Lead Retail Manager - Womenswear

Lead Retail Manager (Interim)

Position Title

Lead Retail Manager

Reports To

General Retail Manager

Business Unit

Womenswear

Location

Knightsbridge

Date

August 2022

Our ambition is for Harrods to be the number one luxury department store in the world.  The role of the Lead Retail Manager, as the people leader of our exceptional team of Retail Managers is key to our success.

Delivering world class service is critical to us maintaining our market position – and we can only achieve that through our people.  Our people have to be; the most attentive, the most knowledgeable, the most customer focussed, the most industry and product aware of any other luxury retailer in the world.  That’s how we create our point of difference.  As a critical leadership role in the Division it’s your responsibility as Lead Retail Manager, to enable both your team of Retail Managers and your team of Sales people to deliver their very best work.

You’re at ease with building effective relationships with key stakeholders across Retail, Buying, Visual Merchandising and Operational teams to cut through noise, remove ambiguity and ensure your people are able to provide exceptional service always.  Pro-active and innovative in approach, you’re also relentlessly focussed on removing obstacles and finding easier and more effective ways to do things around here – always through a lens of “what’s best for the customer”.

You will take the Divisional plan for your area, set a clear vision and build, guide and support a credible team of experts to deliver on that vision – be that from a customer, colleague or trade perspective.  Acting as a role model at all times, you deliver results through inspiring others and through your natural coaching ability and your presence on the floor.  You know your team inside out and they know you too and you constantly strive to weave that Harrods magic wherever you are in the store.  

Leadership

• At Harrods, we believe that success is delivered through the success of your team – to do that its key to get to know every individual in your team and what support they need from you in order to do their best work.  You seek to understand them first before doing anything else
• You’ll also set the vision, standards and expectations for your team.  So that they know exactly what’s expected of them and how you and the business will help them to achieve those expectations, along with regular coaching and follow up to success
• Empowerment is key for a team to flourish.  Your team have enough freedom to move easily and at pace balanced with clear guidance and parameters in which they can work
• A great spotter of talent be that internally developing your RMs or Sales force into their next role – or externally sourcing exceptional candidates with the very best attitude, strengths and core values
• You’ll also work closely with the Divisional GRM and wider GRM network to develop talent, grow skills and make effective succession plans to protect the strength of the business
• Talking of being planful - you have a quarterly plan in place with the GRM and you’re always looking 2-3 months ahead.  Thinking about what’s coming up – be that people resource requirements, stock, space or any other type of resource your area needs to succeed
• Leading on colleague engagement, ensuring sensible, practical and achievable actions plans are put in place to “close the Loop” feedback.  Following up with RM’s to ensure good progress and that developments and improvements are shared back continually with the team
• Having an open door policy for all colleagues across your remit.  Your responsibility is wider than just your own direct reports.  You actively show your care for all colleagues at all levels
• Build and nurture effective relationships across internal functions and brand partners to be able to influence and take corrective action in the right way
• With a continuous improvement mindset, always looking for pro-active solutions, to eradicate issues at source and to be an ambassador for sharing best practice globally across retail networks

Customer

• Regularly reviewing NPS and ENPS comments and feedback to understand current challenges and opportunities to improve
• Actively talking to customers and following up on service failures to look for opportunities to recover the relationship
• Putting customer feedback discussions (ie rude and disengaged comments) at the top of your agenda for regular discussion with the team and drive cultural change
• Being a role model for exceptional luxury standards and helping the team to be creative and engaging in how they set the tone for dress for your day, cleanliness, VM and all other standards across the floor.  Finding ways to build deep engagement with customers and the brand so colleagues always deliver their best

Commercial 

• Accountable for monitoring own area of responsibility against financial objectives and taking corrective action where necessary. 
• Responsible for pushing the bar and challenging the status quo in all areas of responsibility and updating the General Retail manager  
• Partner the Buyer and General Merchandise Manager in sharing successes and identifying missed opportunities and agreeing a plan of action. 
• Work with the Divisional Merchandise Manager to capitalise on business opportunities and develop strategies to impact on underperforming departments as well as creating impact and footfall. 

Operations 

• Looking for engaging ways to cascade internal messaging either from Retail Leadership or Harrods overall.  Our people are only as good as the information they have.
• Being clear about company and operational standards in particular in relation to compliance.  Ensuring everyone in your remit is clear on their responsibilities and the part they play
• Partner the VM team to deliver exceptional and commercial VM standards within own area of responsibility. 
• Deliver any new initiatives, processes and procedures that affect retail operations as directed by the General Retail Manager. 
• Accountable for delivering the day to day and long term running of own area of responsibility through the team including delivering exceptional back of house standards. 
• Partner the Stock Operations Manager to ensure both retail and operations are aligned with the divisional strategy.  

Interim Structure

• Delivery of xxx

• Genuinely passionate about nurturing and developing colleagues
• Natural ability to engage and motivate your team through inspirational story-telling
• Proven experience of influencing and persuading key stakeholders into action.
• Emotionally intelligent and self-aware.  You have a good understanding of your own personal style, skills, and preferences and what to dial up or dial down to suit 
• Skilled at performance coaching.  You get a kick out of helping others develop and succeed – either successfully in your Division or where needed, laterally into a role that’s a better fit.   
• Skilled influencer who can demonstrate using your skills to make improvements and work effectively in a matrix model to achieve results.  You’re the kind of person who thrives and gets a buzz from managing stakeholders and winning together 
• Linked to the above, an active contributor.  You care about the success of Harrods Retail as a whole and constructively challenge to make it better 
• Resilient, tenacious and genuinely open to development feedback.  Continually adapting your style to get the best outcomes for your people, customers and for the business 
• Have an affinity for data driven decisions.  Your style is to embrace all data and insight as you have the ability and confidence to use this to inform relevant actions  
• Agile in your thinking and comfortable with ambiguity and change – if you have experience of leading through change too, so much the better.  We need you to help colleagues navigate the next evolution of our business and shape our thinking 
• Commercially astute.  We’re a business built on sales performance.  This role is integral to delivering stretching and exciting sales growth 
• Conscientious.  Your sense of pride means from standards to performance to looking after your people, you always do the right thing – even when no one is looking