Archived Pfresh having to zone dry grocery

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So I know there was a thread on here about this, which I posted on just a while ago but I figured id post this topic as well.

Is zoning dry grocery something corporate decided or is this a store thing. Because in my routines I dont think I see zoning dry grocery, but maybe im wrong. My CTL informed me today that zoning ALL of dry grocery is now a closing task. My store is ULV and we have been beating sales by around 20%, yes 20%!!!!!!!!!!!!!! for this month with the same coverage. YTD we are up more than 10%. Pfresh also leaves an hour before closing, so a typical closing shift would be 2:30-9.

I just need help on how to get the zone accomplished. I tried my hardest today and did not get the dry zone done and even stayed an extra hour. By the time I left I was exhausted and pretty much sweating. The freezer and dry zone looked like it hadnt been really zoned in a few days so it took me FOREVER. We also have to help backup and do carryouts and callbuttons and everything too.

Not sure why our SF team has it so "easy" now. Our backroom did all the CAFS tonight. And our closing LOD did B,C,D zone, and electronics does E,F. So the 2 people who came in for HL had to cover electronics, and zone A and Mini, and then of course reshop, backup, etc.

IDK sorry about the rant, I just think its BS that Pfresh has to zone all of dry. Why am I responsible for it when I dont get any help for fresh and full by 4, (cuz of 1 SF TM being there, nobody to do it), STILL have to backup and get call buttons, and in the morning still have to do side projects and do whatever working huddle BS they come up with that isnt ever really in market. I dont think Target had in mind Pfresh TM taking care of all of market. I dont see it anywhere in the routines do you? In training it wasnt mentioned at all. Thats what salesfloor is there. I understand us being responsible for the coolers and freezers and im fine with that but 8 4 foot sections times 20 aisles is 160 different 4 foot sections of dry, not even including what I have to zone for pfresh, coolers, and freezers which is probably around 100 4 foot sections. Seriously, thats 260 sections to zone. Even if it took me 30 seconds on each whole section that is 160 minutes, so 2 hours 40 min at that pace. Rediculous.

Sorry if im ranting im just so pissed off right now. Pushing all of grocery on pfresh is just unmanageable and things WILL get sacrified and our score WILL drop, I gurantee it. And we are #1 in the district so obv we do a good job.
 
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I can't claim to be a target old-timer, but this pretty common from what I know. I get around my district a bit and, so far as I know, every store in my district has pFresh closer do dry grocery. The real trick is getting your mid-opener to get either a zone done themselves (thereby making yours easier), or getting a lot of the routines done themselves (i.e. cleaning).

Just do the best you can, communicate any issues you see, and let leadership do it's job and adjust as necessary.
 
Ya, ive allready decided all the cleaning tasks for daily need to be done during morning open. Most likely monthly and weekly will have to be done during the morning as well. I was thinking opener will prob have to zone all of freezer/coolers too. That way the closer has to just touch it up in 15-20 minutes or so easily and then head to dry grocery. The thing that sucks about our closing though is that we only get til 9. From reading on here almost EVERYONE has their closing pfresh off at 10. Also doesnt help that we have been killing sales and the night seems to get no extra help. I think last night was so bad because the weekend was just busy and way over sales. I think if the zone is kept up in all of market than it probably wont be too bad but idk, we shall see.
 
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You"ll be able to do it, like you said it will take the effort of all on your Market team. We are also a low vol store, and out Market team gets it done.
 
It really depends on your store format (IE like how many aisles you have in dry), your store volume and how your p fresh/market team runs pfresh.

At my store, we have hardlines zone dry. We have between 4-8 hardlines closers each day of the week. So they have plently time to zone dry market.

FYI we are a B volume store
wow! having 6 to 8 hl tm's closing would be a great night for me(wishing). i am "a" volume store.
 
I wish we had that many closers...lets see...

Yesterday on the floor we had

1 Electronics
1 HL (who covered all of Electronics breaks and lunch and HL always covers electronics)
3 SL
Pfresh (me)

Now, after having this policy in place for a while now. I dont mind zoning, and the zone has gotten better, but it is still VERY VERY difficult to get it done by 9. I get pulled away to cashier alot during a specific time. Usually between 4:30-6 or 4:30-6:30 which is the time our opener leaves and we usually have one person on the entire floor plus operator and electronics. Which leads me to, during this time if I am not backing up, I am usually responding to call buttons, or helping a bunch of guests because, HEY, Im the only person a guest can find on the whole half of the store. Also, doesnt help when I have to walk through seasonal to get to the back room.

I try to guest service anyone I can but I feel like alot of time gets taken out of my pfresh time when I have to help a guest here for 5 minutes, help another guest here for another couple minutes, take something up to guest service for another guest, help with a carryout, etc, etc. I help more guests looking for things outside of market than I do inside market. Also, I am backroom trained so sometimes also have to pull stuff from the backroom for people if backroom is on lunch or break. This was so fun during outdoor furniture when I would have to get into the trailer get whatever they need and 15 minutes later finally be able to do pfresh again. Or even when backroom was there since I have to go through that section every time im grabbing a pull or going to our backroom I would pretty much always get like 3 different guests asking me about stuff back there.

