I'm still a little confused how total efficiency is measured as related to IPM and tender time. Do those have some kind of flat values on them or is it all just about earning your ring/tender time on the register?
For example, when I got 106% efficiency for the week at the end of the day (no sale 96 sign on) my numbers looked like this:
40 IPM .45 TTPC (main lane)
34 IPM .36 TTPC (express)
36 IPM .32 TTPC (express)
35 IPM .44 TTPC (Main lane)
But then this current week when I got below 95% and they looked like this:
44 IPM .41 TTPC (express/main lane)
38 IPM .32 TTPC (express/main lane)
39 IPM .36 TTPC (express)
37 IPM .39 TTPC (main lane)
In other words, much better...what gives? However this week was less time spent on the register and smaller orders so less earned tender..should I be sacrificing speed than for earned tender and TTPC? Should I not be locking every time I breath lol? I'm trying to stop locking all together only after the order is done but now my numbers are looking like this:
33 IPM .55 TTPC !
Would it make sense to not hit total till they're ready to pay? (destroying IPM but improving TTPC drastically) ?
Honestly I'm starting to think numbers hardly matter at all, just matters if you are earning more ring/tender than time being used (produce,water,wic is great for this) and that customers don't take 7000 seconds to pay you..express is good for that but any enlightenment would be greatly appreciated!
-- Edited by Operations133 on Monday 16th of December 2013 06:03:46 PM
-- Edited by Operations133 on Monday 16th of December 2013 06:04:45 PM
your percentage effective is earned hours divided by ring tender hours
earned hours are based on your register action times using the ELMS labor standard from first scan until drawer closes or receipt prints depending on method of payment
ring tender hours are the real hours ringing and tendering took excluding the 10 seconds allowed between customers
you may be doing things that will mess you up like going into secure mode during a transaction, that trick which used to put the clock on hold, will triple your time.
remember items per minute doesn't necessarily reflect the earned time because everything has its own standardized time in the ELMS standard whether it's one time of card or another, a check, WIC, keying in a barcode, using the handheld, weight/size of an object scanned, etc.
just keep doing what you're doing, keep a steady pace. don't bag as you go on a big lane, don't talk too much because it'll slow your scanning and you won't realize it. once you've finished scanning hit Total & EFT if most customers pay by card.
some times they'll say ask "cash, check or card" first but i don't see much use in that for my store's shopping pattern.
you don't want to accidentally put the register in mode to frank a check with the wrong amount because they wrote it over because you can't back out and you've just created more work for the bookkeeper. i don't ask for the plus card first because customers will put one thing on the belt and dig for the card. a lot of times i don't have a bagger who can help unload or i'll have a manager yell at me if i'm doing it. or sometimes the customer wants to sort their order and unload it themselves. you'll pick up what behaviors work for your store's customer types. Senior day gets a spike in checks. Fridays and Mondays we get hit with lots of cash back in the morning. The express and sees lots of cash, so does overnight.
your percentage effective is earned hours divided by ring tender hours
earned hours are based on your register action times using the ELMS labor standard from first scan until drawer closes or receipt prints depending on method of payment
ring tender hours are the real hours ringing and tendering took excluding the 10 seconds allowed between customers
you may be doing things that will mess you up like going into secure mode during a transaction, that trick which used to put the clock on hold, will triple your time.
remember items per minute doesn't necessarily reflect the earned time because everything has its own standardized time in the ELMS standard whether it's one time of card or another, a check, WIC, keying in a barcode, using the handheld, weight/size of an object scanned, etc.
just keep doing what you're doing, keep a steady pace. don't bag as you go on a big lane, don't talk too much because it'll slow your scanning and you won't realize it. once you've finished scanning hit Total & EFT if most customers pay by card.
some times they'll say ask "cash, check or card" first but i don't see much use in that for my store's shopping pattern.
you don't want to accidentally put the register in mode to frank a check with the wrong amount because they wrote it over because you can't back out and you've just created more work for the bookkeeper. i don't ask for the plus card first because customers will put one thing on the belt and dig for the card. a lot of times i don't have a bagger who can help unload or i'll have a manager yell at me if i'm doing it. or sometimes the customer wants to sort their order and unload it themselves. you'll pick up what behaviors work for your store's customer types. Senior day gets a spike in checks. Fridays and Mondays we get hit with lots of cash back in the morning. The express and sees lots of cash, so does overnight.
Thank you so much for this bolded info!
I knew there had to be a reason one of our top cashiers didn't secure..I was like woah why not it stops the clock and her numbers always 'appear' bad but then always over 100% efficiency so I should have caught on to that but so many of us are used to doing that when nothing is happening (IE waiting for customer). I actually just recently started only securing after the transaction and yah my IPM dropped but IPM seems to not even be that important as long as you're scanning faster than 1.5 seconds per item that's allotted than you're good. I noticed my tendor got murdered though as I pointed out so I'm going to try to prompt for payment but our customers are so damn stubborn I know it's only going to work 20-25% of the time. But hey that's 25% more earned tender time so worth a try.
