Archived You know Target has a problem when...

[talan123]

I am proven right.

PS - Any attempt to link said above bookmarks to me shall result in an immediate disapproving nod from said person.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

I am confused? My store still does 1 + 1.

 

[talan123]

Mine doesn't.

We are a ULV store and since we have no hours, something had to give.

I kind of assume that my store is the worst case scenario for most Targets. So we get hit with a lot of budget/equipment cuts. Our roller for the truck is still manual, our foundation is now cracked in three spots and they just refused to pay for it being fixed. So now things are collapsing on us.

I figure that our store is probably the future with all the new talk about cutting hours (Our STL told us we were in the bottom 5% for payroll but we were in the top 5% for profitability so, you know, they decided to cut payroll until things turn around.)

 

[greatteam]

At least you guys just have guests who wait. At our store, we are to back up no matter what. You have 10 salesplanners due? Well, too bad you have to back up cashier for the next hour. Then you'll get called to the office to talk about "We need to make sure the team is responding to backups." Yeah, because our team can respond from their couches. We have no salesfloor until 6, not even a fitting room. Fridays and weekends we'll have one during the day, and we get hit as all hell. It's lovely.

 

[FrontEndKnowItAll]

I think my store does something like 1+1+1(+1?)... as long as the guests aint in RTW and there arent any more on their way up to be rung up we dont do anything.

 

[Bullseye Flow TM]

I was shopping in another store last night and when I got to the register it was 1+6. I looked around for a GSTL but only saw the two cashiers. Finally she called for back up and only one person responded. GSTL kept talking to one of the guests standing in line before she decided to jump on a register! This was about an hour before closing and a saw several TMs throughout the store.

Talan, we have had the manual rollers for the truck since I've been there. Only very recently did they approve us getting the newer ones. Foundation cracks? Those were repaired last year, finally! Our building is very old (1978, I think). We have a couple leaks in the roof. One in the BR and one on the salesfloor. (But that's only when we get heavy rain. Yes, they are aware of it cause there are buckets to catch it.) I don't wanna even think about our AC and how much has been spent on it trying to keep the building cool. It's bad when you hear guests complain about the heat. Sorry, getting a bit off topic of the 1+1.

 

[buliSBI]

I usually shop at a store near my office. Low to Mid-volume store. They literally have no one on the sales floor. Not even Electronics. Occasionally I will see someone from consumables, backroom, pricing, or flow. I never see anyone zone or reshop.

Only 2 cashiers with the GSTL manning photo and there is usually 1+5.

 

[Barcode]

my store usually has perfect 1+1

we're a higher volume store though so we have a pretty large team.

low volume stores can't afford the payroll to have a bunch of cashiers. 1-2 cashiers should be enough as long as sales floor is good at responding to checkout surges.

Yes coming to the front slows down sales floor's work, but at the end of the day it means more sales. People at K-Mart used to just ditch their carts and leave due to the crazy lines that management didn't seem to care about.

 

[mrknownothing]

1+1 is a joke at my store. We hired all those new cashiers the last couple months, but they won't schedule anybody to cash, so we have to call for backups all the time. If I'm on express, the line could reach the jewelry boat before the GSTL puts someone else on express to help (like today, when I was supposed to be leaving... *glares at GSTL from far away*).

 

[Barcode]

1+1 is a joke at my store. We hired all those new cashiers the last couple months, but they won't schedule anybody to cash, so we have to call for backups all the time. If I'm on express, the line could reach the jewelry boat before the GSTL puts someone else on express to help (like today, when I was supposed to be leaving... *glares at GSTL from far away*).

I just turn my light off a few minutes before my shift ends so I can leave right at my clock out time. Your GSTL might get kinda mad, but its their fault for not having a plan

 

[talan123]

Same thing is happening nowadays at our store as once happened to K-Mart, it's like they cannot see the train they themselves set off coming right for them. We don't have a salesfloor anymore, just the various teams that respond to backup whenever they feel like it.

I wish Target would learn the difference between cost cutting and cost savings. They are not the same thing and people who don't know the difference are killing us.

 

[CIHYVS]

my store usually has perfect 1+1

we're a higher volume store though so we have a pretty large team.

low volume stores can't afford the payroll to have a bunch of cashiers. 1-2 cashiers should be enough as long as sales floor is good at responding to checkout surges.