For our routines we have slid all the daily cleaning to the opener again. This has helped somewhat. PFresh truck also comes in around 1:30-2 now so is usually done and pallets are put away by the time the closer gets in. Unfor the opener usually doesnt have time to do any of the pulls so they start to get pretty big when the closer comes in. I have found when I get in at 2:30 the best routine is just go to dry and zone the hell out of it til about 3:30. Then zone pfresh and make sure there are no outs and milk, egg and bananas are full. Then do the pfresh walk. Finally do the pulls that have accumulated from 12-4 (so the 12, 1,2,3,4 pulls). Take break at 4:45. Usually get back close to 5. Sometimes have a pull or 2 that didnt get done yet. Check any message boards. Finish up the 5's plus the stuff that didnt get worked out between the pfresh walk and break, and start zoning again til about 6 (although mostly guest servicing backing up and what not so dont get to zone). Take my lunch. Have huddle at 6:30 right when I get back. Zone til around 8. Cull + Qmos. Meat Coupons. Then zone til 9. Usually is how it breaks down.

Right now I feel a little overwhelmed. Our store is Ultra Low Volume but we are getting extra traffic right now til october. The other day we made sales by $20,000 and on Saturday we made our sales by 6pm (not including sbux or pharmacy). This plus our leadership team deciding we should now do dry market, as well as owning all of market, which includes doing and getting all D-Code out, auditing the endcaps and filling them every day, ptming every aisle that can be ptmed. Filling vendor endcaps because they dont even #%%##% come in til noon when we have their endcap that needs changed, im looking at you Pepsi and Coke (sundays). Also doing the water on sundays when it is ours or even if its not if they dont show up by around 8:30 the LOD makes me do it.

I still enjoy working over in pfresh I just honestly feel like we get no help at all and have so much to do that it cant possibly be all done or done up to the standards that they expect. We dont get help with any push, like I have read on here flow or backroom helps sometimes with the morning push. We dont get help at all with that. We dont get any help for fresh and full by 4, because there isnt anyone on the floor. The team of 1-2 that is on the floor is usually helping backup or catching up on the CAFs that are piling up.

Anyway thanks to everyone who was offered their input, I always appreciate the help!!!

ON a side note. During closing it seems like there is no actual TL and that shift has just been filled in by a regular TM every time. Not sure when this happened but when I started 2 years ago there was always a closing TL AND the closing ETL or Sr TL LOD.
 
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wow! having 6 to 8 hl tm's closing would be a great night for me(wishing). i am "a" volume store.

A+, and we're lucky to get 4 scheduled in Hardlines on a Saturday (by far our busiest day of the week). And that's before call-outs and NCNS, which won't get replaced. Mind you, that doesn't include CAF pushers and Dry Market, but our guests are very needy and they trash the store.
 
A+, and we're lucky to get 4 scheduled in Hardlines on a Saturday (by far our busiest day of the week). And that's before call-outs and NCNS, which won't get replaced. Mind you, that doesn't include CAF pushers and Dry Market, but our guests are very needy and they trash the store.

We have same issues too.
 
It sounds like your CTL needs to actually do something...if you're a ULV store, you shouldn't be filling endcaps and getting tons of D-Code out every day. These are the responsibilities of the CTL, and should never fall on the closer. At my store, the closers come in at 2:30. They check for any pulls (which are pushed immediately after they are pulled...they never accumulate). Between the pulls, they grab bananas, milk and bread. Once the 5's are done (by 5:30), they do a cull. 6 is huddle, 630 is lunch, and your zone starts at 7. My store is open until 11 because we are B volume, so that leaves 4 hours for our zone. It would be impossible for us to complete a zone in 2 hours, but you should have at least 3 hours because best practice is to have open to close PFresh coverage. In an ULV store, a 3 hour zone would be possible. Eggs should replenish automatically in the pulls...not sure why you have to worry about those. The PFresh walk is completed by the LOD...not sure why you're doing that. You shouldn't touch cleaning routines or check message boards or use meat coupons, because those are completed in the morning (per the PFresh routine sheet). All a closer should do is push, cull, zone. Period. Again, where is your CTL? It sounds like you guys need more solid routines and some critical thinking around what is working and what is not working. Life isn't supposed to be that hard :)
 
It sounds like your CTL needs to actually do something...if you're a ULV store, you shouldn't be filling endcaps and getting tons of D-Code out every day. These are the responsibilities of the CTL, and should never fall on the closer. At my store, the closers come in at 2:30. They check for any pulls (which are pushed immediately after they are pulled...they never accumulate). Between the pulls, they grab bananas, milk and bread. Once the 5's are done (by 5:30), they do a cull. 6 is huddle, 630 is lunch, and your zone starts at 7. My store is open until 11 because we are B volume, so that leaves 4 hours for our zone. It would be impossible for us to complete a zone in 2 hours, but you should have at least 3 hours because best practice is to have open to close PFresh coverage. In an ULV store, a 3 hour zone would be possible. Eggs should replenish automatically in the pulls...not sure why you have to worry about those. The PFresh walk is completed by the LOD...not sure why you're doing that. You shouldn't touch cleaning routines or check message boards or use meat coupons, because those are completed in the morning (per the PFresh routine sheet). All a closer should do is push, cull, zone. Period. Again, where is your CTL? It sounds like you guys need more solid routines and some critical thinking around what is working and what is not working. Life isn't supposed to be that hard :)

