Archived New Target Cafe Team Lead/Is this it?

[RedKoolaid]

A couple of months ago I got promoted to Target Cafe team lead. I really don't have any experience with food service of anything of the like, but my ETL's/STL liked my attitude and work ethic and my interviews went really well so I got put up at the front. So far my role has been kinda nebulous and a couple of months later I'm still not entirely clear about what my actual role is. During prep and interviews nothing aside from Stairtech and Pizza Hut was mentioned. I've had both of those audits already and got a green on Stairtech and a 90% on the Pizza Hut. I got a pat on the back and that was pretty much it.

I guess my question is: Is this it? Is my role really just to get passing scores with these guys? When I was a sales floor team member I was getting REDs left and right and nearly every week I was getting my name mentioned on the survey. I felt like I was really making a difference for the store and really enjoyed the hell out of my job. Is there something I'm missing or do you guys have any general advice about what I should be doing at my current work center? Honestly, at this point I feel like I'm missing something.

 

[ele1]

Depending on your stores volume you can still have time on the floor and get those REDcards. But if you are a higher volume, usually A and up you'll be "stuck" in Cafe until your 18 months. At my store the Cafe TL focuses on driving sales in his department to make his job more interesting. But if you are not interested in that it really is just Steritech and Ecosource/Pizzahut

 

[signingminion]

Depending on your stores volume you can still have time on the floor and get those REDcards. But if you are a higher volume, usually A and up you'll be "stuck" in Cafe until your 18 months. At my store the Cafe TL focuses on driving sales in his department to make his job more interesting. But if you are not interested in that it really is just Steritech and Ecosource/Pizzahut

Yup. B volume here. It's where people go that want tl pay but not the hustle. So long as you are green they pretty much leave you to it.

 

[Kartman]

My store eliminated the FATL position.

 

[Jack of all Workcenters]

My store eliminated the FATL position.

Some of the lower volumes just throw it to the GSTL.

 

[RetailWorld]

FATL is one of those positions where if you put in the effort, you can really make your area shine. Come up with goals, achievements, projects to improve your work center. Unlike most other areas of the store, your area is small enough that it's not too hard to make an impact.

Example, work towards resetting your coolers/impulse items and work with vendors to bring in new product to promote sales.

Work with your PMT to improve your equipment/lounge.

Work with the GSTL and get more people cross trained for Food Ave incase of call offs/rushes

Train your team on improving guest survey scores, promoting cartwheel(There's always SOMETHING with FA on Cartwheel), and even talking about red cards.

Train somebody to be your "point person" who can run the day to day stuff so that you can be scheduled as GSTL or SFTL to broaden your horizons.

Work with the GSTL to talk to guests about getting a bag of popcorn/soda/hotdog as they're waiting in line. The cashier can key in the DPCI while the GSTL grabs it from Food Ave. That's an extra dollar or two added to the basket.

There's lots of little things you can be doing to stand out. Part of being a leader is coming up with these ideas and executing them.

 

[redeye58]

When new snacks rolled out, we'd fix samples in the marinara cups & fan out across the lanes.
During storm season we had our power knocked out briefly but it was taking forever to reboot all the registers so all of us at FA & SB started making samples & going thru the front end.
We used the small water cups to fill with popcorn & SB made several trays of frapp samples.
Food goes long way toward placating irritated guests.

 

[Kartman]

Work with the GSTL to talk to guests about getting a bag of popcorn/soda/hotdog as they're waiting in line. The cashier can key in the DPCI while the GSTL grabs it from Food Ave

That's kinda funny. I can barely get them to bring me change much less have them running back and forth fetching popcorn.

 

[SFSFun]

Train somebody to be your "point person" who can run the day to day stuff so that you can be scheduled as GSTL or SFTL to broaden your horizons.

This!

Our Starbucks pretty much runs itself thanks to some strong TMs, so the SBTL is often doing random projects around the store such as helping price change, setting salesplanners, and running the electronics return scan.

 

[lydian]

Sales.

No one looks at my performance, do they?

 

[monkeyman90]

Sales.

No one looks at my performance, do they?

exactly. your department looks at sales, and passing visits/compliance. its a lot easier to be green at cafe then other departments.

