When I talk about our plan to reshape M&S for growth, I often talk about our progress in executing our transformation. Investing in new stores, launching new products, bringing new innovation.
But it’s not just what we’re doing that’s important, it’s how we’re doing it – which is why building a high-performance, customer centric culture is a critical part of our plan. It’s also why we’re resetting our culture to put our customers and our colleagues truly at the heart of everything we do. We've got so much to do, but we've started to take some positive steps forward:
1) Getting closer to customers: all support centre colleagues spend seven days in store per year. This isn’t just popping in to say hello; this is a full shift of sleeves-rolled-up serving, selling, and filling - and coming back to the support centre with a learning or opportunity.
2) Updating our inductions: all new senior leaders spend one month working in a store before starting their roles, while all new graduates spend four months. So far this year, 24 new leaders have completed their placements (from our Strategy Director Dominic Maxwell to our Food Chief Commercial Officer Kara Greatorex) while 69 grads are currently midway through theirs.
3) Simplifying our operations: empowering our store managers and freeing up their time to focus on what’s important – serving, selling and filling. We've listened to them and moved from 42 KPIs to 6 key performance metrics. That way, they're not out the back filling out forms and ticking off checklists, they're out the front with colleagues and customers.
Leading this reset is Sarah Findlater, our People Director, who spoke to George MacDonald after spending three months ‘back to the floor’ at our Brooklands store recently.
As I always say, lots done, lots to do, lots of opportunity.
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