Archived What is it like to he an executive team leader of human resources?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Oct 3, 2013
Messages
2
What is it like having to work nights and weekends? What are typical hours? When you work a weekend are you working all weekend long or just one day? I'm curious because this seems very different from a typical human resources position.
 
Depending on your store you will be working 45-50 hours. Now that we're getting into 4th quarter, you may be working something more like 50-60 hours. Most of your shifts will be 8-10 hours. You will have to close one night a week which usually means coming in at 2 or 3 and working until close. You should have a weekend rotation which means you will work every other saturday and sunday. Some weekends you will open, some you will close. There are some posts on the forums that detail the schedules better, but you will work both days every other weekend. You'll also have a set day off during the week (someday that is Mon - Thu).
 
Just to add...

Target stores HR is different from a "normal" HR job because we are open at night and on the weekends. You'll have a tm or tms that take care of many of the routine tasks, but there is still a lot of paperwork too. First and foremost, you are an assistant manager of the store. This means that you will have general store management duties along with your HR duties.
 
I will assume you are outside of the "Target World" so I will explain some of the terms before I go into what our ETL-HR does...

An "ETL" is an "assistant manager" of Target. You are salaried and will be considered a member of the store's leadership team. So while a lot of your time will be spent doing "normal" duties, you will also, like sigma said, have general management duties. For example, you will work as a "Leader on Duty" and be the "go to" person for a given shift.... So you will help plan activities for the day, help deal with angry guests, and if a "visitor" (District team leader, Stertic auditor, etc.) comes in, you'll be the first-point of contact with them. If you don't like retail, this job is not for you.

As for HR duties, you will help the other ETL's with hiring plans, development activities, oversee training, maintain team health, deal with disciplinary issues, payroll, scheduling effectiveness, etc. You will have a team member assist you will the day-to-day paperwork, just like sigma7 said.

One of the things I really like about our ETL-HR right now is she is active on the salesfloor... She's always touching base with team members, walking the salesfloors, and helps out with things like the push, POG setting, and often helps out at checklanes. She keeps to the team "chat" schedule and tries to make herself available to team members when needed. Tries to "walk the talk"
 
Our ETL HR never does anything outside of HR related duties. He chats with TMs on the floor but he is never LOD nor does he work closing shifts. Occasionally he'll work a mid - 11 to 8. He does work one week end per month.
 
Our ETL HR never does anything outside of HR related duties. He chats with TMs on the floor but he is never LOD nor does he work closing shifts. Occasionally he'll work a mid - 11 to 8. He does work one week end per month.

Same with ours with the never LOD thing. I think it depends on if the store is high volume or high risk and the number of ETLs you have. When I temporarily worked at a lower volume store, both the ETL-AP and HR had LOD shifts, unlike in my store.
 
Our ETL HR sometimes has LOD shifts, but not often. 99% of the time when they are around, you never see them unless you're in TSC. They close every now and then, and on those nights they will be out and about more but that's it. The STL does more chats than them to be honest.
 
What is it like having to work nights and weekends? What are typical hours? When you work a weekend are you working all weekend long or just one day? I'm curious because this seems very different from a typical human resources position.

It's a pretty sweet job, honestly.

Yes, you are still working retail. Your college friends won't be impressed with you; you will be working in a retail store while they work in an office.

However, if you are smart and play your cards right, this is one of the best (easiest) ways to get into corporate HR at a non-retail company.

99% of companies out there will require that you have X number of years in an HR job before they will even consider you for an HR position. Guess what? ETL-HR at Target counts as that needed experience.

In the past several years, I have seen ETL-HR's leave the company for HR jobs at the following companies: Shell Oil, IBM, and Verizon... along with 2 or 3 medium sized local companies that no one here has probably heard of. (yes, I always asked them where they were leaving to)

ETL-HR's are the *only* ETLs I have seen constantly "escape" retail. Damn near every ETL-HR we have had that has ever left Target was leaving it for a non-retail job.

ETL-LOGs, ETL-HL, ETL-GE, etc.... when they leave, usually it is for other retail jobs. Why? Their experience simply doesn't translate outside of retail, so they simply lack the experience non-retail companies are looking for. But HR? Pretty much the only job you can get store-side that actually will land you a job outside of retail. Almost every company in the world has an HR department, and getting that required HR experience to work for them is damn near impossible. Target is one of the few employers that will hire you into an HR management job with zero experience.

They key is just hanging in there for 1-2 years so you can gain the experience.
 
Last edited:
What is it like having to work nights and weekends? What are typical hours? When you work a weekend are you working all weekend long or just one day? I'm curious because this seems very different from a typical human resources position.

It's a pretty sweet job, honestly.

Yes, you are still working retail. Your college friends won't be impressed with you; you will be working in a retail store while they work in an office.

However, if you are smart and play your cards right, this is one of the best (easiest) ways to get into corporate HR at a non-retail company.

99% of companies out there will require that you have X number of years in an HR job before they will even consider you for an HR position. Guess what? ETL-HR at Target counts as that needed experience.

In the past several years, I have seen ETL-HR's leave the company for HR jobs at the following companies: Shell Oil, IBM, and Verizon... along with 2 or 3 medium sized local companies that no one here has probably heard of. (yes, I always asked them where they were leaving to)

ETL-HR's are the *only* ETLs I have seen constantly "escape" retail. Damn near every ETL-HR we have had that has ever left Target was leaving it for a non-retail job.

ETL-LOGs, ETL-HL, ETL-GE, etc.... when they leave, usually it is for other retail jobs. Why? Their experience simply doesn't translate outside of retail, so they simply lack the experience non-retail companies are looking for. But HR? Pretty much the only job you can get store-side that actually will land you a job outside of retail. Almost every company in the world has an HR department, and getting that required HR experience to work for them is damn near impossible. Target is one of the few employers that will hire you into an HR management job with zero experience.

They key is just hanging in there for 1-2 years so you can gain the experience.

I can vouch for this post, from a HRTM level. I moved to another company (healthcare recruiting) using my experience in HR at Target. I then parlayed that experience to moving from a recruiting agency (regarded as lower level) into a HR role at a nursing home. The pay is still less than I would like, but Target helped me gain experience for other HR jobs that I wouldn't have been able to get otherwise (they all require experience but how do you get the experience if no one will hire you with no experience)...Target (or namely, the ETL in softlines) saw promise in me and thought I'd be a good fit and I was trained for a position in HR. It has opened up some doors for me.

I still don't know if it's what I want to do for my career (I'm 24, graduated college in 2012) but it has helped. With this new job I was able to move out of my parents house and live with my girlfriend...if the only experience I had to go off of was working in softlines, even with a BA, I wouldn't have gotten off to a halfway decent start. That's not to disparage softlines, I loved all my coworkers, but recruiters don't think much of retail experience. Now just to work on paying my student loans and getting a job that pays what I need it to so I can do that quickly.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top