Archived The role of an ETL (slight rant... sorry)

[shely]

So I am writing this post on behalf of my fellow team members: I work at a Super Target that happens to be incredibly busy on a regular occasion (especially in the grocery department), but always understaffed. I'm only a grocery team member (not a team lead of any sort), but it seems that my team is constantly the ones who are responding to the front lane calls.

My question regarding the ETL's is whether or not they have any obligation to the lanes. Grocery is grossly (no pun intended) understaffed, yet the ETL's ignore any calls to to various locations.

There are times where we (the grocery team) are roughly 20 pulls behind, but for some reason the grocery team is the first to respond to anything, even when we avoid it, we're called up.

Are ETL's not responsible to go to the front-lanes ever?

 

[Nauzhror]

The ETL's don't really answer to anyone on a store level, so, no, I'd say they're not "responsible" to do it, because there's no one that can make them do so other than the STL.

However, despite that, the ETL's at my store, and the STL, regularly hop on lanes to help backup. That or they come up and watch the lanes so the GSTL can hop on a lane if necessary.

 

[PugMuffin]

It's every Team Member in the building's job to respond to code ones, call boxes, help guests, etc... This includes the ETLs. Whether or not they do it is another thing...
Like Nauzhror said, ETLs don't have to answer to anyone in the store except the STL, so more often than not, they won't help out just because no one is going to make them do so.

 

[Mhugh220]

If I remember correctly, I signed an agreement were I did either 50% hands on / 50% leadership or it was more like 20% hands on / 80% leadership role. Either way, ETLs have to get their hands dirty every now and then.

As an ETL you have to weigh your options:
1) be a cashier when needed
2) have TMs come up for backup and expect that their work doesn't get finished
3) have TMs come up for backup and expect their work to get finished no matter what
4) have TMs come up for backup and fill in for the TMs while they are cashiering so their tasks get finished
5) Don't respond to your walkie, sit in your office or TSC and laugh how everyone is struggling to get their work done, then tighten up your b-hole when the DTL slams your store for red scores.

A wise ETL will choose the best route for business needs even if that means they have to backup cashiers.

 

[whippingboy]

I am at a Super as well. Everyone is supposed to respond, and our STL notices when no one does. The front lanes will call out for Produce, Deli, Meat, Bakery and Food Ave team members to come up, too. No wonder walkies have been disappearing lately, there are entirely too many tasks to be done and not enough people to do them. When our Team Leads are acting LODs in the store, you can hear crickets when backups are called.

It depends on who is in charge that day; if the LOD is normally in charge of hardlines, NONE of the hardlines members respond. Same with Softlines. As if they have an unspoken agreement that, hey, go do your hardlines stuff when I'm in charge and I'll make certain other departments cover those backups.

It's a rare occasion to see an ETL on a checklane except for the Guest Service ETL.

 

[Retail Girl]

Earlier this week I realized my problem. I was dying for back up up front. I had one cashier (other one was on lunch). I was on, the softlines TM was on. There were three people in hardlines...one was covering electronics. The other two were told they didn't need to respond to back up. Then the LOD came up and told me there was no one else to respond. I was floored, as I looked at the crowd of people in front of me, and realized then why so many times I call out on the walkie and get no response.

Problem is, I can go to this LOD on any given week, and they will bump up my shifts to be sure I get 40 hours. So what do I do? Fix my problem of not getting responses by talking to my ETL-GE about this and lose my 40 hours a week, or stay on this LOD's good side and get my hours, at the expense of guest service and making my gsa shifts absolutely miserable (since the TMs carry over this attitude to the rest of their shifts).

 

[Nauzhror]

In our store only the following people are typically exempt from responding backup: Operator, Pharmacy, Electronics.

The former needs to be able to take calls, and being on a lane restricts that a lot, and the latter two are on registers elsewhere.

Everyone else is fair game.

 

[Retail Girl]

Ha. No. In my store...

Most of flow is exempt (because they can't cashier to save their lives).
Presention is exempt (their English skills become non-existent if asked to do anything with guests for the Spanish speaking TMs) and the others just won't respond.
Pricing might respond if they are in the mood, but don't count on it.
Instocks only has to come if specifically called out on the walkie by an LOD.
Electronics is tied to their area, unless the LOD doesn't want to spare someone to cover their break...then all of a sudden it's okay for that area to go without coverage.
Pharmacy is obviously their own area.
Starbucks/Food Ave normally doesn't have enough coverage to step out, and if they do, they are too busy holding up the counter to help out.
The leadership team during the day is too busy standing in a huddle ignoring the guests to help out and at night is actually busy working.
The backroom team, if they get caught up front when we are desperately busy runs the other way as quickly as they can...but I know their stuff is timed so I understand that.
Anyone else who feels like ignoring the calls for back up because they are all too far in the back or are working on "projects".

