Work-Life balance has taken a huge hit over the past 12 months. Sales in the company overall have been on a decline, and as a result, payroll in the stores has dramatically decreased, leaving the salaried Executive Team Leaders to pick up the slack. I have been with the company for six years, and at this point I am not longer exercising my leadership - I am physically working on setting transitions, unloading trucks, cashiering, bringing carts in the building, etc. When you are hired they set the 50 hour week standard with you, which seems reasonable for the amount you will be getting paid, however, it is pretty rare that you will actually only work 50 hours. I would say on average I am clocking 60 hours a week in a low volume store.
When Target presents the position to new candidates, they do not portray a realistic job description. I would say I spend about 40% of my week crushing cardboard in a baler and crushing garbage in a compactor. Additionally, it is expected that you are on the floor interacting with guests pretty much 90% of your day, which makes it difficult to complete any administrative work that you may have.
The overall culture and morale of the company has been on a decline. With the headcount reduction that they took at the beginning of the year, it has all of the team leaders in stores with excess headcount scared for their jobs. At this point, store team leaders are literally using the corrective action process for anything they can, which has never been done in the past. Being in a store where the headcount was reduced by 7 positions that were eliminated, I have been a part of succession planning. It is basically like making a hit list for employees that have performed well, but that need to go because it is expected that we reach this headcount by September. The morale is also impacted by the lack of communication stores receive from HQ. A lot of times the strategies the company is rolling out are not communicated in a timely manner, or are conflicting. In the aftermath of the credit card saga, stores were receiving conflicting information on almost a daily basis due to Target's desire to win back the guests.
Training for ETL positions is seriously lacking. You receive 6 weeks of training, which is nowhere near what is needed for the position. Being a trainer myself, I have often worked with my STL to visit my trainees stores with them to extend the training an additional week or so. The one position in my current store has going through 6 ETLs in the last 4 years because they are not being trained properly and become frustrated and disengaged once they are actually in role.
My advice to anyone going into an Executive Team Leader position is to be vocal and try to get into either Logistics or Human Resources. I think those are the two safest positions from a headcount reduction standpoint (I have seen this happen twice in the 6 years I've been with the company), and those are the two positions that will allow you to move out of the company and have the best opportunities. In my opinion, if you are a sales floor ETL, you will be stuck in retail for the rest of your career because you will not have any other experience.
My real advice to anyone would be to pass up the opportunity - the money is not worth the hours you will put in and the lack of professional experience you will receive. However, I cannot say that Target is a terrible company to work for - it has just seen better days.
