Archived questions for Price Accuracy/Plano team members

[tysteel]

Hi,

I'm interested in working for Target as either a Price Accuracy or a Planogram team member, but a little bit of background first:

For the previous 14 months, I've worked at the Home Depot as a bay integrity associate in the Texas area. My job in the store is to set up price changes, work cycle & exception counts, bay sequencing, and scan outs. By scan outs, what I mean is that I check the aisles to see if we are out of product on the shelves, I can set up the outs for "packdown" or as an order to be approved by the department manager

Unfortunately, those who do the price accuracy (BIA) job at the home depot are relegated to part-time status, although the position used to be full time. I'm not allowed more than 25 hours a week. I work monday through friday, 5 am to 10 am, each morning. Weekends off. I'm paid $8.20 an hour. We are also not allowed to pick up additional hours in other departments, either. Unfortunately, there is no way for me to ever get more hours in my current job position.

I don't make enough hours working for the home depot, so I've been applying for jobs at Target. I was called in for an interview at a local Target, but they wanted to offer me the "flow" job, which I had to turn down. I don't think that I would make the hours I need doing that job, based on the info I was given during my job interview. I need a job where I can hope to make 30+ hours a week on a regular basis. Since I work as a "bia" at home depot and set price changes, I think the Target Price Accuracy/Presentation job would possibly be a better fit.

My question is, how many hours a week do Price Accuracy and Presentation Team members make a week in your store? Does the planogram team make as many hours as price accuracy, or is it less?

Another question: how difficult is it to find all the locations for a product when doing price changes? At the home depot, we have all the products sequenced into their bays, which makes it rather easy to find them all when doing price changes. For example, if a specific brand of leather gloves is going down on price and if it's located in different aisles or end caps in the store, the hand held scanner will show me all the locations for that particular product. Makes it easier to track it down quickly and mark it down with the new lower price.

Can you also change/adjust on-hands as a Target Price Accuracy Team member? Do you also sequence product locations to bays?

thanks

 

[Ask Alexandria]

Personally am not trained in said areas so I'll answer what I can:

The Presentation team gets consistent 40 hours in my store. Price Accuracy changes between 27-34, sometimes closer to 40.

I know we've got some PA/Plano TMs that'll be able to give you some more specifics though.

 

[The Mule]

It will unfortunately be different at every store how they choose to lay the hours out. Plano may have the most predictable hours as Pricing will be dependent on the competitive shop results of the area as to how much changing they will need to do. I would almost say you would be better off getting into the Instocks process. The best things for you though is Target allows cross training in other departments. If you really want to get on-board at the bullseye, Flow may be the way in and then train and pick up hours like crazy until you can land something more permanent at your store.

 

[tysteel]

Thanks for answering my question.

At home depot, my 25 hours a week are guaranteed. Even if sales slump, I still get 25 hours. However, it really doesn't help very much when people who do the price accuracy/inventory mgt. job at the home depot are prohibited by Corporate from picking up additional hours in other departments. Only time we may get more hours is if another member on the same team is having attendance issues.

 

[commiecorvus]

It varies.
I can only speak to Plano but if you are a fully trained member of the crew you can pick up 32 hours or so on average.
Often you will have to do a shift or two of cash register, p-fresh or hardlines to get your hours up.
Right now we have heavy sets so everybody gets plenty of hours but that's going to change pretty quick.
And there by lies the problem with Plano, Spot doesn't like to make consistent plans so our hours fluctuate constantly.
From what I can tell it's not like that with price change, they have a pretty constant work load, heavy all the time.
But (at least at our store) it's a pretty stable team and for some reason all ladies.

 

[tysteel]

As for the planogram team, I would assume that they ensure that all bays are set to POG and they also do resets, correct? That's how the planogram team works at the home depot, so I assume it's similar to how Presentation works at Target.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

I would ck your local spot & see what jobs are open. At my store, if you applied for salefloor, they may put you in backroom to work instead. It based on needs of the etl/Stl at the time.
Also, you may not be able to reapply at spot for 30 or 60 days from the date of prior interview. I can't remember the exact rule on that one.

