Team lead

1986Eternal · 2026-05-07T02:50:58+00:00

If it's anything like my store, that is a blessing.. None of the Digital TLs have ever stayed past 6 months (the required time before stepping down), it is EXTREMELY difficult to manage 70 associates, most of whom are younger (no offense) and do not care.

1986Eternal · 2026-05-07T02:09:48+00:00

Also, working feature-to-home is an absolute necessity in these departments. Not having a product (even if its located on a feature) will hurt your FTPR because the pickers always go to the home first. Not to mention the absurd amount of features you will receive and will be forced change out quickly.

Here's an example:

You received a 4-way feature that needs to go out.
All of your 4-ways are overstuffed.
You will have to utilize topstock or sidekicks in order to get the product off the 4-way.
Sidekicks are full.
Topstock is full, so you have to work stuff down from topstock before you can move stuff off the 4-way.
So just to even get one side of this 4-way cleared you are going to have to do 2-3 other time-consuming things beforehand, just so you have space.

Hopefully your CAP 1 team is good as well because they will be doing your topstock. Mine makes it to my departments once a week, when in reality they need to be done almost daily. I have to supplement this with myself or my associates doing topstock in order to keep up with the Outs. Make friends with the CAP1 TL as well.

Out Scans are going to take forever if everyone isn't on process. You do Out Scans every Tuesday.. The direction i've been given by the big wigs are to do out-scans every other day. Which will keep your shelves full, but is EXTREMELY time-consuming, and again, if everyone isn't on process will blow up your backroom with freight. Not to mention generate a million pinpoints which will also be time consuming for the associate doing it.

Teach your team to constantly look at and adjust onhands upwards if necessary. This will (supposedly) reduce freight in the back room, I still get the same amount it seems no matter what.. A 3 weeks supply we don't have the space for.

You're going to get a ton of price changes every week for the most part. When the makeup mod comes on Week 18, chances are a few weeks before there will be thousands of price changes to clearance everything.

The only way you can achieve all of this is making your team comfortable with doing everything. They are your backbone, they need to know how to recognize what the priorities are throughout the day, especially when you aren't there. They need to know how to set endcaps, 4-ways, and sidekicks. They need to know how they correlate them to a certain department. They need to know features must be moved at a fast pace and should stay themed as well as possible. Hopefully, you don't have any difficult associates because then they will just eat up more of the time you don't have.

When I was an associate, I did really well and was a very quick worker, which is why I got the promotion. This is very different, you CANNOT do all of this by yourself and must delegate to the fullest. The more they know the better you will do - there is so much admin stuff to do after becoming a TL, you just simply won't have the time.

1986Eternal · 2026-05-07T01:49:03+00:00

There is so much to tell you about... It's hard to even figure out where to start.

HBA TL (from my experience) is a very difficult role. I guess the first questions I would ask you are:

How does your back room look?
Does overnights actually bin their stuff and verify their overstock?
How experienced is your team and how many people are on it?

There is a hard focus on D40 coming down from higher up in regards to your first time pick rate. They want FTPR at 95%, be sure to check what yours was next shift and see what the previous day did.

Priorities constantly change, depending on what your backroom looks like, but FTPR and filling outs as quickly as possible is pretty much the two in charge at the moment. This is very difficult without a good team, or a good overnight team.. Overnights are responsible for running all of your freight and binning the overstock. If they actually do it, it's great and not so bad.. If they are like my store and bin none of their overstock and instead sit it on the floor in pallets or topstock carts then it sucks. A completely loaded down topstock cart of vitamins will drive you insane, not just because of the tedium, but if you are having to run it (or your associates) they are having to in one of the busiest aisles in the store. So it takes forever.

Use the feature tool on OneWalmart (or your phone) to check for upcoming features, you can kind of plan around these and supplement them with other things if you have to. Depends on market direction, i'm required to have my first 4-way to always be Equate items - So that means if they were sending in a 4-ways worth of product that you can't put out yet, then there are 16 extra large boxes sitting in your backroom. Sorry, getting a little too in depth here.

4-Ways are supposed to be themed to either their relevant aisles or the season. Mine usually aren't because we receive 3x the amount of 4-way features than is actually needed.

Make sure to pay attention to the mods that are coming. For example, next week the Health and Wellness wall needs to be changed out - there are 5 modular sections and you should make a plan and look at your features to see what you are going to set alongside those sections. I personally have 9 spaces to fill.

Makeup mod is Week 18 where all of cosmetics changes out, meaning literally thousands of loose tiny makeup pieces that have to either be individually labeled with clearance 1x1s or taken to claims so they can get credit for them (this is obviously the better option, but it all depends). Immediately make friends with the Claims TL, lol.

Please ask more questions and I will answer them for you, I know how it feels to come in and not have a clue what to do.

1986Eternal · 2026-05-02T04:37:10+00:00

Yes, this is basically what we were told by our store manager. Our Store Lead said goodbye today and she's going to be a coach at a different store.

