GUEST SPEAKER REFLECTION
GUEST SPEAKER REFLECTION: We will have two guest speakers this semester. Dates will be announced ahead of time. You will be required to write a two-three page reflection paper between 500 and 800 words – that addresses the following prompts:• Which message did the speaker seek to convey?• What part of the speaker’s presentation inspired you, or resonated with you personally?• Did anything the speaker said surprise you?• How will you apply what you learned in your personal or professional leadership opportunities? • Things you learned• Questions you still have Guest Speaker protocol: Keep in mind that a guest speaker has taken their time to travel and present information to you that they think would be beneficial. Behaving in a respectful manner will provide the guest speaker a comfortable venue to share their expertise, and will allow you to shine as a UL student.
i have uploaded the Audio Transcript to read and then write about it the speaker’s name is
William Fairburn
William.Fairburn
So I’ll start by introducing who I am. I’m William Fairbairn I am the store director at Lafayette, Louisiana.
This is the ambassador caffery location. I started with target 13 years ago straight out of college, just like you guys
Kind of dating myself but 2007 I graduated from Tulane went to a career fair in New Orleans and they hired me and one other person out of 600 interviews I was told, so
13 years later, I’m at Lafayette managing this is the biggest location in the entire southeast, the entire southeast of the continental United States so
We’re 100 Million Dollar Store super busy requires an army to run this store we have 36 managers. And we also have
350 employees as what we’re going to be during Q4 is 350 employees, roughly, and everybody has a role to play.
To make this thing work but 13 years of the company. I’ve been in seven different locations. I’ve opened stores. I’ve done remodels I’ve gone into read stores read stores being stores that are culturally broken
And then been able to turn those around. So I know how to fix broken culture and kind of assess things and fix things.
I would describe myself as a problem solver and that requires talent management strategy, as well as critical thinking and the ability to manage performance.
Accountability is really big for me. So my presentation today. I do apologize. I’m not very tech savvy and but I will tell you, like,
I’m going to turn my camera around and I’m going to put it on this little picture I have in this little this little thing. I’ll put it on here so you can see what I see.
Which is the actual presentation. I wanted to go through with you guys today on so
Bear with me. I’m going to pull that classroom presentation up for you and I’ll kind of talk through
I’ll kind of talk through that. So just give me a moment. I’m going to turn my camera off for a second, you’ll still have audio, but I’m going to put my screen on for you. Just give me one moment.
I’m looking at my face. Okay, so I’m going to try to position.
Myself to where you guys can see not just my sticky notes that I have all kinds of weird stuff on. But you can actually see what I’m looking at, which is the presentation that I wanted to do with you guys today.
And again, like you can stop me at any point. Can y’all see.
Okay.
First off, can you see that
Yes, sir. Okay.
William.Fairburn (T1473)
06:56So reimagining our stores so target is, you know, over 50 YEAR OLD COMPANY. Now, we started in 1962 and we started in Minnesota. It was Dayton.
It was owned by the Dayton.Family and to this day. They have some partnership with target but started off as a general good store in 1962 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
There’s a lot of like fake rumors that target is a French own company and
With none of that is true today is just a word that we use to describe the products that we sell in kind of the chic environment that we want to project.
Out there but target is an American own company. And it’s based in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Minnesota.
Been there. God, I’ve been the Minnesota nine times for our fault national meeting this year we code that it was a digital meeting, but it’s it target downtown is a really big deal when the second I think might have an unknown caller caller.
Can you all see
Dr. Tammy Hall
08:11Yes, we can.
William.Fairburn (T1473)
Okay.
So for target, you know, at its inception was a general goods store and to this day. We sell a very diverse and dynamic amount of goods to people.
So most of you guys have shopped in a target and we have 1800 stores across America.
We even have stores in Alaska, which I was in in March. I actually went to the target in Anchorage, Alaska was doing some missionary work in Alaska, but
08:40Now we have targets in Alaska. There’s three of them. So Hawaii has targets Alaska has targets Canada did
08:47Canada could be a whole nother case subject, I could talk about Canada for probably four hours about what went wrong with Canada but that’s for another time for today’s purposes, we’re going to talk just about target as it is in the continental United States.
09:02So target has a lot of different prototypes, we’ve got everything from
09:09You know stores that are in Chicago that have this kind of almost gargoyle kind of look like very
09:17I would say rustic very interesting you know environment to city targets, like this one over here.
09:24This is a city target location, which is about 17,000 square feet, imagine like a Walgreens kind of volume and setup for pad. That’s what this target is like a city target.
09:35They have this one that obviously used to be an old movie theater. You can see here with like the structure. So target does a really good job of building where
09:44Where people are and not tearing a lot of stuff down. We like to build within the structures that the that the city currently has. And I think that’s part of being
09:54Responsible is not tearing down things to rebuild things how you want it. It does add a set of challenges to stores to build stores to function.
10:03When we build into a current place but no two targets are really identical, especially when they’re built into old older buildings and then we kind of put a modernized approach to it.
