Calling all Cosmetic Team Leads to talk about issues; in the interest of resolving them, to vent, to share how you get your area manager to understand what you are saying, to get them to answer your questions, how to deal with new people who don't know how to reset anything much less cosmetics!

Where do you work when they have no work? Can you really read those itty-bitty planograms? How do you manage to audit everyone's work, make sure they ReAlLy placed all the tags, getting them to keep crap off of the floor etc. and still do resets yourself?

OK, I'll start. I'm going to designate only one person allowed to go in the backroom. Me! Then they can't steal or leave the trash in a heap in the basket or hide the graphics/trays they can't figure out where they go.

What do you think? Good idea about the backroom?

I think it's an excellent idea. There's no need for a stampede in any stockroom. I think it's also very respectful to the store manager to limit the number of people milling around in there.

I am a former team lead.
Everyone has their own method, and procedures that the company wants you to follow, but this is what worked for me, with the people I had working with me.
If I could get my hands on the POG I had it enlarged as big as I could get it and still have it
legible.( I still do this with gift card POGS.) I still have a large magnifier with a light on it that I wear around my neck. I purchased mine from Hobby Lobby. Those lipstick and eyebrow pencil UPC's are unreadable for me otherwise.
I would make a physical precall and request all the product be put on a 4 high or some other type of piece of equipment that will keep it together when I walk in. At least on a pile somewhere. Make friends with the receiver, they can make or break you.
Get there before the crew. Get what you can out of the backroom before anyone else is there. Get the labels, fixtures, signage together. you hopefully already have your enlarged POG with you.
Know your reset! Look it over, are there lots of DC's? Entire sections moving, or just mostly being rearranged? Check your profiles. You may need to tweak the POG. There is always a pillar or some obstruction that shouldn't be there.
Get an idea of the strengths of your crew. Total newbies, some experience?
Have someone with a clue pull all the DC's and put them where the store wants them.
Do not take everything off the wall or shelves at once. Empty one row, shelf, area or whatever at a time. Keep the old tag stuck on the product when it is moved to the new location. Get all the old product set into it's new location, then worry about the new product. Someone can at least match new labels to the old ones that way.
Which are the easiest sections? Put your least experienced person there. Go up the skill set to the most experienced doing the hardest section. This may be you. Unfortunately. Have garbage bags, boxes, a cart, something to toss the debris in as you go. Wading through stuff on the floor just makes it harder to work, and all stores hate a mess.
Keep a friendly eye on the crew. If someone seems stuck, go help them. A mistake caught early takes so much less time than 2 hours of the same mistake being made repeatedly. Less frustrating all the way around for you and the person that needs to redo their work. If someone looks really frustrated, ask them if they would mind doing a garbage run to get rid of the debris. Let them take a little, yet productive break.
As each section is done, YOU check it and show THEM how to label it if they don't know how the store organizes their labels. They are not always in order, unfortunately.
Managers- Many have never done the reset that you are doing. Some may never have even seen a reset being done. Some have no merchandising experience, period. Keep it simple so they can grasp what you are asking for, or need.
I was lucky as the company that I worked for as a lead really respected it's employees. They paid well, and had reasonable expectations for a days work. Too bad they were bought out and went under. I had the best team, after work I would buy the crew at least a soda at the end of the day as a thank you.
With any luck you will have the same crew several times, so you can all get into the rhythm of the set.

It is hard being the crew leader. You have to run and jump twice as high and twice as fast as the rest, while you are teacher and babysitter and a merchandiser. I don't do any cosmetic rests anymore as I am not going to lose my year round cycle and project work for a month or 2 of resets. Around here they also don't pay anything like what they are worth in terms of effort.

Remember: The first one is always the worst.

I hope this is coherent and not too rambling, I'm home on cold medicine today.

I bring a bag to work with my basic merchandising tools; pens, tapes, stapler, scissors, permanent markers, measuring tape etc. So, I have to go outside of the store because field support can't understand me when I'm in the store and we don't have some of the POGS and tags. I come back in and they had gone in my bag! They had my scissors, two permanent markers, my tape my DUSTER......wtf? And I went to find my clipboard with the paperwork for the store and it's GONE! I give up! This company isn't even paying me $1.00 or even .50 cents more to be a lead and these chicks just get into my bag and take my sh@t. I give up. No wonder! I'm applying elsewhere.

That's so wrong! You are supposed to bring your own equipment. Just shows what is getting hired. It serves these companies right to have resets go double the time allowed. No extra money for being a lead? That's insane. You are right to look elsewhere.

I can relate to that, being team lead and not getting paid any additional money for it. And I TOLD them I didn't want to be team lead for a slew of convenience store resets I was scheduled to do since I wasn't going to get any extra money (sorry to hijack, I know this is about cosmetics), yet when I showed up there was no team lead and several other merchandisers showed up who had no idea of what they were supposed to be doing. Since I had done the same type of resets the year before, I knew what was expected, but didn't have any of the materials I needed for the job that first day such as a disc list, markers, etc. Thank goodness at least the store was providing the POGs and I was able to get ahold of a copy of a disc list from another team lead from my company who was at a store about 20 miles away. This happened at almost every store I was assigned--no team lead when I arrived so I got stuck doing it.

