Jared, a Target Team Leader, says there’s no nefarious plot afoot to help the retailer slash costs by reducing full-timers to part-time. From his middle management perspective, it’s all about economics, and a natural response to a slacking economy. At the end of his message, he even addresses Target’s propensity for posting nonsensical signs.

He writes:

My name is Jared [redacted]. I work at Target and would like to set a few things straight. I am a Team Leader at the [redacted] SuperTarget in [redacted]. This is my third store and I have been with Target for over 5 years.

First about the specialists that keeps coming up. Yes, the position was eliminated to a lower pay grade. Some low volume stores then eliminated its replacement and just had the Team Lead do their work and some stores that kept it had nothing change for the position except a title change (pay stayed exactly the same). It will only mean future people put in the position will not get as big of a raise as they might have before.

Second about the hours being cut. Right now in my store (ranked about 50 or so in the company for top gross sales) has had to cut everyone’s hours except the Team Leaders. Even our Brand team members (position that replaced specialists) had their hours cut. Reason being we just came out of the holidays, we have a lot of people still on pay roll and we don’t need as many people on the floor. It isn’t some sinister plot to fire a ton of people, it just that we can’t have everyone work all the hours they want. Target is a business with a goal to be the best company ever and it isn’t good for shareholders and guests to have to cut profits to give extra hours to everyone.

It isn’t really my job to reply to different sites about issues but I don’t like people who are leaping to conclusions about a few things happening at stores. If a store has low sales, positions get eliminated. I happens with every company. My store is actually hiring on more managers just to handle our workload.

I am not sure that you will post this or even put out an update, just please know that the emails you are receiving are coming from people who work at one store and may not even handly pay roll for their store (I do at mine).

Third about the firing thing. People get fired. It happens. We have people get fired at different stores for different reasons. From the article listed on 3/18 it seems if their hours are getting cut that they aren’t making their sales forecasts. This could also mean positions were eliminated or they had a problem performer and let them go at the same time a position might be let go. Having a few people get terminated does not show a conspiracy or anything, just that some people may not be meeting the standards set before them.

Also, I don’t know why are prices and signing is so crazy – I can only control what happens at my store and even then that is a challenge.

Do you buy Jared’s explanation, or do you think he’s just drinking the company Kool-Aid?

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