Store Manager
The Co-operative Group (The Co-op)

Chris G

00:00:03 Chris G, store manager, the Co-op in Tweedmouth. It’s mainly the day to day running of the supermarket, like, I’ll come in in the morning, I’ll walk the floor, check everything’s ready for the customers to come through the doors and then it’s just about managing all the staff within the store.

00:00:26 Well when I left school I’d done my GCSEs and like CSEs and I’d done, like, a YTS scheme which was for the Duke of Northumberland. I’d done that for a year, it was to do with fencing and doing outdoors, like, work for farming and agricultural and then after that there wasn’t, like, a placement for us so, like, I spent probably about three-six months which I was on the…claiming benefits and then my Mum actually got us a job working part time within a supermarket chain. So, I’d done, like, part time work for, like, about a year and then progressed from there really and just moved up the ladder and I found there was loads of opportunities within the stores.

00:01:23 I have had numerous managers who have helped us develop and, like, they’ve identified weaknesses in me work role and I’ve, like, built on it to develop. I was quite quick at being a butcher and my butchery manager would say I was quicker than, like, some of the other ones. He would, like, come across and, like, ask us if I wanted to go and help in different stores and then he would, like, put us on a training package which would help us to develop into a supervisor.

00:002:05 The communication side of it is key to my role. Being able to talk to people and listen to them is a lot to do with it as well. I think just getting results and that from my work related prizes and setting standards and, like, keeping it at the standard that I would set and not lowering my standard to somebody else’s. So, it’s more about developing people to bring them to a higher standard. There was one deputy manager I had when I was a department manager and he sort of ruled by, like, fear sort of thing, because it was, like, 10 years ago. I think the main thing was he was trying to knock your confidence, he wouldn’t help people develop so it kind of brought me on to believe that the staff below you are the ones that you need to develop to make your job easier. So, it kind of backfired on him but it helped me in the long run.

00:03:22 One of my store managers asked us that when I was working for a different company and I said, at the time I said, “I want to be store manager,” and he actually laughed at us so that kind of brought us on to prove him right but he’ll not know now because he works for a different company. But I would say probably the next level, so, like, an operations manager.

ENDS