 

[dmx2k1]

You know what I was thinking the same thing the other day. I've been the cafe tl in my store for about 6 months. It wasn't bad until Feb when they slashed my dept hours. So for the past 2 months it's been me opening then a closer coming in right at my 8th hour. No mid. I can get it done but it's a mess trying to get breaks and lunches to the point I just do a lunch. We had a huge change with the folks in charge so there's a mess in communication. My main goals for my dept were to get a green Steritech visit and pass my pizza Hut visit. This is frustrating sometimes lol

 

[Apapaia]

As a former FA TM:
Our GSTL is also the leader that oversees FA. I've always thought that leadership was pretty much absent. Lucky for them, when I was there I worked with 2 other GREAT TMs. We were not only co-workers but friends also so there was never slack to pick up or shifts uncovered. What was really appreciated was our attitude to try and improve anything we could lay our eyes on. We would come up with extra cleanings tasks, get great survey scores, get red cards in the cafe, and go crazy with active samplings. Any time an issue arose we would come up and type up a plan, show it to leadership and show in the next couple of weeks how our plan was coming along and improving the situation.
You can come up with games to play to improve sales and involve the TMs. One of the many we played was to promote the large combos/new items/most ignored items, print the prep receipt, write your name on top and try to get as many as you can in the span of X days. The winner would get a lunch combo at the cafe or a small prize for dollar spot. It is very important to keep the team engaged and make them feel like they are contributing to something other than pop popcorn.
We used to play paper tag. Hide sticky notes in FA in spots that rarely get cleaned and write "tag you're it". IT would have to clean the area that was tagged and save the note. Every 3 notes you would get a prize.
Find the hidden challenges in your work center: is turnover an issue? How's the team engagement? Are the TMs properly trained? If the TMs are properly trained, are they going above and beyond?
Something that usually is very liked (in my district), is to have a binder with your plan. Find an issue, a challenge, evaluate what you can do to fix or improve the situation and document how you're going to do it. Give a time line and record the process so that you can show how your plan worked overtime.
It's true that it is to be green in FA and is also easy to be forgotten that is why I suggest you document how you keep your work center successful. It will come in handy when you will try to go for a sr. position or change work center or just fight for your pay increase.

 

[Fasbuxtl]

I am both a fa and sbux tl and was dealt a rough hand so we are still working to improve.. Two things I could suggest.. The higher you drive sales, the better it looks for you and you can get raises that way.. Collaboration helps a lot with other areas of the store. We often collaborate with pfresh and have fruit at fa. Also make written systems and routines do when you are ready to move on, the new person has something to fall on. Something easy to do is having pars on things

 

[Kartman]

Spot doesn't give a rat's ass about "sales" in the cafe.

The cafe is to make guests shop there, instead of WalMart.

 

[Coqui]

My FATL may be moving to a different work center. Looks like I'll be their TL until they get his TM set to promote <.<

 

[Yetive]

Aaaggghhh. Good luck! No one on the bench?

 

[Coqui]

Yeah but he's been trying to get his TM to become TL so our ETL wanted to get that plan in motion.

 

[Yetive]

Well, you can have FA do some serious deep cleaning at any rate.

 

[Coqui]

Oh I will lol

 

[buliSBI]

A couple of months ago I got promoted to Target Cafe team lead. I really don't have any experience with food service of anything of the like, but my ETL's/STL liked my attitude and work ethic and my interviews went really well so I got put up at the front. So far my role has been kinda nebulous and a couple of months later I'm still not entirely clear about what my actual role is. During prep and interviews nothing aside from Stairtech and Pizza Hut was mentioned. I've had both of those audits already and got a green on Stairtech and a 90% on the Pizza Hut. I got a pat on the back and that was pretty much it.

I guess my question is: Is this it? Is my role really just to get passing scores with these guys? When I was a sales floor team member I was getting REDs left and right and nearly every week I was getting my name mentioned on the survey. I felt like I was really making a difference for the store and really enjoyed the hell out of my job. Is there something I'm missing or do you guys have any general advice about what I should be doing at my current work center? Honestly, at this point I feel like I'm missing something.

Steritech's job is to find anything and everything wrong so it can be fixed before health inspections.

 

[Kartman]

Health inspectors are way easier than Steritech.

 

[lydian]

Health inspectors are way easier than Steritech.

This is true. Steritech will go to great lengths to find a problem, and often stay in my area for 40 minutes or more. In my stint as FATL, I have gotten two scorings with at least one critical and one scoring with no criticals, which I consider two yellows and one green (one critical: expired nestle milk in Grab in Go. The other critical, no sign explaining the hand washing process).

When the health inspector came into my store on a random inspection, he spent maybe seven minutes checking things like the sanitizer ph level, then all the ETLs congratulated me on running a tight ship. Of course I have sanitizer, I'm not a noob...

Target Café doesn't generate much in sales, and kartman is likely right that Target Corp doesn't care much about sales in that area. But sales illustrate that you are efficiently operating the business. If health check were the only thing that mattered, then we would have an easy solution: don't produce anything and clear the shelves. No food means no food hazards.

 

[Kartman]

The other critical, no sign explaining the hand washing process).

Stupid shit, silly shit.

There should be a sign in the crapper explaining the ass wiping procedure!

 

[mrknownothing]

There should be a sign in the crapper explaining the ass wiping procedure!

Or how about one for making it land in the toilet?

But wait, nobody would read it.