Team Manager - Visual Merchandiser - Harrogate

As a Team Manager for Visual Merchandising, you’ll lead by example, work alongside the store management team to deliver the retail plan while leading the creative direction for Fashion, Home & Beauty. You’ll combine commercial focus with visual expertise to deliver layouts, displays, and customer experiences that drive sales and reflect the M&S brand. You’ll also take responsibility for ensuring the store trades safely and legally at all times, with knowledge and oversight across every department.

Responsibilities

• Lead the visual merchandising strategy for Fashion, Home & Beauty, ensuring brand standards are consistently met.
• Ensure the store trades safely and legally, meeting all compliance requirements.
• Use trading data and customer insight to make confident decisions on space, layout, and promotional execution.
• Coach and develop teams, building capability and fostering a high-performance culture.
• Maintain knowledge and oversight across all departments to support store performance.

Purpose

• Deliver an inspirational, improved and consistent visual customer journey in-store which inspires our customers to shop and buy more often.
• Support visual merchandising coaching and upskilling of wider store team members.
• Lead and deliver best in class visual standards each launch and campaign.
• Support the growth and profitability of the store through the implementation of the retail plan at a store level and delivery of the KPI measures.
• Role model great customer service and supports the delivery of a customer focused service proposition through the team that delights our customers.
• Recruit, and develop great visual talent and capability within the visual team supporting the succession requirements of the store.
• Ensure colleagues understand and are motivated to deliver their part.
• Support the store to trade safely and legally, protecting Customers, Colleagues and the M&S brand.

Key Accountabilities

• Lead the visual team to dress and style all mannequins every launch, ensuring consistent handwriting across the store appropriate to all areas.
• Deliver styling updates for monthly newness launches as well as supporting the placement of new lines.
• Coordinate refreshes caused by product sell through.
• Work alongside Commercial and Operations teams to ensure delivery of Visual presentation standards and processing in line with critical path and understands and plans all required activity each launch.
• Own the ordering and implementation of all large format POS each season for all BU’s.
• Ensure that all the key looks are delivered each season.
• Regularly shop the competition to identify visual and trading opportunities.
• Create the right culture, role modelling new digital ways of working and leadership behaviours.
• Support store engagement / training requirements.
• Support the wider store operation when required i.e. Service and Tilling.
• Support the delivery of the Retail Plan and Store KPI’s.
• Support the delivery and embedding of the business transformation plan and change initiatives.
• Create a multiskilled team, coaching and training the team to fully utilise all the tools available to serve and sell well.
• Deliver brilliant basics through the team.
• Act on customer feedback to deliver improvement.
• Use data and insight to improve customer instore experience and drive performance.
• Support the delivery of Plan A.
• Regularly review individual performance through quality conversations, managing underperformance where required and celebrating success.
• Recruit for the team, ensuring new starters have a brilliant onboarding experience.
• Ensure all line management activities and people activities are delivered in line with company process and policy.
• Build an active working partnership with BIG, provide feedback and support the development of BIG reps.
• Ensure process and task is delivered in line with business expectation and operating standards allocating resource accordingly.
• Maintain a safe and legal store environment.

Key Leadership Capabilities

• Successfully embeds change for lasting commercial impact and results.
• Addresses beliefs and mindsets around resistance to change and supports colleagues in adapting.
• Takes ownership and accountability for the success of their team.
• Spends time coaching colleagues to accelerate performance and personal growth.
• Recognises high performance and supports poor performers to improve.
• Shows colleagues why they matter to M&S, their part to play in delivering the plan and what the results of their work are.
• Uses customer feedback and market trends to guide teams work.
• Helps teams understand information and business messages by actively seeking out opinions and asking questions.
• Uses a combination of channels and technology to communicate, ensuring timely, clear and open communication with colleagues.
• Seeks the best solution for M&S by proactively collaborating with colleagues from across the business.

Technical Skills/ Experience

• Robust understanding and ability to deliver visual merchandising and styling across all BU’s.
• Ability to execute windows to best in class standards and being able to adapt to varying environments.
• Able to plan and execute grid and environment changes as required each launch.
• Ability to lead a team to deliver excellent visual implementation, customer service and KPI’s across the store.
• Has a good understanding and up to date knowledge of visual principles, commercial performance and people processes and systems.
• Uses all available data and MI to identify commercial, cost savings & customer opportunities to increase profit.
• Good level of digital capability and an understanding and use of all systems.
• Good knowledge of the legal requirements across their area of accountability and the store.
• Knowledge of our people policies and managing performance within a team.
• The ability to have difficult conversations with effective resolutions with colleagues.
• Good communicator and listener who will inspire, share their knowledge and best practices with others.
• Ability to plan and review across the week and the month.
• Ability to deliver under pressure demonstrating resilience.
• Ability to build and maintain relationships with key stakeholders across the store and region.
• Demonstrates flexibility and adaptability to change, and the ability to lead teams through change with a growth mindset.

Key Relationships and Stakeholders

• Customers
• Colleagues
• Store Leadership
• Regional Leadership
• BIG

Everyone’s welcome. We are ambitious about the future of retail. We’re disrupting, innovating and leading the industry into a more conscientious, inspiring digital era. We’re transforming how we work together and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. Marks & Spencer strives to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make change happen. We are committed to building diverse and representative teams, where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and be at their best. We support each other and work together to win together.

If you feel you’d benefit from any support or reasonable adjustments during any stage of the recruitment process, please don’t hesitate to let us know when completing your application. This information will be picked up by our team, so we can try and put steps in place to help you be at your best through this process.