10:13So yeah targets very, very different 1800 locations, like I said, the most stores are 130,000 square feet. The store and laugh. He gets 180 6000 square feet. So that’s a lot of square footage to manage and obviously we have a lot of different
10:29Machinery, as well as things that break down that were responsible for to deliver you a great experience. So that’s kind of target as far as like, what general target looks like.
10:42As far as what we’re trying to do and what we were achieving at this point and our stock shows that our stock is is hitting all time highs almost daily at this point over $160 a share.
10:52To put into perspective when I joined target and 2008 the average share price target was $39 a share. And now we’re $160 a share.
11:04So we’re doing a lot of great things digitally is is something that I’m really proud of our company has done a great job evolving our digital channels.
11:13Order pickup allows people to pick up product in our stores after my team has picked it and placed it at the front to minimize the amount of time it takes to get that product to you.
11:21We now have drive up or organized at the front to where you can even do grocery pickup and we will bring it to your vehicle.
11:28Usually within two minutes. So you parking if we didn’t fail you. That’s when you’re going to get your, your driver borders.
11:34Same day delivery ships shipped is a huge business for us. We’re actually number six in the company when it comes to shift.
11:41This year will do close to $6 million in grocery delivery and that’s within one to three hours of placing an order.
11:47You’re going to have that order of groceries and other goods to your home, which is a huge convenience, especially when it comes to cove it
11:54Not a lot of places have the ability to do it or do it as well as we do delivery from store. We don’t currently have at this location that’s usually going to be major metropolitan areas.
12:04It’s kind of like it’s similar to shipped, but it’s it’s for items that ship doesn’t currently carry or it could be for bigger items that a personal vehicle couldn’t carry
12:14Let’s say delivery from store you needed to get a futon. Well, the average person that works for ship isn’t going to be able to put a futon and they’re small vehicle or sedan.
12:22Delivery from stories and certain metropolitan markets to get products that are larger to your home restock is the ability for you to order on a timer things that you use the most. So some people are very
12:37There. They’re very much almost religious about what products they use are they use the same hand soap or they use diapers. Like if their child is growing and
12:46They order size three diapers every two weeks. They go through a box restock will allow you to actually order product and have it shipped to your home on a schedule.
12:53That to your liking. And because you’re buying in bulk restock is usually cheaper than buying in store.
12:59And then free two day shipping is what we committed to when you order on target com
13:04That’s really to compete with Amazon two day shipping. But what’s great is Amazon has quite a few distribution centers but target has 1800 stores that we use as distribution centers and we use them well.
13:16We have 30,000 square feet in the back of our store dedicated to shipping.
13:20We can usually get product to you within a day sometimes within an afternoon of you ordering it from our store we have until 430 to process all the orders that are placed and then those out, go out on a UPS truck for the same day or the day after
13:32So that’s how target is remaining competitive when it comes to digital is through all of these different ways of shopping
13:39In because coven has impacted a lot of businesses. A lot of people ask, hey, like how are we also proficient at this. It’s because none of this is something target just developed
13:49You’re talking about eight to 10 years in the making, to get all of these different channels up and running to the levels that they’re currently running at. So a lot of stores are trying to do grocery pickup or stuff like that.
14:00But they either you have to wait a long time and or it’s not automated, it’s very kind of like call this number when you arrive and we’ll bring it out to you learn everything here that you see.
14:11Has been developed over the course of the last eight to 10 years and is kind of coming into its element, I would say the technology is incredible that we use to make all this come to life. Any questions about any of these different channels that I just talked about.
14:27And if not, it’s OK.
14:30Because anybody used any of these channels to shop.
Emily Fontenot
14:34I’ve used quite a few of them. Yeah.
Ranel’s iPad
14:39The two day shipping for sure for me.
Emily Fontenot
14:44I was gonna ask like when you’re talking about like the grocery delivery. You said like $6 million that’s like target as a whole, or that’s like this.
William.Fairburn (T1473)
14:53No.
Emily Fontenot
14:54That’s just the store. Okay. Wow.
William.Fairburn (T1473)
14:56That’s crazy. Yeah, it’s when you think about it, we have 1800 stores and mine is going to do about 6 million in just grocery delivery.
15:03Wow. Yeah. When you start looking at some of the stores to like we’re number six in the company.
15:09But when you look at
15:12Like they have a New York store that is doing about 12 million in grocery delivery.
15:17Because a lot of people don’t they use the subway. A lot of people use different in Minneapolis has a huge grocery precedence, too. But yeah, that’s just 6 million for our store.
15:27Yeah, this is $100 million store and grocery makes up about 40% of our total store sales. Good question. And I’m sorry my phone. I couldn’t hear it. Did somebody else have a question. I heard somebody speak.
15:39I think they were maybe just talking about using some of the functions here, right
Dr. Tammy Hall
15:43Yeah y’all did y’all hear the the the hundred million dollar metric. I was blown away that, you know, and little laugh, yet it’s 100 and 100 Million Dollar Store.
