Archived Why do leaders give their employees unrealistic expectations?

[seasonal]

It seems like this everyday. For example, on a saturday night, how can you super zone toys, and then hit seasonal? I know the departments are close together but come on. On a sat night, by the time you are done with toys, it's going to be shopped again. I have TONS! of other examples, but you people get the point. When we don't get the job done, we feel like we failed. Why do you leaders overwork us like this. :angry2:

 

[GlobalTL123]

Leaders are over worked too. I don't make my closing team super zone ever it is a big waste of time on the weekends and impossible to achieve with ad takedown. As long as everything is pulled forward and in accurate locations I don't give the team members a hard time. If they work slow and are messing around and the zone is not being completed, I will coach them.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

If you have no staff, work with what you have. I would do no coaching.

 

[cihyfthedoor]

The leaders that suck do give unreal expectations. Or they do it out of genuine lack of knowledge of an area. The rest of us, ourselves having unrealistic expectations passed down to us, make sure to not pass it down another level. I know what my team can realistically do, so I task them with that. Then the next day I lock horns and fight with the ETL that gave them such unreal expectations, so that the TMs don't have to take the flak, and try to walk them through a painting of a realistic picture.

I've had two people on my team promoted to TL over the last couple of years. Both of them kinda thought that I didn't do much, and that I didn't know what I was doing, and didn't think I did a good job. Now, being TLs themselves, they've told me "Now I understand how much crap you had to deal with and how much of it we never saw as TMs. Sorry I ever doubted you, cihyfthedoor."

 

[Darikona]

This is a multifaceted issues that plagues general corporate structures with large hierarchies.

On one hand, unrealistic expectations are being doled out from corporate and trickling down to the regional, who scream at the groups to raise numbers, who then themselves scream at DTLs to get answers, in which those DTLs scream at the STL, and etc.

On the other hand, there are power plays happening on the higher levels that are less apparent than what stores might see. DTLs may be attempting to pad their numbers by pushing their subordinates harder to look better even if it's just a temporary benefit and long term repercussions are predicted. Ie: Ensure every store is green for hours or else. The lower you are on the totem pole, the less likely you are going to be aware of this and the more you are going to wonder what the hell is wrong with this company.

Thirdly, with so many 'managers' on staff, incompetent ones may be floating around able to hold onto their jobs while wreaking havoc until they quit or get terminated. The damage is done though.

These issues are not unique to Target.

EDIT - So what I'm trying to say is...you're bosses are perpetuating a cycle of bullcrap and as much as they are 'overworked' they are adding as much fuel to the fire as they're trying to pull out. If not more because at your level you have almost no way to escape it.

 

[DMNDZ bruhh]

when my ETL trys to task, they try to jam everything into one shift...and of course, it is done at the very last minute of a visit coming up...

they need to take things slow, step by step, not thrown at you at the very last minute...if thats the case, bring in another person to help, because ONE person can't do the task of 10 people in one shift. be real.

 

[RightArm]

It seems like this everyday. For example, on a saturday night, how can you super zone toys, and then hit seasonal? I know the departments are close together but come on. On a sat night, by the time you are done with toys, it's going to be shopped again. I have TONS! of other examples, but you people get the point. When we don't get the job done, we feel like we failed. Why do you leaders overwork us like this. :angry2:

Wow... I remember this feeling. We got cut to 3 hr ERT shifts and I had an STL that wanted me to zone shoes, girls, and boys all in three hours... I came close once but it's not really manageable on 3 hrs. What really gets me is when some of our ETL's have NO sense of Logistics whatsoever or any understanding of the capability of their team members. They'll give one an easy zone they could do in half the time they're given and another a zone section that is absolutely impossible to finish in the time given. It makes me wonder if any of them have ever really zoned a section of the store from start to finish to even know how long it takes to do it.

 

[Barcode]

This can also be done to performance a tm out. They did this to me. Held my own for a long time, then one slip up and it's plastered on a cca!

 

[GlobalTL123]

Ccas are not that easy to get for performance it takes months of documenting and the approval process is long too !

This can also be done to performance a tm out. They did this to me. Held my own for a long time, then one slip up and it's plastered on a cca!

 

[Lovejones757]

A lot of the leaders in my experience don't really know how much work actually goes in to what they are asking of you. They really are just looking for an end result. Not thinking about what troubles you might have getting to it. I noticed that training isn't the way it used to be for leaders. Everything is paperwork and numbers. If your result matches the paperwork your good. If it doesn't you suck. That's how they see it. When there was more hands on training the understanding of what could be expected was better.... Things are so different now.

