Archived presentation

[Ajax11]

Perhaps the stores you guys are in are completely different. The POG team never finishes sets, revisions, etc. Guess who picks up the slack and has to finish - the HLTL's (including CTL). We get **** for hours, have to give up people, hell even if they are scheduled for HL they end up doing plano (and not changing work centers).

See at my store it's the complete opposite. This is what I normally hear from all the ETLs, keep in mind my departments payroll has already been cut 50-100 hours to give more to salesfloor so my team gets to start out behind every week.

Hl just fake tied there SPL today supposedly they are going to get to it tomorrow so the pulls are just sitting back on the line, go get those set before you leave.
SL won't start setting all their tables until Thursday even though they have 2 departments to get through and all of infant basics SPL, POG team you need to go help them out.
There's too much reshop left from last night I need each of your people to work 2 carts out, I don't care if you already have them scheduled to do 13 hours of work in an 8 hour shift.
There's some missing labels over on this random aisle, I need you to go through and reprint all of those since HL isn't required to maintain their own area.
That aisle looks kind of light can you go PTM it.

 

[TargetOldTimer]

Okay, the name calling can stop. Its not helping your point of view.

Plano TL is a very hard job. I'm just standing up for them as I have walked a mile in their shoes everytime one runs out the front door crying. (going on our 7th in 7 years)

Our team does finish at about 97% most weeks, but not without skipping breaks, and myself having to work at hyper speed to finish my work early to jump in to help.

In the planogram workload , a % of salesfloor hours are allocated to get the planogram workload done. One of our girls is scheduled with some of those hours to pull and backstock the teams overstock. We used to give those hours to a backroom tm, but since that person was considered "theirs", they would be pulled from our workload to regular backstocking, but without hours payback. Salesfloor hours are also used to set salesplanners, and we have also learned to have 1 dedicated person to do only salesplanners, so they aren't pulled to other work centers.

We have 2 HLTL, and 2 SLTL, but they never help unless our hours are moved to their workcenter and then they can add salesfloor tm to do the work. Never, ever will our TLs set a plano. Never Ever. You may see a sl tm setting that plano, but they would have been sitting at home if we didn't move hours to their work center.

I am not saying the other TLs don't have hard jobs. I know they do, but the plano tl job is really really tough.

Just be nice to them or if you can do better, ask to switch with them. I bet they take you up on the offer. )

 

[ptl]

TOT you said you're not a PTL, go read your comment about PTL and then STFU.

PTL I am hesitant to address your comments because you seem to be clueless. So your plans got changed, big deal, if you want specifics on how to get **** done then ask. If you want to whine and act like everyone else is crap then keep crying victim.

Perhaps the stores you guys are in are completely different. The POG team never finishes sets, revisions, etc. Guess who picks up the slack and has to finish - the HLTL's (including CTL). We get **** for hours, have to give up people, hell even if they are scheduled for HL they end up doing plano (and not changing work centers).

The only person in this entire thread crying is you.

PTL was by far my favorite (non-Remodel) position in the store, precisely because it was the most challenging.

Seriously, kid, you need to check your meds. You're getting to be worse than SoT ever was with the poor attitude, and that's saying quite a lot. Here's a suggestion: write your post but don't submit it, come back and read it five minutes later, ask yourself "would I write this on a job application?" and, if not, go ahead and edit that bad boy to read like it was written by an adult before you submit it.

 

[tellmeaboutatime]

I think the perspective of the PTL really depends on how your store deals with that area. My current store the PTL and team simply set areas. Other teams fill, clear,pull pogs and back stock. The Plano team always go everywhere in pairs, to walk one cart up front, to take one cart of trash to the back etc. Endcaps were all done by other team leads. The PTL was treated like a princess and could be nasty and mean and never was called on it. She also never ever did interviews. When she was short a team member due to call out she could steal one from any other area.My previous store the Plano team did it by best practice. They pulled their own pots, filled and cleared their areas. They also responded to call buttons and were held accountable for guest service.So like I said your perception of that position is going to be determined by what your STL expects of them and whether or not they follow their core roles and best practice.

 

[SpotsBFF]

just want to see what other teams are doing..

are your ptl's expected to do 40 hours of sets or scheduled outside the hours?
are your teams expected to push cafs? do huddle projects?
do they set sales planners? pull their own batches?
do they participate in a midday zone?

