Promoting at Target

The route for "moving up" at Target seems to be TM to TL, or at least a PG45 role. Are there any other ways of moving up that don't involve a leadership position?
Short answer is no. Long answer is that they want leadership experience. If you already have leadership experience then there is a chance but depending on what it is they may still want you to be a TL. You can go to another company and come back, otherwise you are going to be forced to climb the ladder step by step. At the ETL there are other avenues to move up as there are different roles that can be outside of the stores.
 
Internal can be a struggle, and if your store is full of solid tms and tls looking to move up, and you aren't some undeniable top talent who is blowing them away but merely a very good TM ready to promote, well, good luck. Strap in because it could take a few years. You may need to get lucky. You're judged subjectively compared to your peers or to your SDs personal standards to a large degree even if that isn't right objectively. External or rehire after more experience is far more fair of a process from what I've seen. Just the truth, I know we try to do better than this when developing talent, but yeah.
 
Are there any other ways of moving up that don't involve a leadership position?
By this do you mean are there ways of making more money that don't involve being a leader?

Sadly, not anymore. The only way to make more money as a TM is to put in more time and getting a few additional cents during annual reviews (and those increases aren't even keeping up with inflation at the moment).

Several years ago the paygrades for TMs varied by position. For instance, you could go from Cashier > Food & Beverage TM > Backroom TM and get a small pay bump (usually 25-50 cents) with each move. There were also "specialist" positions which were a step above TM but below TL, and I think those were $1.00 above base pay.

A lot of stores will still designate their top TMs as "specialists, captains, pace setters, etc." and give them additional responsibilities in an attempt to develop them, but unfortunately none of these titles are official roles and you very likely are not going to see an increase in pay.
 
What do you mean by moving up? What do you want to do? The only position I know of above team member are team lead. ETL and Sd are both team lead positions so, what else is there?
 
If you mean moving into HQ/field roles, almost all of them will require ETL first and then applying after you're in that role as many of them are salary already. There are non-leadership HQ roles but many are based at actual HQ in MN. I have acquaintances that have gone from store TM to HQ/field because they had a very specific degree or prior experience and applied.

For one, the store/district essentially said "no, you're not an ETL+" (your leader is supposed to approve the application first and make sure you hit the requirements), but HQ liked the TM and overrode their transfer denial. Apparently my friend's new HQ boss (VP Store Ops) emailed their SD and was like "yeah, it's happening".
 
My guess is that OP was wondering if there was a way to move directly into a salaried position and skipping the pg45 level. It may have happened before but that is an extreme exception and in 13 years at target have not heard of one case ever.
 
It’s more that I like Target and want to keep working here, but I am not a “leader”. I do not possess the qualities needed for such a role, nor do I want to develop them. It looks like my only options are to stay as a TM and keep getting good reviews or look for another job.
 
It’s more that I like Target and want to keep working here, but I am not a “leader”. I do not possess the qualities needed for such a role, nor do I want to develop them. It looks like my only options are to stay as a TM and keep getting good reviews or look for another job.
VM and PML aren't really a "Leadership" position. Those could be some good options.
Outside of spot there are probably better options. Warehouse and manufacturing jobs will pay better. Sales jobs can also pay better if your a real go getter type of person.
 
My guess is that OP was wondering if there was a way to move directly into a salaried position and skipping the pg45 level. It may have happened before but that is an extreme exception and in 13 years at target have not heard of one case ever.
It can happen but like you said it's an extreme exception. It actually happened to me six years ago but I ended up turning the offer down. That said I was a GSA and TPS prior to the offer, so I think that helped give me some leverage.
 
VM and PML aren't really a "Leadership" position. Those could be some good options.
Outside of spot there are probably better options. Warehouse and manufacturing jobs will pay better. Sales jobs can also pay better if your a real go getter type of person.
Vm and pml aren’t a leadership position depending on the store you’re in. In my store VM is very much considered a leader role, in fact most people assume she’s an etl and and our pml is in all our leadership meetings and treated as one.
 
Vm and pml aren’t a leadership position depending on the store you’re in. In my store VM is very much considered a leader role, in fact most people assume she’s an etl and and our pml is in all our leadership meetings and treated as one.
The VM is usually treated as a 3rd style tl in most stores I've been to, but neither the vm or pml are responsible for checking in with the tms, closing/opening the store, or disciplining tms. PML has to lead the cleaning crew and deal with outside vendors. I'm just saying the OP wanted to move up without having leadership responsibilities. That's the best options we have.
 
It’s more that I like Target and want to keep working here, but I am not a “leader”. I do not possess the qualities needed for such a role, nor do I want to develop them. It looks like my only options are to stay as a TM and keep getting good reviews or look for another job.
“Moving up” means leadership positions. That’s all there is.
 
There’s nothing storeside that isn’t a leadership position. There isn’t any other skill that is needed at increased levels. If you’re looking for that sort of career, IT seems to be a good option.
 
