Target reviews

Especially as of late, company direction has been schizophrenic changing focus and directions frequently. Lack of work life balance makes it tough to start/raise a family, you can sometimes expect a 7-8 day stretch here and there or 60-70+hour weeks when busy. You get what you sign on for in terms of holiday craziness and seasonal fluctuations. Recent position cuts and restructuring has increased our level of stress and reduced our level of service that we can provide to our guests, doing more with less has become the daily struggle in stores. ETLs at times become overpaid team members and no longer leaders due to reduced resources, we have to pick up the slack created by less payroll.

I'll be honest, when I first began working here I was extremely excited. I heard from several people that Target was a wonderful place to work and they really exemplified the Fast, Fun, and Friendly environment which is a part of their culture. My on-boarding here was pretty good. They made me feel like I was part of the team immediately and they were excited to have me. For the most part, my team that I was in charge of were pretty good but being in a supervisory position their are always things to improve on. All was good for about six months but things slowly started going downhill. A lot of it had to do with my inexperience of how company "politics" worked. In all of the Distribution Centers, their is basically 5 or 6 Senior Leadership (Management) positions. Their are about 50 Group Leaders (Supervisory positions). As you can imagine, their isn't a whole lot of spots that open up for promotion so the Group Leaders are EXTREMELY competitive and will literally lie and cheat to get ahead. This is where the politics really starts to kick in and I was simply astonished on how ruthless my peers could be and how ignorant the Senior Leadership can be when evaluating all the Group Leaders. I realize politics is in any organization but I truly believe this place is at the top of the scales, which ruins its culture and work environment. I'll offer two examples I experienced with this company. One of the biggest complaints among several Group Leaders that work here is how the Senior Leadership does not fully understand what each Group Leader accomplishes. The reason is because the Senior Leadership works a Monday - Friday normal work schedule. Only 1 out of 4 possible shifts a Group Leader will work falls in line with the Senior Leadership schedule. If you're lucky enough to be on this shift then you get A LOT of face time with the Senior Leadership and you're pretty much able to prove yourself on a daily basis and the Senior Leadership is able to see your results and how you perform because their in the workplace at the same time. If you're unlucky enough to be on the remaining 3 shifts, the Senior Leadership is hardly ever around and they really don't know what you do. Some Group Leaders will come in on their off days and politic with the Senior Leadership and goes as far as to bad mouth you or any other Group Leader to the Senior Leadership team. This causes the Senior Leadership to have a certain "perception" of you based off what others are saying about you so it almost forces you to have to come in on your off days in order to battle that perception. Ultimately, this was appalling to me and it really was an eye-opener of the lack of character of several people working there (Group Leaders and Senior Leadership). The final example is how you are evaluated. Obviously Target is a huge company and when they're managing employees performance they are very meticulous about what and how they say/document things because they want to avoid a law suit. This is understandable and I would fully expect them to manage my performance and tell me what I am doing well and can do better. The Senior Leadership manages the Group Leaders the same exact way (pretty much) that the Group Leaders manage the warehouse workers. Long story short, I received a negative performance evaluation. From the things they were reading to me, half of the stuff wasn't true and it was what one of my peers or HR said about me that was construed in a negative light. At one point during the evaluation I was ridiculed for some advice I had asked Senior Leadership about how to handle a situation and was told that I should never have asked that and it was documented as a negative conversation. So I told the Senior Leadership basically I can't talk to my peers about anything, I can't talk to HR about anything (HR is horrible here and not to be trusted at all), and I can't ask my boss about anything so what do I do? Senior Leadership had no response. Eventually I decided to resign from this position and put in my two weeks notice. As soon as I told them I was resigning I was immediately escorted out of the building. I asked if I could at least tell my team and my peers good bye and they said no. I actually saw the General Manager as I was being escorted out and he just turned and walked the other way. No "thanks for being with us and good luck in your future endeavors," or a hand shake or anything. I felt like I was a criminal within the warehouse and didn't belong. COMPLETELY opposite of when I first arrived. Target is such a huge company that anyone could have completely different experiences depending on where you work. Unfortunately my experience wasn't the best. This review in no way reflects my attitude towards the entire company because I do believe if I had worked in a different part of the company I may have had a positive experience.