 

[PricingMaster]

As a Price Accuracy TL what I can tell you is that hours for my team lately have been really low....I mean 17-25 hours the past few weeks. Our hours are based on the amount of projected markdowns we will have to work. This definitely varies by store, as not all stores clearance out the same items at the same time - that depends on how well an item is selling. The only time the hours steadily pick up are from the end of August til mid October (back to college and back to school markdowns) and mid December til mid March. The rest of the year it will depend on how sales.are going as well as what the projected workload looks like.

 

[PricingMaster]

I meant to say 17-25 hours per person

 

[TargetOldTimer]

If I were you, I would start looking at warehouses in your area.

Planogram tm in my store rarely gets more than 17 hours a week. We have a large team, 7 total. So you see, there is no where in Target where 40 hours are guaranteed.

Finding items in Target is just as easy, if not more than a HD, but price change does not change OH. All easy, but of course our terminology is different.

 

[Rarejem]

Tysteel - many of our tm's have a second job at Home Depot. If you have set hours there you could pick up additional hours at Target to total 40 hours per week. Your experience at HD will really be beneficial at Target and once you are on a team I would guess that you would be moved around to the area for which you are best qualified. I can't say that this is "for sure", but it has been the way it's gone at my store. Rarely does a tm that has retail "off the floor" experience end up as a salesfloor tm or cashier even though that is where they start. (Not dissing those teams at all, but most of the others are higher paygrades.)

 

[The Mule]

So you see, there is no where in Target where 40 hours are guaranteed.

I wouldn't say no where, just highly not the norm. TLs and Sr.TLs usually get 40 except for the few slow months earlier in the year. SFTs are guaranteed 40 in my area. These are the positions you have to work towards and not something you are likely to get right through the door.

 

[tysteel]

Thanks for the responses.

When I did the interview with Target last week, the Flow team leader wanted me to quit my job at Home Depot in order to accomodate his scheduling. Flow is scheduled to come in at 4 am. I'm scheduled to work at Home Depot at 5 am in the morning.

I told him that I would have no problem quitting Home Depot, as long as I could be guaranteed 30+ hours or more a week by Target. I'm currently guaranteed 25 hours a week by Home Depot, although I'm not allowed more than 25 hours unless another associate on my team has serious attendance issues. I also mentioned that if guaranteed hours were not possible, Target could work around my HD schedule. Unfortunately, the Target team lead wasn't able to work with me, as flow is scheduled to work from 4 am to 8 am.

Are there any Target inventory related jobs that I could work around my Home Depot 5 am to 10 am schedule? If not, perhaps I need to ask my store manager about moving my job to nights or something.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

Backroom, is your best bet.

 

[tysteel]

I was actually kind of surprised that I was called in for an interview at Target last week.

The reason being is because, back in November of last year, I did an interview at a different Target location and offered a position in the backroom. From what I was told, I would be a temporary hire that more than likely would not be kept on after the holidays.

The ETL stated that he work with me in scheduling shifts in the backroom around my Home Depot job. I was told that I could work backroom after 11am. I accepted the offer and did the drug test. Passed it.

I was called in for the orientation, and afterwards the HR person provided me a schedule with my hours. The schedule that I was presented simply did not work because it would conflict with my Home Depot job. I told the HR person to let the ETL know that I would not be doing the job unless he would stay true to his word in working around my existing job. I had already told him at what hours I would be available during the job interview.

I'm surprised that I wasn't put on the blacklist after turning down the job. However, even though I attended the orientation, at that point I did not provide my social security card or other documentation to be "officially" hired by Target.