The VM is usually treated as a 3rd style tl in most stores I've been to, but neither the vm or pml are responsible for checking in with the tms, closing/opening the store, or disciplining tms. PML has to lead the cleaning crew and deal with outside vendors. I'm just saying the OP wanted to move up without having leadership responsibilities. That's the best options we have.
Though the pml has to be on the roof when the ac breaks
 
The route for "moving up" at Target seems to be TM to TL, or at least a PG45 role. Are there any other ways of moving up that don't involve a leadership position?
Workday. There’s a lot. Lvl 73’s, lvl 2’s, lvl 1’s…
 
Workday. There’s a lot. Lvl 73’s, lvl 2’s, lvl 1’s…
What's a level 73? Everything I see is either PG45 HQ TM or level 1-10.

Edit, oh I see. DC step progression, I might have forgotten that DCs exist and get significantly different pay than stores. I've never considered a DC role so that's probably why I've not noticed the paygrade.

The more you know! Thanks!
 
What's a level 73? Everything I see is either PG45 HQ TM or level 1-10.

Edit, oh I see. DC step progression, I might have forgotten that DCs exist and get significantly different pay than stores. I've never considered a DC role so that's probably why I've not noticed the paygrade.

The more you know! Thanks!
Just ignore what he says about level 73. He keeps bringing up level 73 like it means something. Its actually PG73 but workday is forced to label it as a level. Levels don't matter until merit and management positions.

Its more money, but its not a promotion. A warehouse worker is just a higher paid TM.
 
@Hal I’m about to get my last 50¢ raise. If I choose a lvl 2 role such as Training Specialist (not a back up) how would my pay scale look? I talked to TS and they stated a bonus of 3kish for my DC.
 
Its all performance based. Both your bonus and your raise. You get one guaranteed raise every year, the better you do the more you get. Sometimes that's really great, sometimes you fall behind the floor.

You'll get a percentage usually between 2% and 6% for your raise (I've also seen raises and roughly a 3% bonus based on your based salary.

So if you make $25 an hour and manage to snag a 6% raise (which means you are THE top performer so don't expect it) you'd get a $1.50 raise

Your bonus is based on base salary (so no differential or OT) so 25×40=1000. 1000x52=52k. So a 3% bonus on 52k would be a $1,560 bonus.

I believe cap is $33 an hour right now before differential. But it'll take you a bit to get there.

You want to make more money quicker and put yourself in a better spot to move up? Be an LWW.
 
Its all performance based. Both your bonus and your raise. You get one guaranteed raise every year, the better you do the more you get. Sometimes that's really great, sometimes you fall behind the floor.

You'll get a percentage usually between 2% and 6% for your raise (I've also seen raises and roughly a 3% bonus based on your based salary.

So if you make $25 an hour and manage to snag a 6% raise (which means you are THE top performer so don't expect it) you'd get a $1.50 raise

Your bonus is based on base salary (so no differential or OT) so 25×40=1000. 1000x52=52k. So a 3% bonus on 52k would be a $1,560 bonus.

I believe cap is $33 an hour right now before differential. But it'll take you a bit to get there.

You want to make more money quicker and put yourself in a better spot to move up? Be an LWW.
Thank you I almost went for a training specialist roll over on the FC side of the RDC. I will wait. The reason I know your informative is because you predicted every key getting a SOM before it even happened. I think on my Mezzanine thread. You are more insightful than my local HR.
 
“Moving up” means leadership positions. That’s all there is.
Moving up means leadership. Exactly said.

If you told your SD you wanted to move up without leadership responsibilities they would laugh at you and absolutely never promote you to VM or PML as both of those positions have major responsibility.

As stated by others, the VM position is normally used as another style or home TL position. You would absolutely be expected to check in with TMs and give direction to not only TMs but also TLs as a VM. VM used to be the highest paid TL position and the only reason they took away the TL title was because during modernization, they expected TMs to own the visual aspects of their business, instead of a set team that handled it, which didn't really play out well in most stores.

As a PML you would need to also follow up with TLs about store issues. PML typically walks with the PMD once to twice a month and is given call outs that absolutely need to be addressed and the TLs will be expected to follow through with these call outs once addressed by the PML.

Like others have said, you would not have access to actually coach team members on the computer, or be expected to open or close in either of these positions, though one of my previous VMs was expected to close because she had held the VMTL position before it was taken away. All of my VMs after her have held keys to the store as well.

PML would be less leadership responsibility as it is not considered a store-side position, PML reports to PMD not to anyone within the store, and cannot be pulled to do anything other than PM workload. However, in order to obtain this position, you would likely need experience of some sort.
VM reports to the specialty ETL and in most stores is treated as a TL and expected to follow up with TMs, train them on standards, and even unofficially coach them when they are doing something wrong.

Either way, if you don't want responsibility, than no you cannot move up. Additionally, if you did obtain one of these positions, and could not handle leadership responsibility, you would likely be pushed out for someone that could.
 
I've known a number TLs that became ETLs. It may just be because of my district HR or what not, even atleast one person becoming ETL at the store they were TL at.
 
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