And.....back to the original question:

I don't know what my PTL is expected to do, I know they give us our POG's every morning and check in with us through out the day. What they do is not my concern, I am there to do a job and the only job I am worried about is my own.
We don't push Caf's and when our work load is extreme (like this week) we don't participate in huddle projects but on a "normal" week we do
We set some sales planners, I don't know how exactly they decide which one's we set which goes back to my first answer - their job is to manage me so I don't know the inner workings of why things are given to us or to HL but I know I set one today
We do pull our own batches. We either each pull our own, one team member pulls all of ours or our PTL pulls them for us
We don't usually have a mid day zone so it is not usually an issue.

We always try to do our own push, backstock and pulls. Realistically it doesn't always happen. We do assist guests, respond to back up calls (although we are not the first responders) and assist team members with various other things they might need.

Now I have a question for some of our experienced PTM, how do I get my set done faster? I can push like crazy (it is nothing for me to push a full flat and tub in 45 minutes), I know what I am doing but I want to find out how to do it even faster. It seems company wide there are less hours to set than is needed so I need the best shortcuts you have to offer (without cutting accuracy). As a side note there are a few things I have already learned on my time with flow:
I cut steps whenever I can (always grab label strip holders, peg hooks, fast backs and label holders when I first start my shift and I carry a box with the standard stuff in it including pens and paper to make notes of stuff I might need from the fixture room so I can grab it all in one trip), I look over the POG to see what might be moving where so I know which end to start at based on which direction the current items are moving, I keep everything until the end of my shift (reshop, damages, clearance) to eliminate unnecessary trips anywhere in the store I keep my cart and my tools right behind me in the aisle so I am not walking back and forth for tools, the plano or a peg. We have to obtain our own label strips, print our labels, tie our aisles and drop our batches so I will go to my aisle while everyone else heads to get their strips and print labels and see what I need, tie the aisle, drop the batch and so forth so I am not standing around waiting for the printer or to sort through the label strips.

I guess I know the "common sense" stuff but I am looking for the tips and tricks during the actual set that maybe I haven't figured out yet

 

[Ajax11]

I guess I know the "common sense" stuff but I am looking for the tips and tricks during the actual set that maybe I haven't figured out yet

The big hints I can think of that I've given to all of my team:

Standard gondolas: When setting peg hooks the top row of holes in the backer paper is at 76", the last row of holes on the top sheet is at 36".
There is a horizontal mark every 5" on the upright standards that the shelves fit in. If your shelf calls to be at 19.2" then the shelf will be right below the 20" horizontal line if the shelf calls to be at 25/30/35 or another multiple of 5 it will always be directly above that line.
Green scrubbers from food ave work amazing with hydrox(whatever it's name is now) for removing gunk off the front of label holders.

 

[stupid rules]

Okay, the name calling can stop. Its not helping your point of view.

Plano TL is a very hard job. I'm just standing up for them as I have walked a mile in their shoes everytime one runs out the front door crying. (going on our 7th in 7 years)

Our team does finish at about 97% most weeks, but not without skipping breaks, and myself having to work at hyper speed to finish my work early to jump in to help.

In the planogram workload , a % of salesfloor hours are allocated to get the planogram workload done. One of our girls is scheduled with some of those hours to pull and backstock the teams overstock. We used to give those hours to a backroom tm, but since that person was considered "theirs", they would be pulled from our workload to regular backstocking, but without hours payback. Salesfloor hours are also used to set salesplanners, and we have also learned to have 1 dedicated person to do only salesplanners, so they aren't pulled to other work centers.

We have 2 HLTL, and 2 SLTL, but they never help unless our hours are moved to their workcenter and then they can add salesfloor tm to do the work. Never, ever will our TLs set a plano. Never Ever. You may see a sl tm setting that plano, but they would have been sitting at home if we didn't move hours to their work center.

I am not saying the other TLs don't have hard jobs. I know they do, but the plano tl job is really really tough.

Just be nice to them or if you can do better, ask to switch with them. I bet they take you up on the offer. )

At my store the HLTL do all SP only we don't get the hours for it, the one time POG took over the SP they got all the extra hours to do them and they still messed it up. We have to get our workload done however we can.

Here's an example of my POG team. They set toys this week. They didn't read the early set notes so none of those changes/audits/etc. were done. The aisle are sitting 75% empty. There's pegs on each aisle without labels. No price accuracy labels put up. No sale/tpc signing was put up. Outriggers are missing on almost every aisle, displays are missing, ISM is missing. They overstocked in every aisle, I don't mean capacity is 7 and they put 8 because it fits on the shelf, I mean capacity is 7 and 1 facing, they double stack it 8 deep with 2 facings. I guess I should be happy because at least this time they put up backer paper, unlike last time. So tonight while I closed and had to zone 2 runs, I also had to try and fix any issues in toys because they are done in there and will not be going back. Hell, they didn't finish the god damn cosmetic transitions from the summer, I'm still trying to get that complete. Now guess who gets their ass ripped because of stuff not completed, not the POG team.

