Reflecting on leadership in the past..

Joined
Nov 12, 2020
Messages
37
For those that have been around for a while, what leadership titles have existed in the past, and do you feel target would benefit by bringing them back?

I was speaking to a veteran TM the other day, and he was talking about working at Target years ago and how common it was to see dozens of executive leaders and regular team leads with all different job titles on the floor, and it was great.

Now it seems like everyone stays in their office, and we only have about 25 supervisors to 250+ team members, and the workload is becoming absurd. You will never see our ETLS, and our team leads pop out every once in a while to micromanage.

No real point to this thread, I was just curious because it seems like we do so much with so little, at least at my store. Also, what positions do you feel might be integrated or cut in the future as retail continuously changes?
 
If you don't see your leadership on the floor, they're doing a shitty job of running the store. My SD is on the floor most of the day, my ETL is running unload/sfs all day, and all my TL peers are always on the floor.

It's a struggle for me to find 5 min/day offstage to check email this time of year. The pace is faster than ever..
 
Well, then this is more than likely why the store is always a damn mess. I've been at three stores so far, and this one is by far the worst. It may just be the time of day I come in, but I seldom see my ETLs, and the SD is always busy in her office. She's also the type that will NOT help out if there are enough people to take care of the daily tasks ( there aren't because there are so many fucking call-ins, being a mall store in a busy college town). Don't even get me started on the HR department.

I feel like I'm just biased and jaded because the first store I applied to, was trained in, and worked for a year and a half was a highly functioning test store that, in my opinion, is one of the best targets in our entire state.
 
Target already has way more leaders than most retail establishments. Most have two salaried managers and a smattering of dept managers.

Most big box retail stores generally have:

1 - Store Manager (Salary)
1 - Asst. Store Manager (Salary)
~5 - Dept Supervisors (Hourly)
~5 - Specialty (ops, cash office, lead cashier, etc (Hourly..not a supervisor).

When I was a specialist, we had like 8 ETLs, 10 TLs, 5 specialists. It's way too many cooks.
 
I remember talking with one of my old tls, back when i started. We thought it was a big deal when he went from an electronics tl to and electronics and toys tm. Nowadays thats like 1 tenth of what we do.
 
I can definitely see that. Also, what was a specialist? Was this title used in every department, and were they compensated differently than regular team members/consultants?
 
I can definitely see that. Also, what was a specialist? Was this title used in every department, and were they compensated differently than regular team members/consultants?
 
I can definitely see that. Also, what was a specialist? Was this title used in every department, and were they compensated differently than regular team members/consultants?

Stores (circa late 90s, early 2000s) used to have teams broken into levels.

Level 1 - Team Member/Cashier. About what you would expect, normal stuff depending on the team
Level 2 - Specialist (1-2 dollars over level 1). Owned a specialty area and managed it. Set all of the salesplanners, did all of the research, etc... From what I understand of Target now, this is functionally similar to the GM team member role. Specialists went away shortly before the debut of the now largely defunct instocks process.
Level 3 - Team Leader (3 dollars over level 1). Managed a store area. Could be Flow, Backroom, Salesfloor areas, Pharmacy, Guest Service, Etc.\
Level 4 - Senior Team Leader (4-7 dollars over level 1). Same duties as a TL plus store keys and LOD duties. Essentially an ETL that is paid hourly and has actual responsibility. Most seniors at this time also made more than many ETLs.
ETL - Role hasn't changed
Sr. ETL - Largely eliminated, but is a slot for more challenging etl slots in higher volume stores, such as ops or grocery in a super.
STL - Role hasn't changed, think this is called Store Director now.
 
Years ago I was a specialist in Electronics. I basically did all the Revisions and Salesplanners and was part of Transition resets. Throughout the week it was just about sales, getting AAR's and SRP's, checking TV prices every morning. There was no BDS then, so maintaining displays and fixing issues as they came up and partnering with the PML was part of the job.

I thinks Specialist positions and SrTL, specifically for the closing lead and opening truck lead need to be brought back, a sense of worth for certain TM's in certain areas is important I think. A low volume doesn't need more than 4 ETL's, high volume no more than 7. Our store has been functioning with way less TL's than modernization called for to have keys, the trust just wasn't there for many.
 
Interesting, I am assuming there were more management positions back then, especially ETL positions.

**update. After browsing this sub some more, I've come to realize that several different ETL positions have been eliminated and renamed for modernization purposes. Also, I agree with you that most retail stores don't need a bus full of salaried managers.

I'd argue that lower volume stores don't need more than 2 or 3 salaried, and high volume 6-8 with hourly supervisors in between. The low volume I just transferred from only had two, and the one before that had 5. The one I am at now has five, plus the SD. Apparently, some targets have 20 salaried and who knows how many hourly managers. Must be doing crazy ass sales to afford and need that many.
 