Also would sacrificing IPM even more by not hitting total till their ready to pay be beneficial since tendor > IPM for efficiency? Yah I got telelite's list of earned productivity time. So I'm guessing true efficiency in priority looks something like this:
1) Earned tender (type stuff in, grab those wic orders!)
2) actual tender time (TTPC)
3) IPM
My problem is #1 is largely reliant on the customer being ready with payment but hey that's with everyone else too so it's not like that's what's killing MY score. Even when I'm doing nothing so I unload all their groceries, scan their entire order they STILL delay on payment, guess that's the ghetto for yah. Again thanks for the tips, much appreciated!
-- Edited by Operations133 on Tuesday 17th of December 2013 02:45:33 PM
just keep doing what you're doing, keep a steady pace. don't bag as you go on a big lane, don't talk too much because it'll slow your scanning and you won't realize it. once you've finished scanning hit Total & EFT if most customers pay by card.
Oh one thing, I heard this was actually as bad as securing..at least at my store. Telling you these people take forever to pay so all you're doing is eating tender time. Plus are card readers are horrendous so usually I'm getting them a plastic bag to do the card trick or just watching them slide it over and over again. I'm going to try eating my IPM by waiting to hit total till after they're 100% ready to pay or I get a reading from their card. I don't really care about my IPM anymore, I've seen it all..40's, 50's even got 62 one day, doesn't matter at the end of the week (especially since that was mainly due to gun use, which is .4 earned vs 1.5 scan)
Btw why is securing in transaction so bad if it's stopping the clock? Is it because all it's doing is transferring your ring time to your tender time and negating the 10 seconds ELMS gives you for greet? That would make sense I guess, but triple is kinda mind-blowing..I've been wrecking my score then and so have many many others..
-- Edited by Operations133 on Tuesday 17th of December 2013 03:02:37 PM
Same here buddy. I'm a cashier and Idgaf about ring/tender. If they move me to another department, then I wouldn't mind it a single bit.
Lol hey man when you're getting 10-20 dollar gift cards it IS SRS BIZ :P
Nah, they don't do that anymore, they're slowly starting to move away from being ELMS obsessive and getting back to customer service..didn't you go to the mandatory customer service training class where it showed happy smiley cashiers scanning at 5 IPM making jokes about the weather lol?
-- Edited by Operations133 on Wednesday 18th of December 2013 01:33:16 AM
Ok, securing mid-order is not benefiting you at all because it is just slowing you down because you have to log back in to continue. Also, it doesn't transfer your time from ringing time to tender time; hitting total does this. However, whether you are running more on ring time or tender time is completely irrelevant because the only 2 things elms looks at are your earned times and your actual times used. Moving time from ring to tender time does nothing. Essentially you are going out of your way to have 45 sec of ring time and 15 sec of tender time vs. 35 sec of ring time and 25 sec of tender time; they both add up to 60 seconds.
This means you should be focusing less on your numbers from the 96-signon because they don't actually relate directly to your ring tender score numerically at all. They are just good very general indicators of performance.
Ok, securing mid-order is not benefiting you at all because it is just slowing you down because you have to log back in to continue. Also, it doesn't transfer your time from ringing time to tender time; hitting total does this. However, whether you are running more on ring time or tender time is completely irrelevant because the only 2 things elms looks at are your earned times and your actual times used. Moving time from ring to tender time does nothing. Essentially you are going out of your way to have 45 sec of ring time and 15 sec of tender time vs. 35 sec of ring time and 25 sec of tender time; they both add up to 60 seconds.
This means you should be focusing less on your numbers from the 96-signon because they don't actually relate directly to your ring tender score numerically at all. They are just good very general indicators of performance.
Exactly what I thought, thank you for confirmation. I had just heard somewhere though that IPM is something like .4 % efficiency where tender is 1.2% so sacrificing IPM for tender was more beneficial so I started to wait to hit total than tender. At the end of the week it is RING/TENDER so then what you're saying makes more sense.
Yah I dont' obsess over it anymore and what's funny is everyone else is starting to now. I just make sure I stay in the 30's IPM..if I dip to 20's I start picking up the pace and do less UPC keying and start totalling faster. If I see 60's on the bottom I start prompting (or rushing) customers for payment method..unload for them so they can get it ready. Other than that my days of wanting 40 / 30 ' s because I was securing like a mad man are over, thanks everyone for the help!
-- Edited by Operations133 on Wednesday 18th of December 2013 04:19:16 PM