Could I do better? You're damn right I could, that's the **** I'm good at. I'm not good at vibing with the guests or being a cheerleader. As far as switching with them, that's not what the STL wants, he's placing me in a different position very soon.

tldr - your pog team may rock but ours sucks ass

 

[Ajax11]

Speaking of empty pegs in Toys... why the hell would corporate decide to make the 3 new Action Figure aisles and Nerf set MPG. One of the aisles I set today had over 30 pegged clearance items left on the new pog, so of course that means empty pegs that now need to be flexed. One of the other aisles had 4 non-clearance labels in an entire 4 foot pegged section.

 

[stupid rules]

They are sending a revision in Feb to take care of the aisles, as to why they did it? Who knows, probably some new hire on the team who screwed it up and the rest of the team was at a vikings game or something.

 

[stupid rules]

Actually our POG doesn't suck ass, they are average. They have good and bad sets. They have days where they bust their ass and days where they talk all day. The structure at my store is what sucks ass. The upper leadership sets the tone and has everyone at each others throats. I got pissy reading this thread because the other day while the PTL (using hardlines hours) was setting seasonal, I was closing and had to zone two runs, clear a valley in Christmas for them to set in the morning, cover lunches/breaks, all while the ETL allocated 2 TMs in 1 run and every other TM had 1 run, etc.

 

[TargetOldTimer]

Speaking on signing;

Toy signing always takes a hit during Christmas and in Targets infinite wisdom, they decided that almost all the signing would be carry forward.

I am missing 4 sheets of new pink backer paper (improvement over last year when we were missing 24 sheets of blue backer), half of the Toy endcap fins (i honestly think these walked out the door), half of the new silver endcap backer, several outriggers and one of the Game dividers was taken down, but no one thought to keep the brackets with it and 1 game shelf talker.

A couple of the new displays haven't arrived yet, but we did put up all the old carry forward displays.

It'll all be right, but it will take about 3 weeks or more to get the parts ordered and in stock again. Who knows how long the displays will take.

The team always put up the ad signs that were up at the time of the set, but no, no one reprinted all the ad signs. That is something we should do, but rarely find time to do.

I over heard some of the girls saying that their planos set with clearance, but the ones I set didn't. They know to hand print labels when that happens, but I don't audit that part, but now that I read this, I'm going to check up on that.

Our planos set at about 75% full, but that was our stock level when we set the runs last week. (We got pushed ahead a week because toys looked so bad)

 

[ptL 567]

I didn't mean to sound like a douche bag and I don't think I have the hardest job on earth by any means. That's not the point I was trying to make. Just venting and pointing out that the people who say ptls are lazy or always jacking things up are the people who don't seem to always get what were doing. and why. My only real complaint is that its hard to do this without constantly being at odds with everyone..

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

You got my vote!

 

[TargetOldTimer]

Is everyone else's toys still look like hell? Most of girls filled decently, but boys is still at about 25%.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

Ours is going a$$ backwards. We got product for product for a new aisle in clearance aisle, instead..come on, Plano!

 

[TargetOldTimer]

We got every aisle completed by Monday, stocked everything out of the back room, and it still looks like hell.

I wonder what the hold up is?

 

[stupid rules]

86 is full, 204 and 87 are maybe 20% (except hotwheels).

 

[mrknownothing]

Green scrubbers from food ave work amazing with hydrox(whatever it's name is now) for removing gunk off the front of label holders.

They call it Perdiem nowadays. If you still have any Hydrox bottles, toss them or you'll get dinged by Steritech.

 

[XploitedFlow]

Our POG team = No vehicles for flow/br, cheating about tied in end caps, end caps that don't exist, and pulling POGs for them that sit on the line for 2 days. Our stores team is notoriously slow in the district.

 

[SpotsBFF]

Our POG team = No vehicles for flow/br, cheating about tied in end caps, end caps that don't exist, and pulling POGs for them that sit on the line for 2 days. Our stores team is notoriously slow in the district.

I think that is the one thing I like about working flow when our hours are down, I know what vehicles they need and can from the planos team not to use tubs when we have CNS the next day or to leave at least 4 flats for the unload. I think it is helpful for our store to have someone on plano who has/does also work flow.

 

[mrknownothing]

I think it is helpful for our store to have someone on plano who has/does also work flow.

At my store, most of the plano team works flow during the holidays. Also, there are a few TMs that go back and forth, depending on plano's workload.

