Archived Pricing team routine help

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I am hoping someone can help me out with pricing. I schedule my team adequately throughout the week but we can never seem to get done on time and I end up staying to finish and then run into trouble with HR at the end of the week because I don't have enough hours to work the weekend much less to finish out the the day on Friday.

We have 8500 tickets this week my hours are spread out according to the workloads per day. Monday's I usually give my team an extra hour or two and take it away from Thursday or Friday, but every day we are pushing reshop after huddle or finishing up the P-fresh truck or PTM Halloween. This takes time from my pricing team but the etl's just tell me we are all struggling to get done and that I need to be a team player. I am all about being a team player but when huddle takes 15 min and reshop takes another 15-25 min times 3-4 tm that is 1-1/2 to 2 hours out of my productivity each day and I have to be the one to make up for it each day by staying over or skipping my 15's. My STL says it's my problem to figure out but I think I already know where the problem is. Did I mention my ETL had no idea how to do pricing but she is on my a$$ every week about my teams productivty. So I have a few questions to start.

Do other pricing teams participate in these practices?
What time do other pricing teams start?
What time does the TL come in?
Does the TL work weekends? What shift?
How much extra time do I giveon the day when one spot goes salvage?
How do you add or figure out time to put up 300+ price cut balloons when electronics or market is reset?
Do other pricing teams work ahead on labels?
How and when do TL's find the time to do Business walks and Oh BTW we have an hour to two hour TL meeting every Friday.
Next schedule I have been given 65 hours on a 6200+ workload and see spot goes salvage on that Monday. I already know I do not have enough hours to complete the week but my ETL said this is all I get so work with it. How do you make a schedule for 4 TM for 33hours because I take 32 of them?

HELP! I just want to do best practice but I feel I have no support. I talked to HR today and she said to send a message to DTL because at our store this is the only way things get done around here but I want to make sure I am doing what other teams are doing first.
 
Sounds to me like your store needs to educate its ETL staff... Work with your other TLs in the building to change their perception and educate them on the importance of your workload! Remember, to keep a store running (task wise) the truck needs to get done first, and then your 3 processes (plano, pricing, and instocks) need to get completed! If they don't it hurts everyone in the store and has rippling effects! A lot of ETLs don't get their priorities straight, and will make doing other things a huge focus... but at the end of the day, we need to remember that not getting research done, or not finishing a big transition, or not finishing markdowns through a certain department are WAY worse than missing a few salesplans or not getting a few PTMs worked to the floor!
 
Yeppers! The etl's need to get on the program. Seasonal tl or instocks should be doing the ptm in Halloween. Your priority is pricing & workload done.
 
I am hoping someone can help me out with pricing. I schedule my team adequately throughout the week but we can never seem to get done on time and I end up staying to finish and then run into trouble with HR at the end of the week because I don't have enough hours to work the weekend much less to finish out the the day on Friday.

We have 8500 tickets this week my hours are spread out according to the workloads per day. Monday's I usually give my team an extra hour or two and take it away from Thursday or Friday, but every day we are pushing reshop after huddle or finishing up the P-fresh truck or PTM Halloween. This takes time from my pricing team but the etl's just tell me we are all struggling to get done and that I need to be a team player. I am all about being a team player but when huddle takes 15 min and reshop takes another 15-25 min times 3-4 tm that is 1-1/2 to 2 hours out of my productivity each day and I have to be the one to make up for it each day by staying over or skipping my 15's. My STL says it's my problem to figure out but I think I already know where the problem is. Did I mention my ETL had no idea how to do pricing but she is on my a$$ every week about my teams productivty. So I have a few questions to start.

Do other pricing teams participate in these practices?
What time do other pricing teams start?
What time does the TL come in?
Does the TL work weekends? What shift?
How much extra time do I giveon the day when one spot goes salvage?
How do you add or figure out time to put up 300+ price cut balloons when electronics or market is reset?
Do other pricing teams work ahead on labels?
How and when do TL's find the time to do Business walks and Oh BTW we have an hour to two hour TL meeting every Friday.
Next schedule I have been given 65 hours on a 6200+ workload and see spot goes salvage on that Monday. I already know I do not have enough hours to complete the week but my ETL said this is all I get so work with it. How do you make a schedule for 4 TM for 33hours because I take 32 of them?

HELP! I just want to do best practice but I feel I have no support. I talked to HR today and she said to send a message to DTL because at our store this is the only way things get done around here but I want to make sure I am doing what other teams are doing first.