 

[odie]

I've got some new ETLs at my store that do this. They don't help out either. The old ETLs were great because every moment they weren't doing their own jobs, they'd be helping TM's in various areas. Because hours are in the toilet bowl, I closed alone the other night, and the openers barely were able to touch the line as they were all specialists and had to give their own workloads priority, which is understandable. I knew right away nothing was getting done that day, but the ETL in charge that evening expected everything done, didn't once help, and then at 10:15 asked the GSA why the front end wasn't zoned. We only had one cashier for the last hour and a half and it was super busy, so there was literally no way the front end would have gotten zoned, but she didn't care. This is why hiring kids fresh out of college that only know how to do things by the book and think they're somehow more special than TMs is a crappy idea. Also this etl talks to me like I'm severely mentally handicapped, nevermind the fact that I graduated community college magna cum laude and am simply saving up to finish my last two years. Ok, I'm done venting.

 

[RedDog]

Ccas are not that easy to get for performance it takes months of documenting and the approval process is long too !

This can also be done to performance a tm out. They did this to me. Held my own for a long time, then one slip up and it's plastered on a cca!

That is store by store. Some stores will go for it will little to back it up to push people out and get them to quit. Its works pretty well until somebody fights back. Of course considering most people already hate the place at that point they rarely do. Seen it happen many times.

 

[commiecorvus]

You'd be surprised how fast they can performance you out when they put their mind to it.
The smallest things can suddenly become issues and you will find yourself looking down the barrel of a final warning in the matter of month or two.

 

[GlobalTL123]

The thing that sucks is those of us in at will states can get fired for pretty much anything.

 

[Barcode]

The thing that sucks is those of us in at will states can get fired for pretty much anything.

Yes, but we can collect unemployment unless the employer can prove the employee was fired for a valid reason and not just "laid off"

 

[Mr Quickart]

Being a front end TL I feel incredible pressure to drive for REDcards. It is driving myself and my peers insane but we stop it at ourselves because we just started improving our retention and even started getting 1.2% (I know the new goal is 2.5% but whatever). We used to average well below goal every week but are they celebrating our improvements? Of course not because we aren't at 2.5%. I don't think our team realizes what we have to put up with...

 

[odie]

Being a front end TL I feel incredible pressure to drive for REDcards. It is driving myself and my peers insane but we stop it at ourselves because we just started improving our retention and even started getting 1.2% (I know the new goal is 2.5% but whatever). We used to average well below goal every week but are they celebrating our improvements? Of course not because we aren't at 2.5%. I don't think our team realizes what we have to put up with...

Only the dumb employees don't. As long as team leads are nice to me, I cut them a lot of slack. Objectively you guys have terrible jobs. You don't get paid much more, and have to take on a ton of responsibility, and everything is considered your fault by TMs and ETLs. It's the ETLs that get on my nerves though. Not that they also don't have objectively terrible jobs, but yanking a 22 year old with no actual job experience that just graduated with a BA in hippie art, and putting him/her in charge of people that have been working far longer than they have is just a terrible idea.

 

[Barcode]

Actually odie, most TMs just hate any Leader, because they can ALL be douches.

If a TL is being a douche, I don't really care what kind of pressure they have to put up with -- its up to them to EFFECTIVELY manage it instead of being an *******.

 

[odie]

Actually odie, most TMs just hate any Leader, because they can ALL be douches.

If a TL is being a douche, I don't really care what kind of pressure they have to put up with -- its up to them to EFFECTIVELY manage it instead of being an *******.

As long as team leads are nice to me...

That's what I said. I have TLs at my store that are douches. Naturally I don't like them. There are a lot of nice ones that catch flack for stuff they have little or no control over though, like hours.

 

[talan123]

Being a front end TL I feel incredible pressure to drive for REDcards. It is driving myself and my peers insane but we stop it at ourselves because we just started improving our retention and even started getting 1.2% (I know the new goal is 2.5% but whatever). We used to average well below goal every week but are they celebrating our improvements? Of course not because we aren't at 2.5%. I don't think our team realizes what we have to put up with...

I feel for you guy's. You guys are the stupidity filters that make our jobs possible. A recent gem that left nearly all of us awestruck in it's complete abdication of reality:

ETL "Hey, remember two years ago when you guy's got 26 red cards in one day? Why can't that be everyday?"

 

[salesfloor10]

If you have no staff, work with what you have. I would do no coaching.

Yeah, that's how I feel when TMs can't complete their work. I can't fault them when I know I would/do struggle with the same workload. (For example, zoning A/B - HBA, Pets, Chem., Housewares/notions) is difficult when you work 5:15-10:15. (Especially when you want to do the work right - not just zoning things into the wrong spot, actually pulling forward more than one item, filling multiple facings).

I struggle with being challenged to delegate more and raise expectations for TMs when I know it isn't possible to do a whole lot more than TMs are currently doing.

(I know the tasks, I am very hands-on and I previously worked for Target as a sales floor TM).