As the Lead Job Family Manager for Customer Experience, I hold ultimately accountability for the teams working on our Front End/Customer Services, Petrol Filling Station, Administrative and Compliance functions in a high trade intensity supermarket. Day-to-day, I am responsible for:• Leading, coaching and motivating a team of Job Family Managers and a large team of colleagues to deliver excellent business outcomes through talent planning and development. • Supporting managers with their behavioural and technical development. • Serving as a member of the store senior leadership team, deputising in the absence of the Store Manager. • Managing complex Employee Relations issues including grievances, gross misconduct, performance and capability cases. • Being a point of escalation for colleague issues. • Developing manager capability to increase their confidence in managing absence, conduct and capability with success reflected in improved performance and absence measures. • Creating a high performing teams culture where colleague feel empowered and accountable to fulfil their potential. • Creating and delivering the workforce plan, taking a longer term view of trading activities. • Successful implementation of new ways of working to drive productivity and cost efficiencies, such as the implantation of Future Front End. • Working collaboratively with stakeholders inside the store and across the wider business to remove barriers to success.

As a Food Production Manager, my role was to lead a team of skilled Bakers and Food Services Assistants across a high trade intensity Counters and Bakery department. In practice, this involved:• Transforming a department which was in initially experiencing significant operational challenges. • Supporting colleagues through change by successfully implementing a new operating model across our Hot Food counters, reducing Counters labour by 35% without impacting sales or availability. • Overseeing the colleague labour plan, matching colleague hours to customer demand and owning the full employee life cycle from recruitment, inductions, training disciplinary and dismissal. • Increasing our number of skilled bakers from 2 to 7 through excellent planning and targeted colleague development. • Consistently delivering In-Store Bakery availability targets through great production planning, collaboration with picking teams and clear lines of accountability. • Delivering the highest Hot Food sales on the region consistently and continuously beating year-on-year targets. • Achieving great colleague engagement, measured through regular company colleague engagement surveys where colleague happiness was rated above company average. • Ensuing excellent department standards resulting in a 5* Food Hygiene rating following a visit from the Food Standards Agency and a 100% Focussed Compliance Testing result from our internal auditors. • Acting as an operational expert for Food Production and supporting in sharing best practices across the region.

As the Customer and Trading Manager for Groceries Online, I worked alongside another manager to lead a team of 90 colleagues across an operationally complex departments. Responsibilities and achievements included:• Implementing new processes for Fleet Management through great end-to-end processes resulting in thousands of pounds of savings to the store’s profit and loss account. • Delivering the expansion of the department from 5 vans to 7, planning for the recruitment of, and leading the process of employing additional drivers and pickers in an ambiguous context where there was minimal guidance whilst achieving sales and labour cost targets. • Delivering great performance conversations to drive increased items per hour scores. • Taking a keen interest in Risk Management, achieving 100% Focus Compliance Testing internal audits and visiting other stores to share best practice. • Ensuring resources were thoroughly planned in line with budget through great scheduling routines. • Looking after the induction, training and on going development of colleagues. • Successfully developing a colleague to secure a place on the Leading Starts Here cohort through targeted behavioural and technical development sessions. • Supporting colleagues to embrace new ways of working to improve On Time Departures metrics and deliver consistently good performance thereafter.

Initially starting in store as a part-time replenishment colleague, I quickly became full-time and moved on to new departments to expand my skill set. Most of my time as a colleague involved working as Front End Support (Checkout Supervisor) and I became a job expert for the Petrol Filling Station where I supported in completing safe and legal checks and coaching other colleagues. In 2020, I was successfully nominated for the Leading Starts Here development cohort, a 6 month programme designed to support high potential colleagues transition into their first substantive management role.