Archived Sr TL Hardlines struggling

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Roo90

Sr GSTL
Joined
Nov 21, 2011
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Everyone here probably knows that tis the season for endcaps to transition like crazy. My department alone has 71 that are swapping out.

Any other HLTLs experiencing the same challenge? How do you get the work done? My ETL has me working them all alone for the most part. I've brought in help and got an overnight but how do you accomplish this task using the resources given? How are you successfully running your business?
 
I can't speak to specifics as far as planning as I don't work with Salesplanners that often. But we brought a team in today of apron. 10-15 and not including all the ETL's to set salesplanners today. We set 97 salesplanners today! We had a team setting, Team Pulling, and a Team Pushing.... Kepping yourself organized is the biggest key in my opinion.
 
At my store, we have a dedicated team member for sales plans, and that's all they do. I realize that doesn't help you much. It usually falls to the Plano TL as part of their team's workload. Do you always have to set your own end caps, or is this a special case?
 
At my store, we have a dedicated team member for sales plans, and that's all they do. I realize that doesn't help you much. It usually falls to the Plano TL as part of their team's workload. Do you always have to set your own end caps, or is this a special case?

every store is different, but i do want to note that salesplanners do NOT fall into the planograms workload. it specifically says on workbench that salesplanners (other than checklanes) are the responsibility of the tl of each department. setting salesplanners is part of the hour allocation for the salesfloor. granted, the stl can do whatever he wants when allocating the forecast, and all stores are different. it grinds my gears when we're busting it and i see a srtl/tl/2hltm talking about one direction at the electronics boat for 40 minutes and not giving any thought to the large workload. they think my magical four person team is going to set 498 hours of adjacency, plus planners.

anyways, roo90, take partnership with your peers. look at the schedule each day. every tm scheduled should be focused on setting during heavy weeks of transition. ask you etl specifically what his/her plan would be to accomplish the workload. speak with your stl as needed. you shouldn't be the "assigned" person to do all the spl every week. also, make sure you have things set up when they are easy to find, sorted, and mapped. we have a bulletin board with this weeks, next weeks, and 2 weeks out. we staple the pogs and sort them by dept. then the tl map them out and write the locations on the front. that way, if they need help we can jump in quickly and know exactly whats left. also, if you have specific endcaps that are empty (christmas plu, anyone), then you can set what needs to replace it without having to dig or reprint pogs.
 
I'm having fun with the mere 13 I had this week... Had a chance to do one today. The entire rest of the week has been spent dealing with remerchandising and go backs in seasonal and helping plano set mini. They need to redo the alignment at my store, as right now I have 1 TM and 1 bike assembly. And my 1 TM has been scheduled in electronics for 1.5 weeks because of a termination and a person qutting. So, uh, yeah, it has been fun :/ Had no partnership from backroom on pulling them either. And then overnight was in the middle of updating the aisle when it did get pulled, so half the stuff is missing from what was pulled -_-
 
At our store we have to do our own and we don't get any extra hours for them. We get them done however we can. Here are some things we do.
1. Set several endcaps at night so the opener can push them. (depends on your store, 1 week we can do this and the next the STL will spaz out)
2. Have an endcap 'break' so it has to be filled, since you're filling it you might as well set it.
3. Spend your entire day/week setting endcaps. (this is basically it)
4. Give some to your TMs to set whenever, at close, midday, etc.
5. Do what you can, let it build up, and at the end of the week when they are freaking out because TWT isn't 95%+ you can be like 'oh, my bad'.
6. Plan, partner, beg, anything to get help.

Don't ask why you're not getting the hours to complete your workload because then you're not owning your area, you're small scope, playing the victim, etc. You just have to get it done.
Don't question why they provide the SL team with enough hours to get the adjacencies and tables completed, or the POG team with hours when they were doing the SP (where did the hours go?!) because then you're keeping score.
Most importantly, DO NOT - I repeat - DO NOT go to your ETL/STL with a detailed breakdown of the length of time required to get your workload complete. Math confuses them. If you have 90 hours worth of sales planners, you being scheduled 40 hours (with 8 of those being during midday so no tasks, 8 for closing so no tasks, 8 on a weekend so no tasks, and we will round low and say 4 to cover breaks, FDC, huddles, etc., and we won't allocate any to CAFs or zone because well just because), 0 to 1 TM to use for roughly 3-4 hours every other day, they don't see how the numbers don't fit together.

edit - Learn which are CF, skip on backerpaper/signing, adjust the layout for speed (pegs vs. shelves), etc., minimize your walking, collecting all shelves, pegs, tools, etc at once.
Ignore the tape measure, eyeball the shelves.
Stop moving one that's currently set on the front to the back just because it says so on the new rotation, flip that part of the label if they are anal or get a different one, etc.
If you notice most of the time the company will have little changes in the basic layout of the endcap, for example, SP on X1 calls for 3 shelves (12 inches apart) and pegs at 66 on E, U, CC. Next rotation this changes to a new SP and the layout is roughly the same - 3 shelves and pegs, etc. It's not always like this but paying attention to this can save you a ton of time.
Use the adjacency and plan out your spots, the company makes it easy for us this way.
 
