on the off weeks what should I focus on? I want to try to get us somewhat ahead in the workload because it's always been "struggle to get stuff done this week" followed by "recovery" on the down weeks.

Final question is about reviews...how do you go about reviewing TMs you have worked with very few times? How the hell do self reviews work? And most importantly, when it comes time for evaluations and raises for the Team Leads, what is around the average to expect when we get our raises?

 

[glo]

I would love to give you advice but I don't think any any I could give you would apply in a ULV environment.

As for TM reviews, ask your peers. What are they doing well and what do you want them to improve on. The actual review delivery is a really good time to really connect with them on what they want to do and how you can help them get there.

Self reviews basically revolve around what you're doing for personal and team development and how your work is impacting the business in a fiscal sense. From that, what can you improve upon next year?

 

[SilentCrow]

I wouldn't be able to provide much help either since my store is the opposite, ultra high volume. I will however keep an eye on this thread to see if their is some overlap to grow no matter what kind of store you're in. Sounds like you're doing well.

For TM reviews I generally try to get an idea of where they are, where they want to go, and what goals they need to achieve to make it to that destination. I based my reviews on that.

 

[SrTLall]

I assume you also have an Electronics TM on the sales floor during the day. Depending on what time they start, you should be utilizing them as much as possible before it starts getting busy, which hopefully isn't until around 4ish. They should be doing several endcaps/day M-Th as long as they frequently check up on guests who are passing through Electronics. Our Electronics TM does the endcaps in electronics, baby, toys, sporting goods, auto, luggage, home improvement, domestics, bath, bed, storage.

I suggest changing the culture to the point where no week is a down week. On a 'down' week, you need to be getting ahead for the inevitable week that you have a ton of end caps due.

It also sounds like you're doing a lot of planning, time that could be spent doing other tasks. In order to avoid a lot of the planning, build better routines so that all leaders know what you expect your TMs to do on a daily basis, and your TMs know what they are expected to complete each shift. For example, our closing sales floor TMs know that after they clock in they need to work clearance, then complete reshop, then prioritize zoning the rough areas. The opening Electronics TM knows they have to push the E&E pull, do their endcaps, then focus on guest service. The opening softlines TM knows they have to zone shoes, monitor the fitting room, then work adjacencies. All you should have to do is make sure sales plans and adjacencies are available (they both map themselves these days), and follow up to make sure this stuff gets done.

Hope this helps. Low volume stores are easy to run as long as you have a good team. Develop the bottom performers or show them the door.