William.Fairburn (T1473)
15:56Yeah yeah this is 100 million dollar operation and it takes 36 managers and 350 team members to bring it to life.
16:04That this is a big volume store. This is not a store that I would just take anybody straight out of college and expect them to succeed with little experience.
16:13It’s considered like a second assignment store or a store with somebody that we would bring on board that has a lot of retail experience I have taken upon myself to bring on
16:23People straight out of college here. And many of them have been successful.
16:27But it really depends on how I bring them on and what roles they take upon themselves like this this this store has enough leaders to be strong.
16:35And we have promoted I have hired six people from UL to work in this location and we’ve promoted, some of them to even store director, so
16:44And being a campus recruit myself. I’m really passionate about finding local talent and then equipping them and shipping them throughout
16:51You know, the United States 100 was just promoted. He actually was a UL graduate military he’s now taken over the store in Alexandria. He’s been enrolled for two months. So this is going to be as first person is the target as a store director, but he’s UL graduate, which is pretty cool.
17:08So that’s a little bit about digital. This is some of our own brands, many of you guys have probably shop. Some of these brands like we have cat and jack and we also have cloud Island, which are our children’s brands.
17:21Cool Fact is that cloud cat and jack in its first year did a billion dollars in sales. So target has a lot of its own brands and why our own brands important
17:31You will not really find any of these brands on Amazon. So we’re giving people a reason to go from click to Breck we’re giving people a reason to come into our stores for products that they love
17:41And I don’t know of a place, having two children myself that I can find affordable clothing that last like I do at Target.
17:48So my home has a lot of target decor has also a lot of target clothing, good fellow is a brand that actually was patented in 1962 but re imagined. About three years ago. It’s our new men’s brand.
18:02Good Fellow is very high quality men’s clothing, a new day is one of our newest women’s brands. It’s very like professional
18:09I would say, like, if you’re going to do an interview anywhere, a new day. It’s got what you need as far as like professional women wear it, you definitely can find it there.
18:19Or even some, like, you know, around the house. Kind of stuff. It’s a very dynamic brand. The new day. The joy lab is our women’s clothing brands that we launched about a year and a half, two years ago.
18:31And then project 62 is from 1962 it’s our furniture brand that we carry at Target.
18:36Another thing that people don’t know is that target is the biggest distributor of swimwear have any retail chain in the entire world so
18:45Just let that sink and we sell more swimwear from targets stores than any other retailer in the entire world.
18:52Especially since places like victoria secret or either closing are no longer carrying swimwear
18:57We sell about $7 million and swimwear every year, just from the store. It is ridiculous. So
19:04Swim is a very big deal for target. And we also have our own swim brands. But in the last three years target is launched 36 new brands.
19:12And that is to really give people a reason to come into target. We’ve also taken exclusive partnerships with like Chip and Joanna Gaines for her hand.
19:21We had Lilly Pulitzer we hadn’t even Marcus. We’ve had a lot of different brands come through our stores and it’s pretty cool that we have these partnerships to get people to come into stores. Any questions on our own brands.
19:40Well, it takes an army, like I said, run target. It also takes an army to bring visions to life.
19:47I’m going to share with you something different than I shared with the last group. So you see all of these different setups here.
19:53These are all what you call VM. Geez, or visual merchandising guide so target will give us a guide to say, hey,
19:59This is how we want you to set up our Disney shop. It takes an incredible amount of planning strategizing and follow up to bring this vision to life that you see here.
20:08I’m really excited to say that we’re going to be getting a Disney store in our store, which I love because I’m a big fan of Disney, but also
20:15I think it’s going to add value to what you know what we sell here in Lafayette. I’m really excited about our Disney shop that’s coming
20:22But yeah, everything that we do at Target is planned out. We don’t wing anything. It’s very militaristic in how
20:29How we look at things. So I’m on my computer right now and I’m going to pull up our visual merchandising guide. So you actually can see
20:35How we bring some of the decision to live. So like this is apparel and accessories. Right, so I could actually go in to apparel and accessories and I can see women’s jewelry and I can pull up our 11 one
20:51Family puffer shop, which is like bigger jackets and coats and you’ll see kind of what we look at to bring these visions to life. So someone at headquarters is responsible for making these visual merchandising guides
21:05And then we’re responsible for bringing them to life in stores and that’s why you’ll go into targets and they’re very uniform and you can kind of see like what these puffer shops are supposed to look like.
21:16This is a 22 page guide that I’m looking at here it tells you about the signing how to make sure that it’s at a certified
21:24So everything that we do at Target is very much. You can see kind of this image here about what it’s going to look like as puffer shop.
21:31Everything we do here is organized and every story is different. So we have different flow maps about how the stores are going to look
21:38How it’s going to be aligned and how the guests are going to be shopping in the stores and then it goes through kind of signing execution.
21:46So this is what a common transition would look like over in style for us. And then someone at headquarters makes these visions and then it’s our job in stores to bring all this stuff to life, which is really exciting.
21:59But also pretty cool that we are very organized and how we bring targets vision to life. And so I just wanted to kind of show you how some of those brands that I talked about earlier.