Aw, I felt so alone, thank you for sharing that experience. I'm really somehow not mad anymore.
It's not hijacking at all, it's exactly the same concept. I'm still very disappointed because there's so many obstacles. I thought it would be great to have the other team leads share info but the area manager shut me down on that one, I don't know them, they're in other states. Which is when I started this thread.

I'm going to do what you did, you are my inspiration, and just suck it up and do it somehow. I don't know how when I'm squeezed between a company that wants me to train 6 new people who get angry with me and are at about 3.5-4 hours per foot, get all the work done on schedule, have the area manager act angry with me and now the store will be angry when they find out their sets are not going to be complete.

I know I'll be leaving my paperwork in the car from now on. And I'm going to charge for all my tools that go missing.

Did you at least have new people who were able to complete the resets in a somewhat timely manner? None of the new people have said they want to stay. 1 took the job until she's done with school (older) in a few months, 1 until summer when her job starts and another who will not be able to stay because she's at 2 feet in 8-10 hours with about 65% correct ratio.

edited to remove info area manager might recognize......buahahaha

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/06/2016 02:41PM by spicy1.

Oh heck no, a few were third parties who must have lied when they put in their applications stating that they had experience. I asked them to check the UPC numbers before putting products on the shelves and they weren't sure which set of numbers on the tags I was talking about, not understanding how to read the POG, and then a few would complain because the product didn't fit on the shelf (change the shelf height, you dumba$$). Then there were the ones who were experienced but sloppy, thought they knew everything...too good to clean shelves or tear the tags properly, or not putting tags on straight, not checking for out-of-date product, not wanting to take guidance from me because they knew I was not a "real" supervisor, etc. I was having a hard time being patient with people. Oh, there was one lady who sat on a stool in front of the one section I had assigned her to do and at the end of the day she was still on the same section. She was soooo sloooow. Other people had done at least two sections, and we had to jump in and help her with her tiny little 3-foot x 5-shelf area so we could leave. There were a couple of days where only two or three people showed up for one of the larger stores and we were there for nine hours, and other days the stores were tiny--one day nine people showed up for a store that was really small and I had to send people home! It was frustrating but I survived, LOL. It was a few years ago so I am dealing with it okay. You'll get through it and be stronger for it. A little wine or a cocktail at the end of the day helps, too!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/06/2016 03:07PM by JASFLALMT.

What the ???? is wrong with these people? For cosmetics the old time frame was1 hr. per foot plus tagging time. Grocery was 20 minutes per 4 ft. shelf. Christmas was 4 hours per 12 section. (Mostly boxed product, but new profile)
Can you give a clue as to what seems to be holding them up? Are they just chatting or texting and not working? Can't read the POG? Can't read the UPC's/ store code? Took everything down and tossed it into a bin and have to start digging to find the one specific thing they need next?? Totally new profile to set? Cleaning old shelves is a pain and can take up some time for sure. 2 feet in 8 hours is just nuts.
You both have confirmed my feeling that resets are not for me, unless I am doing them alone. I just can't babysit alleged grown ups anymore.

Yeah, and after a few resets where I realized I most likely was going to end up being in charge I brought my stuff, and although no one ever went in my bag to get things out, I had left my Sharpie sitting on top of a bin and a girl used it, then left the top off so it was pretty dried out when I went to use it. Another lady borrowed my Gerber all-in-one tool ($60 tool) and said she put it on top of my bag (why not unzip and stick it in my bag or hand it to me personally?) but when I looked it was nowhere to be found. She may very well have set it on top of my bag and a customer walking by thought, "Nice tool, I think I will take it." Who knows.

It's bad upper management, that's what. And when I have 4-6 people working on various sections and I am sorting through stuff that they pulled off the shelves and separating it into bins (yes store credit, no store credit, not on plan-o-gram, discontinued, out-of-date, damaged), it's a bit hard to walk around and check on everyone to find out what the problem is. I have been working some grocery store resets lately (not as team lead) where a bunch of different reps from different companies are working together and there are a few who I know have been doing this for awhile but either they are mentally challenged or just don't give a crap. One lady was filling a section of canned tomatoes that I had set with facings (in a store that does not use plan-o-grams, they just have us brand block, always fun) and I had moved on to set another section--I come back and she had the diced tomatoes mixed in with the whole tomatoes, tomato sauce in the wrong place, the ones with no salt, sea salt, etc. all mixed up, and I had to pull stuff off and restock it. Sheesh, just because it's the same brand and all the labels are red doesn't mean that they all go together, LOL. Maybe she can't read? Who knows.