Yes coming to the front slows down sales floor's work, but at the end of the day it means more sales. People at K-Mart used to just ditch their carts and leave due to the crazy lines that management didn't seem to care about.

I don't agree with this one. I am not sure if you have ever worked in a ULV store but 1-2 cashiers is a debatable amount of coverage. I have 1 cashier until 10am as we may see 1-2 Guest every 5 minutes come through the door, usually in a hurry to grab one or two things and hurry off to work. We get slammed with the lunch crowds from nearby industrial and tech parks between 11am-2pm. At 10am, we get another cashier for a 4 hour shift. Even on low sales days, this is not enough to get us through the rest of the day. Our ETLs will use SrTLs and TLs (only 2-3 in the store at one time) to do 30 minutes of Lunch Express on the front check lanes, 30 more minutes for Electronics express, and Mid Day Zone for EACH leader EVERY day. There isn't a quick slug of Guest traffic, it is a constant fight for 2-3 hours everyday to put more than 2 people in the front check lanes. Remember, there are usually only 7-10 people total on the Sales Floor between 6am and 5pm when the closing team arrives. Our ETL-Log forbids any Back room TMs from actively helping Guest or CIHYFS while pushing and working product to the floor. Our 3 POG TMs and 2 Pricing TMs simply refuse to stop their task and help with Guest first because they see a new PTL every 2 months because they are always fired, moved, transferred, or quit due to not completing their task load each week. That leaves the TLs and SrTLs and the one or two ETL's who may be in the building.

I am rambling out of frustration so maybe a different approach. I am a Consumables Team Lead just promoted this year after a year as a Signing TM. My areas in our GM store are Consumables (22 aisles in A); HBA, Beauty, etc. (24 aisles making up the rest of the A aisle); greeting cards, stationary, home decor, and MMB (26 regular Valleys and 16 MMB mixed aisles making up all of the B aisles); 8 aisle in E for pets; the check lanes (13)because they have mostly dated product; Food Ave which thankfully is transitioning to a Starbucks; and transitional responsibility over the POG team when they switch out Mini (12 Aisles in G). I have one SrTL over hardlines which really means he gets paid a little more to manage the areas that aren't mine. I answer to the ETL-SF and never to the HL SrTL. We also have a SrTL and TL over Softlines. So each leader is responsible for setting all the endcaps in their areas (by the way, we have to pull our own new POG, EXF, research, and MIR batches out of the BR all by ourselves). Between this week and last week, I was responsible for resetting half of the endcaps in HLs on my own. Don't worry, my ETL-SF ghost ties as much as she can at the end of each week to get our SFLA, POG set on time, etc. to green. This is all on top of the Cleaning Routines, Business Walks x 2 each week, Vendor paper work, communication and networking, leading 3 Smart Huddles a week where I have to push the PTM flats to the floor beforehand, 2 McClane food trucks that I receive, scan and check, push and work to the floor, and backstock (forget about 30 min out of temp goals), 2 coachings a day (one for Food Safety and one for not driving Guest Satisfaction as required by ETL-SF), Midday reshop (1 hour average each day), mid-day zone (1 hour but more lately due to these coupon fraud a-holes who return $1000 worth of HBA from another store), both SF and BR SDA + SDEF/QMOS, and of course all the call boxes and phone calls for half of hardlines.

Simply put, I don't care about 1+1 or 1+10 because we do not/can not schedule enough cashiers to support 80% of our Guest traffic. If I jump on a lane to help out, I will have to stay on that lane for a long time. Sure you may get some happy Guest, but my ETL-SF can look at DTK or some other report and measure my performance when I am on a checklane. She can look at at the other areas I am responsible for and build a paperwork trail for performance issues if I don't get my task done each week. That happy Guest isn't going to help me keep my job but working down my task will.

To address your primary point, if a ULV store allows HR to allocate less payroll to the Front End because the SF team is supporting the lack of cashiers, it becomes the new norm. During heavy workload weeks, when the SF team simply cannot devote 2 hours a day to Guest First, it is the SF team, specifically its leadership, that catches the blame for poor Guest Service scores.

I have worked at a Super T before moving to a GM ULV store near my home/university. Only those who have worked in both could possibly understand what it feels like to balance which ETL you are going to let down, piss off, and get coached from this week because there simply is not enough people, payroll, leadership, time, available employees to run one of these stores.

There isn't a "slug" to knock down in our store. After 11am, the slug is a constant backlog until 5-6pm.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

it is happening everywhere.