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What I don't recommend is to call the signing specialist on the walkie and say, "I've set all the endcaps in A and B, you need to put up the signs for them."
We will help as much as we can but right now our work load is ridiculous as well.
 
What I don't recommend is to call the signing specialist on the walkie and say, "I've set all the endcaps in A and B, you need to put up the signs for them."
We will help as much as we can but right now our work load is ridiculous as well.

if i worked at your store, i would murder someone. probably multiple someones. ;)
 
I have to disagree with this statement Stupid Rules: "Don't ask why you're not getting the hours to complete your workload because then you're not owning your area, you're small scope, playing the victim, etc. You just have to get it done."

If Target is setting people up for failure by not scheduling the hours to do the work, how is that playing the victim or not "owning" the area?

When I did revisions (thank God not anymore) I would have weeks where I had double the number of revisions hours then I was scheduled. How was I to do a 19 hour L'Oreal revision in 8 hours? Or do 45 hours of work in 30 hours?

If Target is doing that on a consistent basis, which they did, then you are a victim. As far as owning it, I couldn't write my own schedule. So I couldn't own it.
 
I have to disagree with this statement Stupid Rules: "Don't ask why you're not getting the hours to complete your workload because then you're not owning your area, you're small scope, playing the victim, etc. You just have to get it done."

If Target is setting people up for failure by not scheduling the hours to do the work, how is that playing the victim or not "owning" the area?

When I did revisions (thank God not anymore) I would have weeks where I had double the number of revisions hours then I was scheduled. How was I to do a 19 hour L'Oreal revision in 8 hours? Or do 45 hours of work in 30 hours?

If Target is doing that on a consistent basis, which they did, then you are a victim. As far as owning it, I couldn't write my own schedule. So I couldn't own it.
So true! Can I give you my signing person to you?
 
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I have to disagree with this statement Stupid Rules: "Don't ask why you're not getting the hours to complete your workload because then you're not owning your area, you're small scope, playing the victim, etc. You just have to get it done."

If Target is setting people up for failure by not scheduling the hours to do the work, how is that playing the victim or not "owning" the area?

When I did revisions (thank God not anymore) I would have weeks where I had double the number of revisions hours then I was scheduled. How was I to do a 19 hour L'Oreal revision in 8 hours? Or do 45 hours of work in 30 hours?

If Target is doing that on a consistent basis, which they did, then you are a victim. As far as owning it, I couldn't write my own schedule. So I couldn't own it.

So you honestly didn't get my sarcasm? Seriously? There's no way you could have missed it.
 
Yes, I got it. But believe me, there are people at Target who actually feel that way. The situations I described were all real. No hours to set stuff. No hours to do the signing. But, oh bother, somehow get it done anyway.

Just last Friday, my new ETL-LOG told me that he thought the store STL was setting him up to fail. And I agreed! Our Plano/Pricing TL quit and walked out. Nothing dramatic. SHe just handed her keys in, said she quit, clocked out, and left. Now the ETL-LOG is under the gun to do all the planning. He is freaking out man.
 
Yes, I got it. But believe me, there are people at Target who actually feel that way. The situations I described were all real. No hours to set stuff. No hours to do the signing. But, oh bother, somehow get it done anyway.

Just last Friday, my new ETL-LOG told me that he thought the store STL was setting him up to fail. And I agreed! Our Plano/Pricing TL quit and walked out. Nothing dramatic. SHe just handed her keys in, said she quit, clocked out, and left. Now the ETL-LOG is under the gun to do all the planning. He is freaking out man.

why is he not passing the planning off to a pog tm who would be more likely to understand how things actually work on the floor as opposed to the corporate dream? is there no one on the team capable?
 
I told him I would do it, but there is not time. I told him that Friday morning at around 830. I said I would get all the planograms and revisions together and plan them at least for the next week. He did not even know what a revision was. And there are like 40 hours just for that piece this coming week.

But then I had to finish processing the truck. Then we had to push the McClane truck cause no one was scheduled to do that. Got to save hours! By then, it was 1 PM and I was almost to OT.

Not to be argumentative, but why should anyone volunteer to help? No one on the team wants the TL job, so why do more when they are not appreciative of the help?
 
Not to be argumentative, but why should anyone volunteer to help? No one on the team wants the TL job, so why do more when they are not appreciative of the help?

Whether their work is appreciated or not, someone's gotta do it, preferably someone who knows the work.
 
In my store it is a combination of teams working together. Myself and the other HLTL work together to get some done. However, that is impossible to do on our own with all of the other responsibilities throughout the week. Instocks, Plano, and our ETL help us out. We never miss a planner.
 
This is why I'm glad I left my TL post. My store 2281 ( I'm not affraid to say anymore) was all jacked up when it came to this subject. My HL ETL was the only one who stood by myside along with the other TL's. You are set up for failure when every other ETL calls your workload "projects" and you have 18 to 20 endcaps to do before weeks end. All the while always wanting you to stop to push CAFS and you have one SFTM until 1pm. The company needs to stop pinching the hours to save dimes and give staff time to do things right.
 
I was going to agree with you about the stupidity they have towards getting crap completed, I even typed out how it is at my store. Then I got pissy, wished they would die and decided to write this instead. **** the leadership at my store. Trashy ass mother ****ers.
 
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