My store manager has gone nuts!

Joined: 15 Nov 2003 Posts: 4

My store manager recently visited another JCP about 100 miles away. He comes back and tells us how GREAT this store is, how they have all the tables folded and colorized, all the racks are sized, the hangers on all the racks are faced the same way, and that all hangers are evenly spaced...including the Clearance racks! He asked the store manager at this store how he does it, and his response was that ALL the associates pitch in to size and straighten, including Pricing Teams, BLAs, Stock Replenishment, Visual, office associates, Catolog associates, managers and SMAs, during the hours before the store opens. Now our manager says that we will henceforth do the same thing! Our store opens at 10AM and certain teams come in at different times, Stocking and Pricing come in at 6:30, BLAs and Visual at 8:30, etc. We are now supposed to help with stock replenishment and size/straighten between 8 and 10am. If you are in the store during these times, Monday thru Friday, this is what you are required to do. I'm on pricing (we have a team of 4) and we have a hard enough time getting our duties completed on time as it is; now we are going to lose between 15-20 hours a week away from our job. The BLAs workload is always huge as well, and this is going to impact them the same way as our team. I'm going to try to go out to the same store our manager visited in the next week or two to see if their store is really as great as he claims it is. Do any of the other JCPs out there have a similar setup?

Joined: 15 Nov 2003 Posts: 4

Oops...I just noticed an error in my post. 4 workers losing up to 2 hours per day would equal 30-40 lost hours a week...not 15-20.

Joined: 04 Jul 2003 Posts: 5

This process started last year in many stores. We did it for a while, also. All sales support including all SCSS's and Dept. Mgr.'s were supposed to meet at 1 PM everyday in an area determined by Visual for an hour a day to recover. It worked as long as everyone showed up. Otherwise there were hard feelings as to why so and so wasn't there. Like everything else, it fell by the wayside after a couple of months.

I'm not saying it was easy to give up that hour a day, but it did help the appearance of the store.

Joined: 20 Oct 2004 Posts: 1

At our Penney's departments other than customer service participate in recovery if the previous night/weekend was particularly bad. Those are usually after a "friends and family" weekend, or a night with a ridiculously good sale/door busters. We are fortunate enough to have students that come in for school work experience credit through a local program that lets them do on site "training." If not for our seasonal pool of slave labor, our store would most likely look in shambles for a greater portion of the time.

I do agree that each respective department has its own responsibilities and that no one department is more important than another. If it were not important, then there would not be a need for someone to do it. It just seems unjust at times that one can be deprived from fulfilling one's own duties. However, the manager must realize that in order to be ready for business, certain things must be prioritized.

I have been employed with JC Penney for 11 months and today just put in my two weeks notice. I'll most likely have another post regarding such shortly.

Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2005 5:06 am Post subject:

Our store manager has a schedule for recovering in the day. our replenishment team goes to lunch at 11 & when they clock back in from lunch at 12 they clean the fitting rooms & do a quick straighten of the floor. then when management returns at 1 they check the rooms. then the rest of sales support hits them at 2. this includes pricing(there every day), and visual(when they will show up). By then our morning quad associates have had lunch & our evening quad associates are around & between them they keep it clean. Of course anytime we are running by we hit it again.

Joined: 20 Mar 2005 Posts: 7 Location: wish I knew

Well...while our store does afternoon recovery & the assocs leaving at 4 or 5 (or whenever) are supposed to clear the returns & the fitting rooms....doesn't always happen like it should. Usually does tho. Nighttime recovery is the worst....minimum of 1 hr just straightening to look decent...1.5 - 2 hrs minimum to be better than decent....as close to perfect as 10 blurry-eyed associates can make it. Sad thing is it can take more time on weeknites than on weekend nites....less floor associates to do the straightening. Seems as tho we could pay 1 - 2 associates for 4 hrs each just to straighten (like in Misses..worst spot in store) instead of 10 associates (including hrly mgmt) for 2 hrs each....let's see 4-8 hrs vs. 15 - 20 hrs minimum...sounds like a no-brainer to me. Rolling Eyes

Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 5:51 pm Post subject:

So when are they gonna figure out that we have to have someone assigned to the fitting rooms full time? every other retailer in our area limits the number of garments & Has an attendant. It is crazy to think working in shifts we are not going to lose merchandise. it only takes a day ar two for the serious shoplifters to figure out our scheduling. But no lets just let them walk it out. What can we do anyway our LP is only bidding time till his transfer, so he dont care. He will do the obvious unauthorized credit card or check & thats about it. Well if they dont care why should I?

Joined: 20 Mar 2005 Posts: 7 Location: wish I knew

well now why would they pay 1 person starting pay to save enough $$ in mdse from walking to pay 10 more people starting pay to straighten? That would be logical reasoning....right? Rolling Eyes

Joined: 21 Feb 2006 Posts: 2 Location: San Antonio

Well actually I am Utility Team leader for JCP. We have 5-8 people on my team whos sole job it is to recover (pick up) The store. I actually moved half way across the country to a bigger store...before we would clean up our own departments. Now we have a team to do it. I think it saves allot of time especially when closing.....

Joined: 20 Mar 2005 Posts: 7 Location: wish I knew

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