It's a damn miracle our vibe scores are as high as they are.

 

[Nauzhror]

Okay, yeah, forgot FA and SB, those don't respond to backup either, but we do send guests to FA if needed.

In fact whenever I am at FA I can double our FA sales by actively grabbing guests and offering to check them out, because quite often it leads to people then buying food/drink from me too who otherwise wouldn't have done so.

 

[PinkZinnia]

Our backups rotate and are usually good about coming up - when they hear me call on the walkie they know it is pretty bad and they will respond, because I would rather hop on myself or pull someone from service desk or food ave if they aren't busy instead of having to call someone from the floor.

 

[BigEyedPhish]

That is because we Grocery Team Members are cut from different cloth.. spun with awesomeness..

I am a PA and if my day ISN'T crazy nuts, I would be utterly lost on what to do... If I worked in Electronics I would probably die of boredom within an hour or so..

"Can I help you find something? PLEASE!? LET ME HELP YOU FIIINNND SOMETHING!"

 

[Nauzhror]

That is because we Grocery Team Members are cut from different cloth.. spun with awesomeness..

I am a PA and if my day ISN'T crazy nuts, I would be utterly lost on what to do... If I worked in Electronics I would probably die of boredom within an hour or so..

"Can I help you find something? PLEASE!? LET ME HELP YOU FIIINNND SOMETHING!"

Err, electronics covers electronics, Toys, MMB, and sporting goods. You would definitely not be bored with all of E, and F.

 

[Nauzhror]

Our backups rotate and are usually good about coming up - when they hear me call on the walkie they know it is pretty bad and they will respond, because I would rather hop on myself or pull someone from service desk or food ave if they aren't busy instead of having to call someone from the floor.

Weird how much it varies store to store. We'd never have someone come from FA, FA is always just one person, that'd mean there was no one at FA, we will however send guests to FA to be checked out, but not take the person from FA and put them on a lane. Similarly, if a GSA/GSTL hops on a lane without alerting the LOD that they're doing so so that the LOD can come up and watch the lanes they're liable to get reamed a new asshole of the LOD sees them on a lane.

 

[BigEyedPhish]

That is because we Grocery Team Members are cut from different cloth.. spun with awesomeness..

I am a PA and if my day ISN'T crazy nuts, I would be utterly lost on what to do... If I worked in Electronics I would probably die of boredom within an hour or so..

"Can I help you find something? PLEASE!? LET ME HELP YOU FIIINNND SOMETHING!"

Err, electronics covers electronics, Toys, MMB, and sporting goods. You would definitely not be bored with all of E, and F.

What? you must be a lower volume store then.

 

[PinkZinnia]

Our backups rotate and are usually good about coming up - when they hear me call on the walkie they know it is pretty bad and they will respond, because I would rather hop on myself or pull someone from service desk or food ave if they aren't busy instead of having to call someone from the floor.

Weird how much it varies store to store. We'd never have someone come from FA, FA is always just one person, that'd mean there was no one at FA, we will however send guests to FA to be checked out, but not take the person from FA and put them on a lane. Similarly, if a GSA/GSTL hops on a lane without alerting the LOD that they're doing so so that the LOD can come up and watch the lanes they're liable to get reamed a new asshole of the LOD sees them on a lane.

Not in my store. Usually 2 at FA until the last 1/2 hr. If GSA or gstl hops on it's only for an order or two. Lod's know that. If it's going to be for more we let them know

 

[BigEyedPhish]

The fun part about being a PA is you get to yell at whoever is doing something against-market-code, no matter their title. I once got to scold my ETL-GE for stacking meat wrong.

 

[RunForACallBox]

That is because we Grocery Team Members are cut from different cloth.. spun with awesomeness..

I am a PA and if my day ISN'T crazy nuts, I would be utterly lost on what to do... If I worked in Electronics I would probably die of boredom within an hour or so..

