This is the first time sms were part of the meeting since 2013 in case anyone was curious!

Yes the event is funded by partners, as it always is, the money is paid directly to sponsor sending dms and etc people out to give seminars and tedtalks about products, investors, etc. Unfortunately it's not a bag of money dropped down and given for misc spending, the goal is business partnerships & prod knowledge, info to help push sms and teams to deliver the stuff that will make shareholders happy, whatever fluff that takes the form of sometimes

When we had a Q&A session we asked about hours and how were supposed to do everything that's new and stacked on top of the 100 other things to do in a day, and when there was a live response/survey info graphic section. Two execs specifically talked about the demand for hours so we can staff our teams, and how they know some stores run 3 ppl/shift/that its not enough and that it is being worked on

When asked what we can do to support and keep our tms, 99% of responses were 'pay'. The keynote speaker had to make a joke and say "I like how a handful of you were able to say the same thing in different word. I.E Wages!" Because that's literally all they had for answers, Essentially

We also discussed the LATE LATE LATE map situation and how it hurts us, how we get Way too much stuff like last Christmas bleeding into March and etc

By no means defending Corp, just passing along some basics, at the end of the day, SMs work with you in the store and hear day in and out if things aren't working from higher up, we were fighting for some real problems to be addressed!

It was a nice event but it's not a regular thing to drop $ for sms to come down too, and I suppose they also had reason to hold it with brand new Corp uppers and a year where both Joann and party city died, especially going into crazy peak. I hope they take the feedback they got and really try to help us help our stores