All I have to say, is I feel your pain. Pricing TL here and I will try my best to answer your questions!
1) We do support other processes but maximum of 10mins, on top of huddle. Got to be a team player or it will look bad for you and your team.
2) I stager my pricing team. I always come in at 6. then my team sometime at 6 with me but sometime 7 or 8.
3) I do work alternating weekends, but out of saleslfoor hours. No pricing for me on the weekend.
4) Planning for SSS salvage is key, your GSTL's should be sorting out the stuff thats going salvage. If it signed properly while PLU you shouldn't have to much of an issue with it taking to much time.
5) 300+ balloons? I don't nearly have this many in my entire store right now. But to help i would suggest having containers with label holder and balloons already to go, all you'll have to do is throw the label in and your done.
6) I am almost always a Day ahead or half a day ahead. If you can work ahead on labels do it!!!!
7)I write my business walk every monday, half an hour max!
8) Team of four! God love you! I have three, 2 plus me. when hours are short I send them out to other areas to support, cashier, salesfloor.

Sounds to me that your ETL are taking hours away from what your being forecasted. Spot spent all last year figuring out the pricing process and making adjustment to the workloads. They will automatically forecast what you'll need. 6,200 eaches isnt that large of a workload. I'm averaging 9200 right now and i get it done within the hours given. But I spent close to a year getting my peers educated on how to properly maintain clearance. There are a lot of things that will slow you down. Zone, Clearance management, etc...

Do you use the workload planning forecast on workbench? Is your stores clearance management horrible? are things scattered all throughout the store?

I could give you a ton of information but my fingers hurt already.
 
Our pricing team does help with huddle when they have time. If nothe pricing Tl steps out and goes to huddle and informs the rest of the team. Our pc Tl has a lot of support from sl and meat. Sometimes meat has more hours then they need so they lend them to pc and Softlines we help them scan bigger areas like rtw on my early day I help them scan for a little bit and rearrange clearance with them in other areas on the carpet because it helps everyone good looking clearance sells.

It also helps my stl supports them he has scanned with them before but he's also the stl that does carryouts and helps the cart attendant when he needs it he help sl in shoes on the first snow fall his last year. So he's different.

My suggestion win over your etl and the sl Tl's first and go from there afterall a great way to drive sales in an area is great clearance that should be incentive enough to help you guys. My rtw is number one in my group right now for yearly comp sales and as far as I'm concerned it was a team win. I'll ask pc Tl at my store for advice for you on how she won the store over

To the bet advice I got keep your business walk with you while you work write in bits at a time as you think about it keep it on you a week and at then stash it in your binder

Stay positive you can do this!
 
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Thanks everyone! Yes our clearance and PTM's are scattered everywhere throughout the store. Basically our store is a mess. Zoning in our store is rediculous. When we are looking for one cell phone cover in Electronics we have to scan the whole aisle to find it. Softlines is always a mess. Yesterday we filled up a z rack full of regular priced merchandise off of the rtw clearance racks. We quite often have to go check sporting goods because clearance has been hung in sporting goods even. I have preached week after week about zoning clearance endcaps when zoning is done in hardlines but this is not getting done either. When clearance is being pushed to the floor from the back room it is put on an endcap with no signs so I walk endcaps every morning to make sure they are signed and quite often by the end of the day the signs are gone again. Our backroom has been a disaster since p-fresh remodel. I feel it is now recovering after 6 months, but only because DTL said they need to get ready for 4th quarter. Last week we were missing so much softlines that I went back to the wacos in UPCS and toggled to SUBT and started scanning and found a repack of softlines not in location and already on clearance. This is not helping my scores either. I partnered with the backroom TL he made it a priority to LOCU all softlines by this week and you would not believe the amount of softlines I had in my backroom workload yesterday. (I even found jewelry in wacos that was clearance and some that was not.)

Our store does participates in Comp shop and we do put up nearly 200-300 balloons on a daily basis. I was concerned that audits were not being done so I started doing all labels myself for two weeks and yes a few were up but most were not and they were new price cuts especially in market and electronics. We do have our balloons already made up most of the time. I have partnered with the GSTL to have guest service help with this but we have continually run out of balloons and they are constantly on backorder so for a week I were just only able to put up the holders waiting for the balloons to come in. I don't know how many balloons we have up in our store but my guess it is in the 3000 range this shot through the roof when p-fresh started. Electronics, market, haircare, pets and baby is where most of them are. Do these balloons get pulled when ad is set on Sunday? My new STL said they do but I had to disagree because of the amount of work it would create down the line and I can't find a best practice about these balloons in promotional signing ad set.
 