22:10Similar to like this Disney shop, we would have a card just for the Disney shop so we legitimately have cards for pretty much everything that we carry
22:19at Target. There is some form of planning behind it and you can see like beauty. We have visual Jason sees home in a hard lines we have visual Jason sees for that to
22:30This is our Earth in hand. You guys get to see it before the public does this is our earth and hands 1025 sets. So Chip and Joanna Gaines brands.
22:39This is kind of what it’s going to look like. These are all the fixtures required to bring it to life signing and then we’ve also got like
22:48Exactly what this thing is going to look like a lot of cement. It looks like a lot of summit and rustic looking very, very common for that brand.
22:56But it shows you everything about what this is going to look like. And kind of what the expectations are so
23:02Just kind of showing you some of the inner workings of how we plan and strategize transitions, the target.
23:07Everything is organized and everything is is executed. So that’s pretty cool. So visual merchandising is about bringing company’s vision to life, and we have a lot of brands that we we do do that with beauty is the next thing I wanted to talk about
23:22Beauty is something that per square footage at Target. We do more sales per square foot than any other square foot store so
23:30You know the average square footage at a target we mentioned we have 180 6000 square feet. If you could put $1 amount every one of those square feet beauty would take the cake. It is our biggest and highest volume.
23:43From a sales standpoint money wise it is the biggest moneymaker per square foot. So, beauty is something target is investing heavily in
23:50You can see Jessica Alba up here. She’s one of the creators and believe she’s still affiliated with honest beauty then also on a spray in diapers.
23:59This area over here is a beauty blow out area. You can see this in Shreveport, I believe they launched this at Lake Charles, as well. We will be getting this setup next year, which is very much kind of like a Sephora.
24:12kind of vibe going on and we have beauty concierge so we’re going to invest heavily in beauty and then we’re buying into beauty brands like a beauty, which is like a Korean beauty company for skin.
24:23Target is very interested in acquiring its own brands and taking partners with exclusive beauty brands because obviously, it is a huge market for us.
24:32Any questions before I move to the next slide, whether it be about visual merchandising or beauty.
24:39Or maybe it’s a question you have that would pertain to like how we bring that stuff to life for leadership.
Unknown Speaker
24:45Yeah, I have a question. Um, cuz I I’ve set up VM us before. And I was just wondering like how with how many employees you have
24:57manage all those people trying to put all that stuff together. Yeah.
William.Fairburn (T1473)
25:03Great question. So we have transition meetings during our business unit Statuses like this week, in particular, I actually met with my
25:12Specialty sales leader and we came up with a plan for how we’re going to transition hurts and hand for the 1025 set
25:19We decided who the key personnel. We’re going to be on that set like who was going to be responsible for signing. How many hours. And so they’re going to take, which I know that hurts in hand takes 22 hours to reset fully
25:31So I need to equip 22 hours worth of labor with people that are specialized and know what they’re doing to set
25:37That one time, but also bring the company’s vision to life. So the company does a great job of breaking things down and making it kind of a manageable workload, because if you go to Minnesota
25:47They actually have this giant building next to headquarters and it’s a it’s a public building
25:53And what is a public building. It is a giant building with fixtures in it and people stay in there all day and they try to build these things and put these visions to life.
26:03So for them to put a time or a goal on some kind of transition, they actually do it in this Paul building and they come up with times that it took them to actually build it.
26:14With all the tools and fixtures. So we get time on everything at Target. And we have this pope building next to headquarters, where they actually
26:21It’s like they put the box. The Legos together before we do, and then let us know how long it took them to do that. And then they also learn as they’re building those things for stores, what mistakes they made along the way so
26:32We’re able to gain efficiencies. Because of this, this planet Graham team at headquarters, that does nothing all day but built stuff like
26:39Like I just described to you, but it’s a very mindful act of planning and strategizing and we do that every week before we publish the schedule on Thursdays.
26:47If I know we have a hurtin handle reset on 1025 which is a schedule making two weeks out. I can tell you every day of the week when those people are working, who’s working. And then, when is the point of completion. So we can go validate that they did a good job. Does that make sense
Dr. Tammy Hall
27:04Well, you might have a question for you. How
27:07You have definitely talked about the importance of planning how far in advance do the headquarters team work that’s a
William.Fairburn (T1473)
27:16Great question. So buyers that by our lines of like products. We’re going to carry during Christmas. They’re, they’re working six months out. Usually they’re buying like they bought Christmas this year.
27:29A couple months ago. So we have an exclusive partnership with FAO Schwarz toys this year that partnership was signed off on and like June.
27:38For something that we’re going to be rolling out in December, Atlanta Graham teams for like this. They usually work a quarter ahead so like if
27:45They’re going to be like in Christmas time when we’re in Christmas time our headquarters partners are setting Easter.
27:52Like they’re they’re working in setting planet grams for Easter, because we know we have to transition straight or even Valentine’s.
