Target Executive Internship Week Six

I just finished week six of the internship and am entering week seven! It amazes me how fast time goes when you are working retail. This week, the interns in our district which includes the Target Clackamas store and Eugene and Springfield interns went on a store visit with the district team leaders in Salem and Keizer. On a store visit, the district team leaders as well as the Human Resource Business Partner go through the store to make sure that Target location is maintaining its Target brand, is well zoned (aisles are kept tidy and items put back in its rightful place), endcaps are full and impactful, guests are being serviced, fun, fast, and friendly team, products are in stock, signing is right, and that the store is maintaining Target brand offstage of the salesfloor. A district team lead's job is to manage a certain number of stores in their assigned district. They must visit each store at least once a month. If there are "problem" stores in which a store may need a district team lead's help, then the district team lead may visit that store on a weekly basis if need be.

We carpooled with the district team lead to Salem. To me this was a little intimidating because the district team leads are our boss's boss's boss! They are essentially high level management. While I know the district team leads are very open and enjoy getting to know the interns, I still felt that there was this pressure there to impress them and come up with smart questions. On the way to Salem, we mainly conversed about Target and about how to prep for a store visit. We then had lunch at Olive Garden before heading to the Salem Target. The store visit was great. They even gave the interns little goodie bags! I learned a lot about how store visits are run and what the district team leads are looking for. It was also interesting to see these smaller volume stores and the differences between how they are run. I thought it was awesome to see how well zoned their store was. Back endcaps were even well zoned. It was also nice to see that Target also cares about offstage brand. So that means the break rooms, offices, and common areas where the employees are need to be clean and neat. This is what the Human Resource business partner looks for on his or her store visit. They also check to make sure the store is using best practice. They make sure the human resource office is following its planogram as well as the message boards. You may not think twice about an office having a specific layout, but it is important that every human resource office follows the same layout from store to store. This also goes for their message boards. There are specific layouts for these as well! After the store visit, there is a recap. This is where the DTL and business partner state what they found and how the store can improve and what is already good at.

After the store visit at Salem, we continued to Keizer where we conducted another visit. Keizer is about the same volume as Salem. What was interesting to note was after looking at their store reports which measures almost everything about a store from payroll to sales, was the fact that both stores were not making sales. And what I learned from this was how to drive profitable sales at a Target store. Although we can't internally control how many people will come to the store, we can control how much they buy, essentially their basket size. Driving a bigger basket size depends upon having the right kind of signing, maintaining a well zoned store that keeps the Target brand, having the products in-stock, and a fast, fun, and friendly team that provides good service. By doing these, basket size will increase.

After the Keizer store visit, the Eugene interns invited the Portland interns to join them for dinner since they would be in Portland for the night. I thought this was a nice gesture because we dont get to see them very often so it was nice to get to know them better at dinner. We talked about how their internship was going and a little more about their backgrounds and how they found out about Target. It was a good change of pace. Usually I am working with other team members or executive team leadsl, so it was awesome to see how the other interns are doing.

Another great event that Target put together for the interns was a team build for Habitat for Humanity. Again, this was a great opportunity to get to know more of the interns as well as other executive team leads from other stores and district team leads. This time there were interns from the other district as well. Although we did not build a whole house, we did end up saving the family from spending over five hundred dollars in landscaping costs. Our tasks for the day included building picnic tables and digging a number of trenches. Although digging holes may seem like easy work, it was actually really difficult! It takes a lot of hardwork and dedication and team work to have gotten all of that done in a timely manner. Afterward, the district team leads took us out for a early dinner.

To me all of these events show that Target really cares about its interns and wants to invest a lot of time and money into us. I think this is what's so great about the company as well. And to be able to spend so much time with high level management? That is really cool. I dont know any other company that gives so much to its interns. Interns are truly seen as peers to the executive team leads and are given important tasks. We not only are training to be leaders on duty but we are given shifts as the leader on duty in our latter weeks of the internship. Obviously, we will not know everything about how to be the most effective store leader in ten weeks, but that's why Target is so great. Target allows us to make these mistakes to learn and grow from them.