Well the D-code is in the morning when my CTL isnt there if there is any. And for the Pfresh walk the LOD does do that but likes to walk with us and all that jazz and go over everything. For whatever reason they cant just come over do it and tell me whatever needs to be done. Also per routines meat coupons are ACTUALLY on closing from 8-10 unless somehow the routines im printing out every week sunday morning are wrong. Checking message boards is actually on the routines list as well from 4-5 I think. 8-10 is culling, qmosing and meat couponing if I remember right. As far as the zone goes, peace of cake tonight, hmm I wonder why, maybe cuz i have been closing the last 3 nights. I Usually just close mondays except for the past couple weeks and the zone is always trashed and takes forever to get through, but after closing 3 nights in a row everything was super easy tonight. I even stayed and helped zone HBA, work out market reshop, and do ad take down for market haha.

I do wish we can stay til closing. I am actually going to talk to my CTL about that on monday about why that is. If we really dont even have enough hours to allocate for opening through closing that is rediculous. Tonight I got dragged away from pfresh to get carts because everyone else was up on the checklanes (we had 7 lanes open for a while, which is alot for ULV), had about a 20 min huddle, pulled 2 things for people while backroom was on break, took 2 things up to guest service from electronics, and helped out GSTL with a wine spill up at the front while I was out getting carts. Also filled up the baskets in market since we were empty. I think by 6 tonight we were only down 5k from our total sales goal for the day, which doesnt even factor in sbux, pharmacy, or food ave until the end of the night.

I kind of feel like the leadership team is taking advantage of the pfresh team, and we are doing alot of things we shouldnt have to. But hey in ULV everyone has to pretty much help out because there isnt much coverage anywhere. MY opener was grabbing calls and call buttons earlier today for a while because everyone was up front cashiering.
 
I am a PA as well. when you say "You shouldn't touch cleaning routine...because those are completed in the morning (per the PFresh routine sheet)", do you man the comsumables cleaning log/sheet which has a list of what p fresh tms are suppose to be doing during the day down to each hour of the day?When I first started working in p fresh, i was told by CTL that the closer does all the daily cleaning (from the daily cleaning log).


To the OP: Make sure you inform your etls and tls about how much work p fresh really is.

Oh they know. I think its just the nature of a low volume store and working in pfresh. Too much needs to be done in so little time =)
 
I had ad setup call outs. I didn't ask my pa to help on the ad setup.

I said ad takedown since we do that starting at 9...I had stayed later after my pfresh shift ended at 9 to help them out. Funny thing is they didnt even get done til 11:30. Not sure wtf they were doing since I did all of market for them
 
I have said this many times, and in many places, and I'll be happy to say it again: Expecting a closer to be responsible for all of pfresh and 30+ aisles of dry market is totally unrealistic and unreasonable. Period. :facepalm:

On a very positive note, the food culture in our store has taken a big step. We have a new exec that is passionate about filling pfresh. Between him and our district food partner, the attitude toward market team has drastically shifted. We get called for backup cashier only as last resort. The mid-day zone involves helping zone dry market almost every day. :yahoo:

The result? Huge improvement in maintaining the zone, much fuller floor!
 
I have said this many times, and in many places, and I'll be happy to say it again: Expecting a closer to be responsible for all of pfresh and 30+ aisles of dry market is totally unrealistic and unreasonable. Period. :facepalm:

On a very positive note, the food culture in our store has taken a big step. We have a new exec that is passionate about filling pfresh. Between him and our district food partner, the attitude toward market team has drastically shifted. We get called for backup cashier only as last resort. The mid-day zone involves helping zone dry market almost every day. :yahoo:

The result? Huge improvement in maintaining the zone, much fuller floor!

Sounds awesome. It seems we dont really do a mid day zone, and our smart huddles are always in apparel. We dont have fresh and full by 4 because there isnt anybody that came even really be there, and if they did they would be pulled away for backup or a call box. You know what an ETL told me the other day? That during the C&S truck days (comes in a different day than regular trucks so we have a team of 4-5), the push team needs to be responding to backup and call buttons if they can. I just looked at them like, srs? What nobody in the building can respond, no other process team can lift they fingers to help out.

Actually come to think of it, Despite how terrible the attitude and help around pfresh is, it is amazing how we have all green scores for YTD other than the availability of help which is RED, and amazing how our zone is always the best looking in the entire store. Im hoping our new Hardlines ETL will try to fix some of that, but right now we are in a complicated situation with our store. Dont want to give anything away so thats why I havent posted about it.
 
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