27:59You know, we have to we have to transition from Christmas and Easter and Valentine’s. So they’re working about a quarter ahead of us.
28:06If that makes sense. And then we are always trying to work a week ahead when our product is coming in to the stores. So we can go straight from truck to shelf.
28:16So our goal is to remain a week ahead with presentation.
28:20To make sure that product that was straight from tractor shelf and we don’t have to hold on the product in our back room. We can set it a week early as long as I’m not street data.
28:27But there’s a lot of different departments working towards the same goal, which is stability and bringing targets vision to life. It just really depends upon what their role is and
28:39That kind of decides how far out there, planning, but for all intensive purposes myself I plan 18 months out
28:46So I can tell you who is going to be managing what department 18 months out, I have a succession plan that I review with my HR business partner. I do that once a month.
28:56And if I have any problem leaders or leaders that I would consider inconsistent performers
29:01There’s an end date on when I probably should have them out the door, as far as their performance not meeting expectations, just as much as if I know I’m going to have an opening because somebody is transferring
29:12I can tell you that or if I’m working on somebody, promote ability and I’m trying to get them promoted a sore director. How much time do I need to do that. And then, who is my backfill
29:22For that person. So for a store standpoint I i plan out 18 months when it comes to people. I plan out two weeks out when it comes to transitions.
29:33I plan months in advance for situations like Black Friday and then daily i’m planning and executing things as they just come up. So there’s a lot of different
29:45Ways that I plan, but it’s all all from the same place of just making this thing runs stable and and also having a plan for the future
Dr. Tammy Hall
29:55Great, thank you.
Emily Fontenot
29:57Um, I had a question. So like a manager over the managers are like what I guess I’m confused exactly like what your role is like
William.Fairburn (T1473)
30:06You know, I’m a store. Yeah.
30:08I’m the store director, so
30:09As far as I guess you could say a store.
30:11Hierarchy. There’s nobody higher ranking in the store than me.
30:14So my job.
30:15Is to make sure that my 10 salary members of management my 30 some odd team leaders and my 350 employees.
30:24Are bringing targets vision to life and we’re running a stable store and we’re profitable that we are doing all the things that we need to do.
30:33To be 100 million dollar store because it takes an army to do that. So my my responsibilities are running total store operationally financially and culturally I’m responsible for it all good, bad and ugly.
30:46That make sense. Yeah, okay. I do have aspirations to be a
30:50district manager, though, which would mean I would manage anywhere between 10 to 15 targets.
30:55Anywhere between 500 million and a billion dollars in business. That’s, that’s kind of where I want to go with my career with target. So
31:01Hopefully able to do that sometime and i think i definitely can. If I take, take the feedback and continue to get the store where it needs to be. That’s kind of where I want to go with my career with target better distribution.
Emily Fontenot
31:16Sorry, it doesn’t mean that you’re kind of like asked to do or do you like apply for that, or what’s like how do you
William.Fairburn (T1473)
31:21Oh yeah, it’s, it’s kind of a
31:24If you are doing a great job with target. We are all about promoting performance. We don’t promote on potential. So you have to have a very stable store with good financials stable store with good operations, a stable store with good
31:41Pretty much anybody can come in after me. What is my legacy. Can somebody come behind me and have a really easy run or is my store held together.
31:49With bad routines and kind of like people muscling processes. So a lot of taking into consideration if I’m going to apply for a position like district team leader.
31:59Then I have to have the results that are indicative of that kind of leadership, because the thought processes. If I can’t run a stable target myself.
32:07Who am I to tell 10 other people to 15 other people how to run a target. So it’s kind of a you’re asked to do it, but you also have to have the results that lead to that and then let it be known what your career aspirations are during
William.Fairburn (T1473)
32:54Right, right. So yeah, if you, who am I to tell 10 other highly educated people how to run a Super Target or any kind of target any kind of business.
33:05If I myself. Can’t do it myself. So target is very much about taking people that are store directors having them show that they can do the job effectively.
33:13And then we lead at a higher level, where it’s less of me managing one store and more of me being able to maximize efficiencies in 10 to 15 locations. So it really does take the results to get you to the table and then them feeling good about your ability to lead at that kind of level.
33:32So target big food business this store location does about 40% of its sales and grocery we have our own brand of wine, which is target roots, which is a $5 wine company $5 bottle of wine, which is actually pretty decent.
33:48We have good and gather, which is one of our brands and then we have this is what a normal grocery section should look like at Target.
33:55Which is fresh abundance and bold we call the acronym fab.
33:59Fashionable and bold so Food safety is a huge deal at Target. We do not want to get anybody sick and we don’t certainly want to make the news for the wrong reasons, if anybody remembers you know Triple J got in a lot of trouble for
34:11For quite a few people getting sick and they’ve had a lot of trouble recovering because of that. So, food safety is super important.
34:23This is tech and tech is a good example of how tight target is diversifying so six years ago when I reported to the store. We had six aisles of CDs and DVDs.
