Marks & Spencer people director Sarah Findlater has just finished a three-month stint working in store again.
Findlater, who has been at Marks & Spencer for 26 years after joining through the graduate recruitment scheme, spent three months working at the Brooklands branch in Surrey.
She tells Retail Week about what she learned – and most importantly what she’s doing – as a result of her experience.
What made you spend three months on the shopfloor?
“As we think about reshaping M&S for growth, our culture is right at the heart of that.
“We are trying to drive a culture that’s closer to customers as well as closer to colleagues. Because this is at the heart of everything we do, I wanted to get a fresh immersion into how it really feels at the sharp end.
“Stuart [Machin, chief executive] and I were my in my review conversation. We talked about how for me to be the best people director possible, I needed to understand how it feels. What are the opportunities? What’s going on in our colleagues’ lives? Our customers’ lives? What do they really need? How can M&S help our people be their best? And how can we help serve our colleagues and our customers better?”
“I do loads of listening groups. I’m out in stores a lot, but I think I recognised that to do it for an intense period would give me a real reality check on how it felt and get properly close.
“I did every single role in the store. So I spent time as a customer assistant. I went through our induction process, I was in the fitting room, I was gap-scanning on food, I was unloading the lorry. Then I spent time as a team manager and as a store manager.
What did you learn in that time?
“There were some things that weren’t a surprise – the pride our colleagues feel for our customers and how hard they work. I knew that and it just reinforced it.
“There were four big learnings. The first is that running a store is overly complicated and more complex than I’d realised. For example, we make our store teams report too much with endless KPIs. We’re quite process-heavy sometimes and that can take them away from their stores, their teams and their customers.
“Our store managers are currently overly focused on the implementation process, which is important, but not enough on trading, right? That’s a big area of opportunity where I’d like to see more empowerment, more thought around how we can trade and own their businesses.
“Our first level of team managers are managing 92% of our colleagues and our customer assistants – I describe them as being at the pointy end of everything. Being a first-line manager is hard and we’ve got to think hard about how we set those those colleagues up for success.
“Then there’s the difference that support centre colleagues can make when they lean in and when they think about the store operation in everything they do. It makes a massive difference.
“A small example: we had a colleague who joined us from the womenswear buying team, and every day she picked up off the floor the same wide-necked top because it just kept falling off the hanger. She’s redesigning that top next year with different loops so it stays on – that makes a massive difference to our productivity.
So, those changes are being implemented as we speak?
“We’ve implemented some and there are some we’re working on
“I’ve presented my findings back to our top 50 senior leaders in our support centre and asked them and their teams to join me and create a coalition for change.
“I’ve started to have colleagues contacting me saying, ‘Yeah, I’m in, I’d like to do that and this is how it may make it relevant for me.’
“For example, one of the processes I experienced was how you treat stock that’s soiled and damaged. We’ve got a brilliant app that does all that for you.
“We were already doing work on shelf-ready packaging and ticketing, but I’ve been able to bring to life some of what gets in the way.
“I want to support our store teams to find their voice and to be thinking about how am I creating the best place to work and a brilliant place to shop, and not get bogged down in the all the process at the expense of that bigger outcome.”
You’ve worked in store-based roles before. What made the difference this time and would you do it again?
“I think it was the length of time. It was the fact that I did every role and could see how all the processes joined up. I think if you just focus on one bit you can’t put it in context. I was able to put it in context and therefore to experience the unexpected – you know, when the escalator breaks down or the roof starts leaking, some of those challenges that you haven’t factored in are retail reality.
“I will absolutely make sure I am experiencing what it feels like to be on the end of the plans I’m leading for.
“I learned more than I thought so I want to make sure I keep this dialogue going.”
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