 

[tysteel]

Is merchandise sequenced into bays so that it makes things easier to find for price changes at Target? Or do price accuracy team members primarly have to rely on their memory to remember where all the stuff is at when change prices? Just curious how it's done at Target.

thanks

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

Is merchandise sequenced into bays so that it makes things easier to find for price changes at Target? Or do price accuracy team members primarly have to rely on their memory to remember where all the stuff is at when change prices? Just curious how it's done at Target.

thanks

There is a price changes app on the PDA which pulls all clearance on backroom locations out. Then is staged on a tub/flat for pricing teams to tag with clearance stickers.

 

[TargetOldTimer]

At Home Depot, things are located into "Bays", which is approx 4' of space. At Target, everything is located within inches on the salesfloor. For example, If you need to find a bottle of Visine, the pda would tell you it is on A10, section 3, shelf 4, space 15, A10(3)3-4-15

Our receiving area is located more like Home Depot.

 

[tysteel]

Thanks for the info, targetoldtimer.

Which team is responsible for sequencing in products on the shelves? Is that the planogram team's responsibility, or does the price accuracy team also play a role in sequencing in shelf locations, as in your visine example?

At the home depot, as part of my task list as a Bay Integrity Associate, I'm required to "bay validate" 15 bays per department every week. What bay validation is ... every week the computer system selects 15 bays in each department at random that need to be resequenced. Sometimes vendors (or other associates) will cut a product onto a shelf, but won't bother to sequence it in, which of course makes it difficult for others to know in which aisle or end cap to find it in. Sequencing at Home Depot is done by scanning price tags, from left to right, top to bottom.

As for the on-hand counts of merchandise at Target, does the total O/H that the PDA is going to show include what's in the backroom, or just what's on the shelf? I would assume that if the PDA shows that there are 25 bottles of Visine on-hand, that total number includes not only what's on the shelf but also what's in the backroom?

Something else I'd like to ask: if you have a very low quantity of an item on the sales floor that it falls below a "target" and isn't enough to cover all the facings, and there are several boxes of same product in the backroom, will the system automatically generate a batch that will require a Target team member to pull more product from the backroom and downstock? Or is something like this only generated when it is scanned by an instocks team member?

What's sad about my job at the home depot is that I'm basically doing what it probably takes 2 or 3 teams at Target to do: I adjust on-hands, I do all the price changes and signs, and I also do instocks for the store. Yet, people on my team (there are three of us) are only given 26 hours a week to complete an impossible workload, we are constantly rushed, not allowed to cross-clock into other departments for extra hours, and to add insult to injury, we are paid a dollar less an hour than the entry level sales associate.

Home Depot sucks. Target sounds like it'd be a good place for me, but I think I made a mistake by turning down the flow job I was offered last week. Guess I will try again.

 

[TargetOldTimer]

If you do flow, ALL you will be doing is unloading trucks, running pallets to the floor, bowling or stocking shelves. Our flow team is getting 17-24 hours a week in a A volume store.

If there are only 3 people doing all you describe in 75 hours, then you are doing it in FAR less detail than we do.

 

[tysteel]

>Our flow team is getting 17-24 hours a week in a A volume store.

When I was offered the flow job last week, the team leader stated that I would get between 25-40 hours. Are there any stores where one can make those kind of hours working flow? I was kind of skeptical that I would get that many hours, and finally the TL admitted to me after further questioning that on some days I could get as little as 3.5 hours. It would depend on how quickly we unload the trucks, really.

 

[Ajax11]

I'm at an Ultra Low Volume (ULV) 6am Target, our Flow people are lucky to get 17 hours a week, we only get 3 trucks a week and try to get the team out before lunch. If you find a high volume overnight Target you would probably be able to get more hours. There is a such a huge difference in every store's volume that anything said will just be based on that person's store.

Presentation at my store gets 35-40 hours a week for most of the year, but there are ~4 months a year where they are lucky to 20. We only have 3 permanent POG team members plus the TL though.

The way Presentation is done at Target, at least once a year every single aisle in the store will get completely stripped and reset. With each department having a time when it is done, i.e. April is when electronics transitions.