34:36Or close to 10,000 CDs and DVDs. Now, to this day, we’re down to two aisles of CDs and DVDs. We actually have more vinyl than we do anything because that’s what younger people are buying now as vinyl
34:48We have taken our tech department and we have built it to be less physical and more digital. And what I mean by that is we now have a lot of digital options. And then we also have a lot of smart tech that we sell now.
35:03What’s interesting about our tech department is that we are selling we’re focused on the experience. We’re also focused on selling things like nest. We’re focused on selling things like Ringing doorbells home security.
35:16Whereas if you looked at a target, six years ago it was it was a lot different of a footprint. So we are constantly transforming and reimagining square footage in our store to meet customer needs and customer wants.
35:29And that’s what makes target really successful is that we have 186,000 square feet here. Yes.
35:34But buying behaviors as those change. We are absolutely evolving with what customers want and need. So our big thing is we sell clothing. We sell food we sell tech
35:45You know, if you work at a place like Best Buy all you sell is electronics, primarily, how do you compete. How do you evolve your business model when you sell one thing
35:54That’s why a lot of clothing stores are really struggling. You look at Macy’s Kohl’s
35:58There’s shuttering stores closing down because
36:01People are buying clothing online and seasonally. We’ve had some really hot winners, it creates a lot of loss.
36:07So target is a great company because we are very diverse and dynamic and what we sell and we can meet the customers where they’re at and what they want.
36:15And because we have a lot of diversity and what we sell just like stocks, we don’t have all of our, our eggs in one basket. We very much diversify what we sell
36:23And that makes us very profitable. So yes, we are a clothing store, but we’re also a tech store grocery store where everything and allows us to compete with places like Amazon. Any questions on tech or like diversifying Sales. Sales for
36:44Cool.
36:45Um, so this last slide is about kind of our, our focus on towards the future. We want to hire the best talent and we want to treat people. Well, you know, our rate of pay has gone up to $15 an hour.
37:00Which is pretty competitive when you look at the retail landscape. When I first arrived at the store in six years. Our average rate of pay was $8 and 25 cents.
37:09And now it’s 15 an hour. So do I think 15 an hour is like the best. No, but do I think it’s a step in the right direction. Absolutely. I think there are plenty of retailers out there that could or should
37:23Increase their pay for their employees and their benefits or employees, but at this point in time, especially coded. They do not have the capital to adapt and evolve in the ways that they need to to retain top talent.
37:34And I think you’ll continue to see target increase its, its rate of pay for employees and expand upon its benefits for its employees, such as providing health care.
37:43Providing 401K, you know, target matches 5% of your 401K and even team members can apply for a 401k.
37:51So we have a lot of great benefits at Target. And I think it’s part of it is because we are a retailer and a fortune 500 company with a conscience.
38:00You know, we do a lot of philanthropy here this store in particular is almost at 2000 hours volunteered in our local community.
38:07We do everything from going to St. Joseph’s diner to feeding the homeless to go into schools to do makeovers and remodels to helping support.
38:16Your local youth or even kids with their homework at bridge ministries. I mean, you name it. We’ve done it, we go to a Katie Anna animal aid and we’ll go walking animals.
38:27We are absolutely about community service and I’m the district 353 captain for that. So I’m very passionate about community and it’s something that I do every single week. So I love, love, love volunteering.
38:39And I’ll show you a magazine in a second. But that kind of concludes the slides that I was supposed to present to you guys. So I’m going to turn my camera back around and then I’ll be open to any questions you may have.
Ashlee Hannie
38:55I have a question. Um, do offer all those benefits to all of your employees or just certain ranks of employees
William.Fairburn (T1473)
39:05Know we offer some form of benefits to all employees as far as like hourly associates. If you I think you have to have six months to service.
39:14But with after six months of service you qualify for full health benefits. So we absolutely provide some form of benefit for every team member
39:23We have target life resources that provides for any team member five free sessions of therapy as far as like counseling, we have
39:33That if you call that target life resources number, it also will if you’re in a domestic violence relationship or you’re you’re you’re having problems with depression.
39:43They will absolutely get you in touch with the right people and support you. I myself a couple years back, had great depression and call target life resources and they gave me five free therapy sessions.
39:56So we have a lot of that. We also have the target nurses line which is available 24 seven for Target employees to call and say, hey, my kid just ate a bunch of toothpaste. What do I do. Do I need to take them to the emergency room.
40:08So my wife may or may not have called that number a lot with my kids, but we offer things like Target nurses line which is available all team members. We also have I’m looking at my phone right now we have an app. And I don’t want to butcher it. But we have a new Tele doc.
40:27Application now that we can use to talk to doctors text doctors directly and all team members have access to that. So target is a very good company to work for because we have great benefits.
40:39And it’s not just the people at the top, it’s, it’s all team members have some form of benefit by working here. Good question.
Dr. Tammy Hall
40:50So when we talk about leadership as it relates to the leader their skills followers their skills and their motivation and satisfaction and we also talked about situations.
41:01Speaking specifically about your followers and your team right now what are, what are some things that stand out to you about your team, I guess, in terms of strengths and then maybe overarching areas that they may need to work on as a team.
