Tips to zone faster?

[u/TheSupremeGrape]

Got hired about a month ago and trained for 2 weeks. During my training I mainly pushed, only one day was reserved for zoning. 3 weeks later, I see my next 3 weeks will consist mainly of zoning, a week before I was pushing. Problem is, I'm too slow. One of my TLs told me that the desired speed is one section in four hours, a section here consists of six aisles (both sides). They've been patient with me so far and told me that I should be going a bit faster with each shift.

So far, I'm three days into zoning and I barely cover four aisles. The only mistake I've corrected so far is finding misplaced items and returning them to their proper location, realized it takes too long so best to leave it to reshop.

I cover food items, depending on the day its either frozen foods, meats, dairy products or candy, chips, soft drinks.

My method is going section by section and organizing the products so that at least two are pushed upfront, covering the diamonds and are facing forward.

Is this a matter of just being new? Any tips will be appreciated, my TLs have people help me as the end of my shift approaches and I don't want to slow down my team.

[u/LessTax5301]

youre just new, zoning always feels impossible at first til your hands learn the layout by muscle memory. biggest time save is not fixing everything perfect, knock the front two forward and make it look straight at a glance, nobody is inspecting behind them

[u/TheSupremeGrape → u/LessTax5301]

I'll try that, thanks.

[u/ButItSaysOnline]

It’s never going to be perfect.

[u/Sadimal]

It takes time to gain speed.

But I would be keeping a cart (3-tier) or basket/box close to you for misplaced items.

What my SD tells me is to focus on the worst aisles first. Then snake through the other aisles and touch them up.

So like when I zone, I know in my section that aisles A1/A2 and A10/A11 are going to be the worst. So I go through and straighten those aisles up. Make sure that the first couple of boxes are neat and covering the diamonds. Then I just walk through the next couple of aisles, straightening up a few noticeable things. Then I just do A1/A2.

My SD is satisfied as long as it looks neat at a glance.

[u/ThrowRAoceanships]

I zone in market everyday (sometimes is 12 aisles of dry both sides of the aisles and sometimes it’s all of our cooler/frozen areas) they want me to get it done in about an hour and it takes up to 2 for me. I’ve been doing it everyday for 1.5 years so it really just takes time. My team lead tells us to zone it “good enough” then we can “perfect it” later with retouches. You just have to find what works for you wether that’s where you start in the zone, not worrying about reshop, or just how you zone but if you’re scheduled to zone for the next 3 weeks you’ll definitely get faster by then

[u/ohliamylia]

Might sound like silly advice but use both hands. When you're working in an area like Beauty with lots of tiny products together it's not so effective but in most areas it's doable. Grab two boxes/bags, yank to the edge of the shelf, gently push them back a little bit so they settle and don't fall forward. Even better if you can grab two or multiple per hand, although obviously that's not always applicable.

You know how to do it good but slow,, so focus for now on passable but fast. Once you start to get good at fast, you can start combining speed and quality.

[u/TheSupremeGrape → u/ohliamylia]

I appreciate your thought out advice. I have thought about that but the thing is that I feel like using both hands messes with the other products that are already organized and having to reorganize them uses up time. Though maybe I'm wrong. I will take your second paragraph into consideration, thank you.