There are also revisions that are done every week which can be in any area of the store. A revision is a planogram change that is normally less than 50% of a full change. Some revisions only have 2 shelves change, others have multiple 4' sections revise.


For some perspective, 2 weeks ago we had 300 hours of payroll for the POG team. The next 4 weeks we get something like 80 hours, 70 hours, 50 hours, 80 hours to split between 4 people.

 

[mrknownothing]

Which team is responsible for sequencing in products on the shelves? Is that the planogram team's responsibility, or does the price accuracy team also play a role in sequencing in shelf locations, as in your visine example?

All the planograms and salesplanners (mini-planograms for endcaps) are created by corporate. The Plano team builds the fixtures, then actually sets the planograms and fills them, and in some stores, sales floor team leaders set and fill salesplanners. To my knowledge, Price Accuracy just does price changes if any need to be done (i.e. clearance, etc.).

As for the on-hand counts of merchandise at Target, does the total O/H that the PDA is going to show include what's in the backroom, or just what's on the shelf? I would assume that if the PDA shows that there are 25 bottles of Visine on-hand, that total number includes not only what's on the shelf but also what's in the backroom?

Something else I'd like to ask: if you have a very low quantity of an item on the sales floor that it falls below a "target" and isn't enough to cover all the facings, and there are several boxes of same product in the backroom, will the system automatically generate a batch that will require a Target team member to pull more product from the backroom and downstock? Or is something like this only generated when it is scanned by an instocks team member?

The on-hand count includes both the sales floor and backstock; basically every unit in the building. The PDA shows the quantities for both the floor and the backroom, plus the total on-hand count.

If an item is purchased or defected out, the "need" for that item is added to the accumulator. Say, there are 5 XYZs on the shelf and a guest buys two of them. At some point, the accumulator will request two XYZs to be pulled in an autofill (what the flow team is supposed to satisfy when they stock the shelves) or hourly CAF (replenishment pull during the day, as opposed to the overnight/early morning stocking done by the flow team) and fill the sales floor location. The accumulator is reset when an Instocks team member scans the item in Outs and Research. When they scan Outs, that means the item is not on the floor. If it's in stock, it will be pulled in autofills/CAFs, but if it's not in stock, then it's (assumed to be) ordered from the DC. When they do Research, they update the on-hand counts for each item.

What's sad about my job at the home depot is that I'm basically doing what it probably takes 2 or 3 teams at Target to do: I adjust on-hands, I do all the price changes and signs, and I also do instocks for the store. Yet, people on my team (there are three of us) are only given 26 hours a week to complete an impossible workload, we are constantly rushed, not allowed to cross-clock into other departments for extra hours, and to add insult to injury, we are paid a dollar less an hour than the entry level sales associate.

Target is like a bureaucracy with the way the workload is distributed among different workcenters. It's nice that we can crosstrain because it not only opens up opportunities for more hours, but it helps to give team members a better understanding of store processes. I was hired as a cashier and knew nothing (hence my username) about what goes on away from the registers, but I've learned a lot about the store processes in my sales floor training (though not nearly as much as I've learned from this site). And about the entry level sales associates making more than you: I can guarantee that they make more than our sales floor team members. They probably have a much better knowledge of the products and actually sell them rather than just telling people where they are and making them look pretty.

 

[Backtohardlines]

If you do flow, ALL you will be doing is unloading trucks, running pallets to the floor, bowling or stocking shelves. Our flow team is getting 17-24 hours a week in a A volume store.

If there are only 3 people doing all you describe in 75 hours, then you are doing it in FAR less detail than we do.

This depends on the store, our flow does this, and that is their main function, but they also push autofills in the the morning, and help the plano team. Many are cross trained to help where ever it's needed.

 

[TargetOldTimer]

Not 3 people working 25 hours a week we don't. OP says he can't cross over, so that is his job, no one elses.