On ad set, bp(old version)says to pull balloons down when a ad sign goes up, then put them back up after the sale week is done. We don't have manpower to this action, so we don't do it on ad setup day. It sounds like ad takedown maybe removing the balloons thinking that they were part of the ad.
 
I am a PATL and we help out on the sales floor all the time.

Our routine is to come in at 6am and help push the truck till 8am. Then we start in on our work load and depending on the size, we get a couple TM's from the push team to help out. Kind of a we scratch your back, you scratch ours kind of deal. My team is a bit larger as a result- I have 5 on my team.

On the schedule I put my team on Trailer/Push for two hours a day and PA the rest of the day. Ad set is sales floor hours. I rotate weekends, but those are sales floor hours.

One thing we do is to have a zone twice a day. At 1pm and 8pm each day ETL's, TL's and TM's go through the store and straighten up rows, pick up abandons, and make the store look nice. This has really helped put pricing and our scores have gone up since things are more than likely to be where they should. Usually one or two people per section. The process takes 30-40 minutes max.

Our store was red in PA till our new STL came on earlier this year. He is much more understanding of the process than his predecessor. Having a STL or ETL who has done the job before is a big help. You might want to ask some of your ETL's to work with your team for a couple days in order to understand the process. I did this before and one of my harshest critics became my biggest supporter after his eyes were opened.

Pricing is the hardest area to keep green. Your accuracy is highly dependent on how well the rest of the sales floor crew does their job. If the zone is bad, your scores will be too.
 
I had the same problem when I started as the PATL. Not enough hours to complete the workload. Also my ETL was creating my schedule and she had no clue what I needed. One time she scheduled just me by myself for 4 hours to complete 3700 eaches. It did get better after the higher-ups realized that I was not able to complete my workload in a timely manner. Then I started getting a minimum of 65 hours even when MAX says I get less.

Clearance zone in my store is not great (don't think clearance endcaps are ever zoned). Was putting it on my business walk, but really did no good. Also many times working out clearance is not a priority. For instance there was a z-rack of lingerie in our back room that POG took down, so that they could set some planos. That stayed for over week and then was finally worked out yesterday. They did a bad job at merchandising the product, as it was over flowing to the point that was not shopable. Also it wrapped around the gray bar on the endcap.

I wish my team was given the time to not only ticket but, stock and remerchandise the clearance, but of course that is not the case.

Lingerie and accessories in my store don't ever get a good zone. The bras, belts, and wallets are the worst. Shoes used to be bad until they starting having someone work there for a few hours each day. Also the men's hat wall is bad, except after a reset and then it is only good for a few days.

Still being given 1-sport salvage that I would have found on Monday if it were zoned right. Also sometimes find clearance in the wrong areas.

PTM areas are the worst in our store, as you can never count on item being even close to its correct location on the POG. Also you never can count on it being even in the right aisle.

Most TLs in my store just don't seem to care. B/G/I TL is only concerned when we miss something or if we going to have the time to remerchandise her clearance racks and tables. Also she seems concerned when we put the clearance on a Z-rack and leave it for her. We have had to this the past 3 week in infants, as there was simply no room on the clearance racks for the product.

Was just given the job of running the POG team for a while, as that TL is on a medical LOA. Worked with them for 2 days this week, but let the signing TM run the show, as she know what was going on. Will be with all of next week, but then after that I am back to PA, as we were given no hours for POG. Was told by the SFETL that all POGs should be completed by then and that is why. I was given 35 hours for PA which not close to the 65 I had been given. I just hope that workload is small and that there no problems along the way. Have PA TMs that are upset, as they only 15 hours working the truck.

I think they are hoping the PTL will be back by the first of next month and if that is the case I am not sure they want to run POG, as well. It make not sense to me at all.
 
Yes, MAX will rarely give you the hours you need to get the job done.

The actual formula for hours is 110 eaches per hour and it is supposed to take into account last years workload plus 10%.

Often an ETL will figure 8 hours per day when they should subtract lunch, breaks, huddle and other such duties. In reality it is probably closer to 6 hours of work time for a full shift. For example, most ETL's do not understand that even though you may have a light work load in RTW for the day, that you still have to scan everything in the dept in order to find it all. It is a minimum of two tm's taking 4-6 hours to get through that area alone in my store. If they only give you two tm's on your RTW day, you are screwed before you even start. That is why I like being able to make my teams schedule.

As for Intimates and Accessories being poorly zoned- join the club. Those are the worst areas of any Target I have visited and we rarely score green in those areas as far as accuracy is concerned.
 
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