Last edited:
For my store, it's

TM (Including Cashier, Guest Services/Advocate, Specialty Sales, etc.)
Then TL's/HR
ETL
SD

That's pretty much it.

Also, if your leads are just staying in the office like 99% of the time, then there might be a problem to be honest. They're also supposed to help manage the floor. But yet again we might not know what other things might be taking up their time. They got phone calls and paper work to do, etc.
 
Interesting, I am assuming there were more management positions back then, especially ETL positions.

**update. After browsing this sub some more, I've come to realize that several different ETL positions have been eliminated and renamed for modernization purposes. Also, I agree with you that most retail stores don't need a bus full of salaried managers.

I'd argue that lower volume stores don't need more than 2 or 3 salaried, and high volume 6-8 with hourly supervisors in between. The low volume I just transferred from only had two, and the one before that had 5. The one I am at now has five, plus the SD. Apparently, some targets have 20 salaried and who knows how many hourly managers. Must be doing crazy ass sales to afford and need that many.
I'm at a Super, but we're only about 42 mil last year. We have SD, ETL HR and one HRtm, ETL specialty and 2 Style TL, ETL GM and 3 GM TL, one Food Etl, MDF TL, Dry grocery TL, Produce TL, Bakery/Deli/Starbucks TL, PML, one VM.
I've heard of stores with high enough volume to get 5 Style TLs.
 
Holy cow, we don't have anyone dedicated to just Style - one Specialty TL, that's it! Oh, and a VM.
 
We have our SD, our ETL-GM and Food Sales, ETL-HR, ETL-Service and Engagement, and ETL Specialty Sales. 3 GM Team Leads, 1 for grocery, 2 or 3 for style, 3 for SE, 2 for HR, and SEVERAL for AP (high-risk mall). Also, we have our property management lead. I'm still new to the store, so I'm still figuring out what everyone does. I know for sure we are in the upper 20s for leads.

I think it's weird how this store doesn't have an ETL for food only, but the open market area is minimal, and the volume just isn't there. Our sales are identical to my first store ($45,000,000) , and we had five ETLs, added one for food, but their market area was huge compared to this mall store. When I compare our org chart to the guide's we should have a few more leads, but I understand that's not always how it works.
 
It’ll help mentioning the sales range of your store like some have here.

Current store ($85 million):

2 GM-ETLs
1 Specialty ETL
1 Consumables ETL
1 Service and Engagement ETL
1 Style ETL
1 ETL-AP
1 HR ETL
2 Inbound ETLs

3 GM TLs
3 Style TLs
1 Tech and Beauty TL
1 Flex TL
3 Inbound TLs
1 HR TL
3 SE TLs

My other stores were $100 million+

It was similar but they have a Sr Merch. A position that barely exist now.

*** I would also say the market you’re in matters too. My market is NYC which is a unique place and a lot of what spot does have to be altered here to work in this market.***
 
Last edited:
It’ll help mentioning the sales range of your store like some have here.

Current store ($85 million):

2 GM-ETLs
1 Specialty ETL
1 Consumables ETL
1 Service and Engagement ETL
1 Style ETL
1 ETL-AP
1 HR ETL
2 Inbound ETLs

3 GM TLs
3 Style TLs
1 Tech and Beauty TL
1 Flex TL
3 Inbound TLs
1 HR TL
3 SE TLs

My other stores were $100 million+

It was similar but they have a Sr Merch. A position that barely exist now.

*** I would also say the market you’re in matters too. My market is NYC which is a unique place and a lot of what spot does have to be altered here to work in this market.***
No consumables TL? I’m surprised you don’t have any closing TLs. My store has the same ETL and TL count with slight variation since were shy of $85 million.

1 ETL Inbound

3 F&B TL (1 Dry, 1 Perishables, 1 Food Ave)
4 GM TL
2 Closing TL
2 Inbound TL
Southern California store
 
Around $32million

4 ETL: Service & Engagement, GM (also does consumable and inbound), (useless) HR, and Specialty Sales
10 TL: 3 GM, 1 Consumables, 2 S&E (1 also has Starbucks, no extra pay), 2 A&A, 1 VM(also does signing), 1 Fulfillment. (plus 1 closing TL on long term LOA with job rotated by all but S&E TL's. Inbound is also rotated by all but S&E and Consumables TL's. Not sure if PML is considered a TL)
15 DBO (2 are similar to former GSA) and 1 AP that get paid the same as every other tm, but hold accountability for the work of each department

Seriously miss/need Instocks Team and actual trainers. There is a core group that are scheduled to Plano for large sets, but not an actual team. Softlines misses the pricing team.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top