"Can I help you find something? PLEASE!? LET ME HELP YOU FIIINNND SOMETHING!"

Err, electronics covers electronics, Toys, MMB, and sporting goods. You would definitely not be bored with all of E, and F.

I beg to differ on some days. I will fly through all the tasks and just be walking back and forth just to be seen by guests if I'm needed.

EDIT: I am in a ULV store, too.

 

[Nauzhror]

What? you must be a lower volume store then.

A volume.

 

[60SecondsRemaining]

Depending on if I am lod or not;

1) I always send one of my flow tms first if possible. This is the largest team and impact wise, has the biggest bang for payroll buck.
2) I don't send process teams. I will backup as Lod before I send a Plano/PC tm to backup.
3) I call etls to the front if needed, by name. I am a leader in the building and they will respect my leadership when I am lod. It wasn't always like this, it is now.

If I am not Lod, typically I will respond so my teams do not need to break. If I'm on the floor and can't break free, I send my electronics tm and I cover elec.

 

[Rock Lobster]

What? you must be a lower volume store then.

A volume.

That is something many people do not realize. Even at your higher volume stores, the payroll does not increase in a linear fashion. It is a log (x) graph (google if needed). As you increase in sales, the amount of people starts to plateau more and more. When payroll is tight it seems to not increase at all.

 

[commiecorvus]

What? you must be a lower volume store then.

A volume.

That is something many people do not realize. Even at your higher volume stores, the payroll does not increase in a linear fashion. It is a log (x) graph (google if needed). As you increase in sales, the amount of people starts to plateau more and more. When payroll is tight it seems to not increase at all.

You do kind of have to blame the ETLs for the misleading picture on this.
They are the ones who constantly make the case at huddles about how you need to push for those sales and how the scheduling will get better if sales would just go up.
I understand they are obliquely telling the truth and that if they said something like "We need to make a 3.8 increase in sales in order to add one body to the floor for one shift." TM's wouldn't be a bit impressed.
But they have to understand why there is a real sense of frustration when sales go up and there are still the same number of people on the floor.

 

[MrBullseye]

That is because we Grocery Team Members are cut from different cloth.. spun with awesomeness..

I am a PA and if my day ISN'T crazy nuts, I would be utterly lost on what to do... If I worked in Electronics I would probably die of boredom within an hour or so..

"Can I help you find something? PLEASE!? LET ME HELP YOU FIIINNND SOMETHING!"

Err, electronics covers electronics, Toys, MMB, and sporting goods. You would definitely not be bored with all of E, and F.

What? you must be a lower volume store then.

I'm at an A+ and our electronics usually have to take E and all of F except seasonal. Someone else takes A + B, another takes C + D + seasonal, and market is usually gone by 8:30.

 

[mrknownothing]

I'm at an A+ and our electronics usually have to take E and all of F except seasonal. Someone else takes A + B, another takes C + D + seasonal, and market is usually gone by 8:30.

I'm also at an A+, and our STL tried to make electronics take over toys. It's been a miserable failure, to say the least.

 

[tgtguy]

So I am writing this post on behalf of my fellow team members: I work at a Super Target that happens to be incredibly busy on a regular occasion (especially in the grocery department), but always understaffed. I'm only a grocery team member (not a team lead of any sort), but it seems that my team is constantly the ones who are responding to the front lane calls.

My question regarding the ETL's is whether or not they have any obligation to the lanes. Grocery is grossly (no pun intended) understaffed, yet the ETL's ignore any calls to to various locations.

There are times where we (the grocery team) are roughly 20 pulls behind, but for some reason the grocery team is the first to respond to anything, even when we avoid it, we're called up.

Are ETL's not responsible to go to the front-lanes ever?

The way I see it ( call me crazy) guests see a red shirt and khaki pants...they don't care the person in said pants and shirt is a etl. stl, dtl, tl, tm...the guest just sees a Target Team member..whos job is to assist them. So, when it comes to guest service ie fast checkout ,vibe etc. ....there should be No difference between the Stl and anyone else. Now, do I think this happens...no but it should.

 

[masterofalltrades]

In our store only the following people are typically exempt from responding backup: Operator, Pharmacy, Electronics.

The former needs to be able to take calls, and being on a lane restricts that a lot, and the latter two are on registers elsewhere.

Everyone else is fair game.

im a electronics tm and we sometimes do backups. then we get in backup. one person cant handle the weekend rushes