Target's Points System Punishes Symptoms, Not Precarity

Target is introducing a points system in September to track employee absences and lateness—a quarter point for eight minutes late, one point for skipping a shift, three points for no-call no-show. Termination at nine points.

The argument in favor is straightforward. Retail operations depend on predictable staffing. When workers don't show up or arrive late, coverage gaps ripple across a shift.

But notice what this argument takes for granted—it assumes the attendance problem is a motivation problem. That workers are choosing not to show up and need a clearer consequence to change their behavior. I've spent enough time watching how retail actually works to know this isn't where the real breakdown happens.

The actual reliability problem in retail isn't indiscipline. It's that Target, like most chains, schedules workers on call lists with variable hours, uncertain shifts. Wages that demand a second job to survive. A worker juggling two employers, childcare without backup. No buffer for illness or transportation failure isn't making a character choice when they're late or miss a shift—they're operating in a system designed to be precarious. A points system measures the symptom and calls it treatment.

A worker juggling two employers, childcare without backup, and no buffer for illness or transportation failure isn't making a character choice when they're late or miss a shift.

Target isn't understaffed because workers lack motivation. It's understaffed because understaffing is cheaper than maintaining stable employment. The scheduling volatility that creates unreliability isn't a side effect of the business model—it's the point. When you track behavior instead of fixing the conditions that produce it, you're not solving the problem. You're documenting it while keeping wages and payroll costs exactly where they are.

The question isn't whether the points system will improve reliability. It might, briefly, through selection bias—workers who can't absorb the penalty will leave, replaced by workers with fewer outside constraints. The question is what that replacement actually costs, and whether Target has any idea it's paying it.