Spicy1, glad you opened this thread for us to vent. Oh and I don't understand why any managers would not want all of their team leads to communicate with each other, seems to me that would be a good way to brainstorm new ideas on how to work around issues and help each other out. If I were you, every chance you get to meet with someone who is a team lead, get their contact info and stay in touch. Upper management doesn't need to know about it.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/06/2016 03:35PM by JASFLALMT.

All of those things. They can't read the pog, can't make heads or tails of it. I tried to help people and they were like...I know, I know and then yelled at me or acted disgusted with me....lol It's the first time for 2 of them to even touch a pog. One of them did go help the other with the pegged section and I was so happy about that because the one who was working on it and struggling like crazy. But then, she got the information about where she stood on the pog and then she starting talking, about her kids, fishing, football.....non-stop from 11am until 5pm. When I talked to the A.M. about these kinds of things she said to only help them if they ask for help...so I let 'em go!

I don't care, now, about reputation, dignity, timing, the store manager's signature....none of it. I mean I do, but I'll have to put it away for now. I have no control so the area manager can deal with it. They can't logically hold me responsible for any of it because they give me no control to exercise over it. So I'm going to zip my bag, zip my mouth and just do the report on basically what's happening. In the meantime I'm applying for other companies and not necessarily for merchandising.

Yea, that's one of the techniques I've used when doing grocery resets, especially cans or frozen. One person sets the facings and tags and the other person does the back-stocking. It's so much easier and faster that way. It's like there's a disconnect that you wouldn't see that this product is crushed tomatoes and this one is diced. I don't know, some kind of cognitive dissonance.

I asked the company if they would consider if the new people, especially the ones they hire with no retail experience at all, could just intern. You know, I tell them everything to do and they just do it. That way they can learn how the right way, right away. Instead, they said to assign everyone to a set. Poor Maybelline. I don't let anyone else touch my Cover Girl, she's my baby!

I understood a POG from the very first time I saw one. It's so easy to figure out (provided I don't need a magnifying glass to see it as Cindy mentioned, LOL). Geez, it's a lettered and/or numbered map with shelf heights, locations, and sometimes decent pictures of the product, etc. The information is generally all there. I have seen some POGs that had errors, sure, but that's what critical and creative thinking is all about.

I hear that SAS is hiring, at least in my area. My company is always hiring, but they are one of the lowest paying companies out there...I'd be leaving if I hadn't just been given a raise (of course I had to threaten to quit to get it). And meanwhile there are always shops to do.

I get frustrated with my company too (ASM) and the quirky ways upper management does things. For example, my supervisor is not the scheduler and cannot make changes to our schedules, and the schedulers make mistakes pretty often with my calendar, double booking store visits or sending me 60 miles for a half hour store visit with nothing else scheduled for the day, or putting something on my calendar at 4 a.m. the day that they want me to do it without emailing me and I have no idea until it's too late and the visit is overdue. But, since I am not allowed to contact any schedulers and don't have their contact information, I have to contact my supervisor, who cannot make the changes needed and has to contact the scheduler to get things fixed, which sometimes can take several days. It's stupid.

Spicy, how will they know if you do things your way and not their way? Gosh, I am glad I never had upper management do that to me. I did my best to try to train people the right way, but you can't fix stupid.

Well, they call the area manager and tell her. And she calls me and scolds me about whatever they're crying about. Funny, I call her with "real" questions, we don't have a certain pog, so-and-so no call, no show and she doesn't answer her phone or call me back. But as soon as one of the new ones calls her she answers them immediately. For example, I told the one girl that 421 goes on column 4 row 2 on the last peg and not in the discontinued bag. That's when she started screaming at me to read the pog and I would see that it's not there.

Me too, I could read and set the first pog I got. Luckily it was at Walmart and I could take forever, but in two weeks I was setting as fast as the dept. mgrs. So they gave me dept mgr job immediately and I worked as a.m. for too long to mention.

So I practically have these cosmetic pogs memorized. The discontinues are pretty much the same in every location. So I know it goes on there. She called the a.m. and she didn't say that she was screaming at me because she tried to put product that goes in the set in the discontinued bag for the store, nope, she told her that I was creating a hostile environment. @#$%& no, I don't do that kind of thing, ever. I never even spanked or yelled at my kids. The a.m. told me to work it out or she was going to "threat, threat, threat..." (because she might read this and recognize me....lol It's all become completely unreasonable.

But, I'm sure if they aren't going to hold me responsible for what these people are doing, which I can't image how they can, then I don't mind whatever it is that they're doing.

There you go, that's all you can do.

It is all insane.
Just as a side observation, I have noticed that people who can not read a map also can not read a POG. It must be how the brain is wired.

What a trip....get it....lol.

Lots of stories not enough time to tell them
I have reset cosmetics for just about everyone, everywhere and most brands. There are only 2 of us in the area that are able to function as a team lead for cosmetics.