 

[drwalters81]

I am a PTL at a newer store, one day about 2 weeks after store opening our ptl went to lunch and never came back. I got tapped for the promotion from team member but it took almost 6 months to wait on interviews, the dtl, stl, and paperwork before I actually took over. I report to a etl-hl who has looked at me and told me on several occasions "i could never do your job" but who is more than happy to criticize the way I do it. her primary motivation is to get us green so she can transfer. She is not truly invested in the development of my team. when I ask for help/advice/suggestions from her the most common answer is "i don't know, just do it better." My store is on our 3rd stil in under a year and our second dtl. I have one team member on revisions, then 4 other team members, two of whom were just promoted in the last 2 weeks and have gotten 0 training hours. I also have one tm for the back to pull/backstock and push if he has time. My team is responsible for setting all presentation workload, sales planners, some softlines revisions, and the majority of entertainment (except for b108),. My store has had a 70%+ turnover rate since opening. We typically are short 30 to 75 hours vs. the projected workload with all of my hours coming out of the presentation team's schedule. I have gotten rid of 6 people over the last year and only have one of my original team members left. I have good people with a lack of training and bad habits from a lack of supervision in other departments. This creates a lot of questions from my team and eats up a lot of my time. My new stl and my etl want me to audit every revision or pog my team sets for accuracy. When I ask for help from other TL's for locating or auditing sets I get told that's your responsibility not theirs. I am looking for some advice on routines or ways I can speed up on my responsibilities (twt, pre-ties, ppa's, sfla, audits, etc.) So that I can free up more time to help my team. Oh...I am also suppossed to help hr write the schedule so that I can "set cosmetics on a day there is no truck to interfere with" according to my exec. Any advice or help would be appreciated.

 

[NOP]

I am a PTL at a newer store, one day about 2 weeks after store opening our ptl went to lunch and never came back. I got tapped for the promotion from team member but it took almost 6 months to wait on interviews, the dtl, stl, and paperwork before I actually took over. I report to a etl-hl who has looked at me and told me on several occasions "i could never do your job" but who is more than happy to criticize the way I do it. her primary motivation is to get us green so she can transfer. She is not truly invested in the development of my team. when I ask for help/advice/suggestions from her the most common answer is "i don't know, just do it better." My store is on our 3rd stil in under a year and our second dtl. I have one team member on revisions, then 4 other team members, two of whom were just promoted in the last 2 weeks and have gotten 0 training hours. I also have one tm for the back to pull/backstock and push if he has time. My team is responsible for setting all presentation workload, sales planners, some softlines revisions, and the majority of entertainment (except for b108),. My store has had a 70%+ turnover rate since opening. We typically are short 30 to 75 hours vs. the projected workload with all of my hours coming out of the presentation team's schedule. I have gotten rid of 6 people over the last year and only have one of my original team members left. I have good people with a lack of training and bad habits from a lack of supervision in other departments. This creates a lot of questions from my team and eats up a lot of my time. My new stl and my etl want me to audit every revision or pog my team sets for accuracy. When I ask for help from other TL's for locating or auditing sets I get told that's your responsibility not theirs. I am looking for some advice on routines or ways I can speed up on my responsibilities (twt, pre-ties, ppa's, sfla, audits, etc.) So that I can free up more time to help my team. Oh...I am also suppossed to help hr write the schedule so that I can "set cosmetics on a day there is no truck to interfere with" according to my exec. Any advice or help would be appreciated.

I hate to say this, but you're kind of screwed with that kind of attitude from upper management and your peers. Other TLs on this board will be of more help in how to organize the workload.

 

[TargetOldTimer]

Condolences.

If you are not getting your alloted salesfloor and presentation hours, there is no way you will ever be green.

Remind your etl that your success will be their success, so it is in their best interest to fight for you.

 

[dek067]

have your stl send you a copy of the transition calendar workload for the year. they should've gotten it emailed to them in february. it will tell you your workload by payroll, including salesfloor hours and revisions.
sit down with your stl and etl and explain your concerns. print out the weekly forecast report from max and use it to compare to the company workload/adjacency calendar. plan your workload on twt and ask how you are supposed to complete your workload of xxx with xxx hours. be realistic. on our large weeks, we have flow folks help on non-truck days. they get hours. we get help. works out well. we still only get about 65-70% of the hours we're supposed to have (on a good week).
you can't schedule your workload around the truck every time. cosmetics will take you three days easy with a small team. unless you're only getting 2 trucks a week, that's gonna be a problem. usually you can set anything during truck days, but i will say i try not to schedule market on truck days or the infant gondolas. nothing sucks more that getting 2 tubs of baby food left for you to fifo/push at the last minute. but, if it's a large set, tough. they'll just have to deal with it. a good team can have the aisle set, and the flow team can come back and push the truck push after break.