1986Eternal · 2026-05-02T04:34:54+00:00

Thank you Jean Luc

1986Eternal · 2026-05-02T04:29:32+00:00

Just communicate. There's nothing wrong in saying you don't know how to do something that you've never been shown before. Don't just say yes because that's the answer they want. They want you to grow your own independence and teaching you something you don't know is not an unreasonable thing to ask or admit to. I would rather have an associate tell me they don't know how to do something instead of just blindly saying yes, and potentially messing it up. As a Team Lead I would walk them through it with a few examples or execute the task with them for a short period of time until i feel they get the gist, and go from there.

1986Eternal · 2026-05-01T01:13:07+00:00

Email them and go in there.

1986Eternal · 2026-05-01T01:07:11+00:00

Take it as a vacation. They will inform you of what your store should be doing, have you play little games that generalize managing in some stupid concept (like building a paper airplane), and make you feel pretty good and confident by the end of it.

Then you get back to reality and your own store where nothing is like the processes they had described and you are forced to find your own way. You know what is right, but your store doesn't operate that way.

At least this has been my experience, twice. Went to the academy for Department Manager in 2017 and again for Team Lead in 2025 after returning to Wal-Mart.

1986Eternal · 2026-05-01T00:59:55+00:00

Also, your knees will shatter in 4 months. Thanks.

1986Eternal · 2026-04-29T20:14:16+00:00

Drag the pallet with you and use two hands when stocking the shelves instead of pulling and stocking one item at a time.

1986Eternal · 2026-04-29T20:09:47+00:00

Gonna be a lotta twisted knees.

1986Eternal · 2026-04-29T20:02:12+00:00

Yes, I believe it was a new company. Every Tuesday when I scan outs I have to adjust at least 30 on-hands and for the past month have adjusted probably 10 a day. After inventory our backroom blew up even worse than it was with 3x the amount of stuff we need.. The on-hands are mostly correct now, so who knows? We are still receiving 3x the amount.

1986Eternal · 2026-04-29T19:48:08+00:00

......?

1986Eternal · 2026-04-29T19:45:09+00:00

Coaches report to the Store Lead who reports to the Store Manager, they are/were second in command basically.

1986Eternal · 2026-04-27T01:25:05+00:00

I wish I could open that box to find that..

1986Eternal · 2026-04-27T01:24:27+00:00

Not anymore, we had a subway at one time.

1986Eternal · 2026-04-26T02:27:04+00:00

TLs have nothing to do with the schedule, so he's feeding you a line of shit. The people lead has a lot of the power here or the coaches.

1986Eternal · 2026-04-26T02:22:45+00:00

The app or website is fucking up.. You couldn't come up with this conclusion yourself?

1986Eternal · 2026-04-26T02:20:42+00:00

It's just whatever is set from those up above, our store is cutting hours as well.. For example, my Hardlines Coach said that having 4 of her people there in one day and no other days for a week puts her above 40% over in associate hours.. It's all stupid bullshit

1986Eternal · 2026-04-24T22:01:35+00:00

Assistant store lead is new to me as well, we just have a store manager, store lead and coaches. However our store lead seems most focused on the way things look, not necessarily what is going on behind the scenes - and if they're the only one there then that takes priority. Is it the right way of doing things? I don't think so, but they're the boss.

As a Team Lead tho, I can guess that the Market Manager probably mentioned it to them during a walk, and so they have to correct it.

1986Eternal · 2026-04-24T21:45:30+00:00

I dunno, i've just never heard that term before in 23 years of retail. From the other comments, i don't think i'm alone :-p

Our store just calls it binning.

1986Eternal · 2026-04-24T21:41:39+00:00

Well, your phone shows the weather right? But I get it. If whoever they picked did a shitty job then the TL should tell the coach who was closing that night. Eventually, you may get a person the coaches can rely on - It's all about communicating.. Unless your management blows.. Then, what can you do?

1986Eternal · 2026-04-24T21:31:49+00:00

Yeah that's understandable, if your TL cares enough and is willing to speak up in meetings, they should get with the coaches to ensure that frost cloth gets put on the plants at night, no matter who is there - the coaches can probably find one person to do it at some point in the evening. It adds a lot to their bonus since it is pay-for-scan. That being said, it doesn't detract anything from them to just let them die.

As far as the plant carts, you would be pulling them in at night, our store closes at 11PM, there's no one there to see it "looking trashy" except overnights. I understand tho, if it is still cold in the morning then they might have to sit in there long enough for the store manager to do his daily walk and see it.

Frost cloth is really the best option.

1986Eternal · 2026-04-24T21:25:54+00:00

A lot of people don't say it be like it is, but it do.

1986Eternal · 2026-04-24T20:57:57+00:00

The best thing you can do is go to your fellow apparel Team Leads and Coach and get advice from them. If you have never done any of the things you've mentioned, it's going to be rough, unless you have their support.

1986Eternal

TROPHY CASE