Christopher
My name’s Chris, I’m Commercial Manager at Preston Store.
My name’s Chris, I’m Commercial Manager at Preston Store. In the store, there’s about 200 Advisers and I have a span of control of around 90 people and I’ve got a Section Management team of six. My day-to-day I would say, is I come into the store in the morning, I make sure the delivery has gone out and that we are ready to trade. It’s really fast paced. A lot of my time is spent on my feet, I’m very busy and because of the size of the store as well, I’m actually working around different business units. And in my Commercial Management role as well, I’ve got to meet different people, at different times of the day. A lot of my job is around commercial probing and really driving sales, and it’s helping my team do that on a consistent basis.
I chose Marks & Spencer over other retailers, firstly, because of its reputation and the strength of its brand. So it was really important to me that Marks & Spencer considers its environmental stance. I also think that Plan A shows that Marks & Spencer leads in the market and it’s innovative. And in terms of other retailers, it really stands out for me.
I joined Manchester store and my first role was a Food Attachment. It was obviously going into the Christmas period, around September to December, so it was really busy and a lot of my time was spent on my feet. It was really fast-paced as well. I learnt loads because it’s completely different to any other time of the year. The pace of it’s so rapid and as I was working on the Ambient section which is all your confectionary, all your chocolates – and my job was a lot of that – I had to get everything out as fast as I could.
If you are determined, if you show initiative, I think with all those qualities then you will get a lot of responsibility, a lot of accountability from such an early stage. For me, that’s definitely been the case and I find it just means that I come into store every day and I’m still challenged and I’ve still got new things I’m learning about.
The best thing about working at Marks & Spencer for me is undoubtedly the people. At every different level that I have worked at through the grad scheme, I’ve experienced real determination, real passion, and commitment as well. That’s really important for me, for my day-to-day job because it makes my job easier and it just means that I’m working in an environment where everyone is committed and really focusing on the end goal. And, I love that…
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