William.Fairburn (T1473)
41:15Yes. So I think what’s interesting is with Kobe.
41:19There wasn’t exactly a playbook for that when this first started I would say in March, we kind of had to learn as we we went
41:26And then the company started really supporting stores to make sure that we were
41:31staying safe that we had enough mass for our team members that you know we were providing a great safe shopping experience. So we never closed during the pandemic. We have never closed, but we have taken a really, really.
41:47Deliberate stance on providing safety for our team. And that’s true, providing them with the equipment and tools and what they need. We’ve spent $10 million in the first three months of the pandemic.
41:57Re equipping stores with mask sanitizer classic last little bubbles that say, Stand six feet away.
42:05So I think one of the challenges of my leadership team is performing with a lot of ambiguity during 2020 nothing has been, I would say normal
42:16We’ve had to deal with everything from civil unrest, even in Lafayette, like we had a bright behind our store. They had PROTESTS GOING ON.
42:24So how do we handle that, you know, how do we handle that ambiguity. So I think the challenge for my leadership team is
42:30Being able to be decisive and make decisions that protect the team and protect our customers and then understanding that we’re not going to have all the answers for that. And it’s okay.
42:41But we’re, we’re going to be vulnerable and we’re going to do the right things to protect our team and protect our guests. So I think one of the challenges is 2020. How do you respond to ambiguity. How do you make decisions on the fly.
42:53That protect people and keep people safe and that I think another challenges with the
Daniel Wahlen
42:58Retail landscape.
William.Fairburn (T1473)
42:59Nobody could have told me at the beginning of this year that we would be breaking $100 million and that we would be taking
43:06More so the month of April, we had more digital orders every day then Cyber Monday.
43:12Was last year. So, what I mean is like Cyber Monday is usually the biggest day for digital orders in the month of April.
43:18Every single day in the month of April, we did more volume than Cyber Monday. So how do we respond to something like that. Like, how do we
43:26Move and re appropriate resources and train people to handle so many uncertainties. So I think it’s really performing as we transform and being able to be resilient and adaptable.
43:39That has been a big challenge for my team this year. And I’m really happy to say that they have done an incredible job leading through such uncertainty, I would say, is the big challenge right now.
Dr. Tammy Hall
43:50How do you as a leader.
43:53inspire them empower them already get them there.
William.Fairburn (T1473)
43:58So I will tell you one of the things that I like to do is, you know, meet my team where they’re at.
44:05You know, making sure that I am available to them for them to tell me, hey, I’m not having a good day and being vulnerable enough to say, you know what, I’m not on either
44:16And so I think part of it is being vulnerable and letting them know. Like, it’s okay, it’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to have that days like we all do.
44:25But as far as the motivating factor. I think it’s different per person, you know, some people I can motivate with, like, kind of like the rah rah approach like
44:36A football coach almost and then some people require like compliance kind of motivation, like, not everybody is committed, you know. And so for me it’s like
44:45I’ve got to be able to identify what that person needs to to do what they need to do.
44:50And if I need to motivate them through commitment and I can do that, then that’s the way that I’m always going to approach it, because I think servant leadership and committed leadership.
44:59And not leading through fear is 100%. The best way to motivate people
45:04And I think when you start leading through compliance, you have to start asking yourself like
45:09Why isn’t this person committed, why aren’t they responding to commitment. Why are we always having to go back to the same conversations are they not accountable, or do they not have the capacity
45:19You know, identifying what is the causation. So I think motivating people is different based on how people respond to feedback. But I also think it’s it’s
45:29It’s kind of individual with how I approach motivating people. It depends on the person. And it depends on what they’re struggling with, but
45:36I prefer commitment based leadership over compliance based leadership 100% of the time, but I do at times have to go to compliance leadership.
45:44If the results aren’t there because my job is to get results. And that’s, that’s why I’m here is to create stability but also continue to make target a profitable company.
Dr. Tammy Hall
45:54Yeah, it’s funny you say that about 10 students in this this section took me in the intro course and we used to teach out of a book that
46:04I love to teach out of and it’s the five dysfunctions of a team.
46:08And so they know about, you know, you have to be vulnerable in order to to go on a trust they know that you know teams have to work through conflict and you have to work through that lack of commitment and then accountability comes and then they
46:20They know the annotation to results as well. Can
46:23Really destroy a team. So I’m glad that you highlighted some of those things and just you know you speaking about some of the challenges.
William.Fairburn (T1473)
46:31Absolutely.
46:34Absolutely. What other questions do you guys have
James Sigue II
46:41I noticed you had said that target promotes on performance.
46:47Performance being is that more like work related, you know, the ability to get work done or do y’all look for more like you know like leadership type skills like how
46:57Um, how subordinates, you know, influence others to work, you know, bringing them to teamwork and you know just motivating other team members.
William.Fairburn (T1473)
47:07You know, I think we look at it from a couple different areas. I think when it comes to like what I’m looking forward to promote somebody
47:14It’s it’s it’s three things like, do they have the commanding presence and a commanding presence means do people want to follow that leader. Do they have trust in that leader does this person. Do they have sweat equity, like, have they earned
47:29The right to kind of
47:30lead others because one they’re competent in what they’re doing but to they they are willing to step in and be servant leaders when they need to be. And that could be because we have call outs. Well, my office is dark.
47:45Yeah. So it could be that the person is
47:51You know, I’m looking for capabilities. Like, do they have the does a team with the tower. The team respond to that person. Do they have a commanding presence to
48:00How do they handle uncertainty and ambiguity. Are they able to make decisions and be resilient enough to handle it.
48:06Or is this a leader. I’m gonna have to worry about that would crumble under pressure, like what is, what are they made up. What is their grit. Are they able to handle, you know, in the way that I figured that out is by giving them assignments that put them in a position to have to be
48:21Resilient you know that could be anything from leading a project in the back room to rebuilding a stockroom to managing a small team.
48:28There are plenty of times where I’ll give you know team members, an opportunity to step up and show me what they’ve got. How do they communicate how do they get the buy in from the team.
48:37Communication is probably most commonly an area that I hear people wish they had more of is communication. So, can they communicate effectively.
48:47Is the way that they communicate to somebody in their, in their mid 60s, the same way as they communicate to somebody that’s a teenager or young adult
48:55So we perfect we we promote based on performance in the sense that, like can they get the result. But how they get the result is equally, if not more important.
49:06Like I would really like to have a manager that can get the results without instilling fear in the team or intimidation. So how you get there is as important as getting there.
49:16And I think for me it’s
49:17It’s promoting somebody based upon their, their ability to get results, but how they get the result is equally as important
Cal W.
49:28I have a question. And this isn’t really something you touched on is just something I’ve always wondered
49:34Um, so I know a lot of stores, not, not just necessarily Target stores in general, it’ll be like November 1 and all the Christmas stuff is up. I was just wondering, Is it profitable for you guys to put Christmas stuff up so far away from Christmas.
William.Fairburn (T1473)
49:54You know, it depends on the market. I would say in Lafayette. Yes. Because people start decorating early
50:00But I think it’s, it’s less about
50:03You know, at that point, it’s less about profitability and it’s more about practicality and we have all this stuff coming in, whether we want it or not. And we’ve got so many toys and other things coming into our stores during Q4, because it’s our peak season that there are certain departments.
50:18That we need to clearance out early. Whether it be like
50:20Halloween or on and patio.
50:22To set Christmas to get our stock rooms to be more efficient and not be holding on all that because all this straight is coming from a distribution center.
50:31That distribution centers, getting product in from China. It’s getting product in from all over the world.
50:35And just the amount of like we averaged 40 to 50 pallets of just Christmas when we first set it.
50:41Times 1800 stores. So it’s more about getting it set in a timely fashion and making more space for all the stuff that’s coming in throughout the world to get us ready for Q4, so it’s more about getting our back rooms and
50:56Our distribution centers empty.
50:59To make space for all the other product that’s coming in because before Black Friday.
51:03You know weeks before months before we’re starting to get freedom for that event. It’s not something that can arrive, the day before, like it’s so much and we do a million and a half dollars on Black Friday here. So for our store to hold that kind of freight, we have to have space and
51:16And sometimes we have to make decisions to clearance things out and set things early to make that space
Cal W.
51:23Another question I have is, how do you personally like manage Black Friday, having such a huge store.
51:31How do you manage that that
51:33Like influx of people just running
William.Fairburn (T1473)
51:36So we have a crowd management plan, which I go through with my Asset Protection Manager, I
51:41Had it on my desk yesterday. It’s basically what is our game plan for Black Friday to keep people safe and it’s like I think eight pages long.
51:49So with my Asset Protection Manager. We go through and create a crowd management plan and that’s to focus on safety when it comes to logistics, you know, we have
51:58A store map where we have placement of all of our merchandise and that’s something I work on with my sales for leaders on is to like place merchandise on the floor and where it’s going to go. And then how are we going to get it.
52:08Off the floor when it goes empty when it comes to human resources, I’m focused on making sure my team is having lunches, and we have food for the team referring events for like that. So I think it’s really around and you can kind of see
52:21It’s around leveraging all my people and what they specialize in to help bring that that big data life it’s it’s about spinning mindful time with each leader and then delegating things to them that are within their frameworks to bring to life.
52:37Because every leader matters on Black Friday and to make that thing work. It takes a lot of collaboration and a lot of planning.
52:44But I don’t honestly Black Friday’s easiest day of the year for me because so much planning goes into it. It’s fun, it’s exciting.
52:51It’s adrenaline rush you know we breaking a million, a half dollars in one day is a big deal.
52:56And it’s just a lot of planning. So I think, you know, if you don’t have a plan, plan to fail, you know, and poor planning on my behalf as an emergency on somebody else’s so
53:05I always. I’m trying to think ahead and plan ahead and make sure that we have everything in common for and we also have guides to help us as well