Team Manager - Food - Watford - Watford, Hertfordshire

Everyone is welcome at M&S. No exceptions. It’s your background, abilities and differences that make you, uniquely you. And when you’re part of M&S, that individuality has the potential to make waves.

As a Team Manager in Food, you’ll be responsible for leading a team on the shop floor to deliver exceptional availability, 5-star service, and commercial results. This is not a back-office role. It’s a frontline leadership position in one of the most competitive retailers in the UK.

You’ll need to be commercially sharp, operationally resilient, and relentless in your standards. Whether you’re managing stock, coaching your team, or solving problems, you’ll move with purpose and lead by example. This is your chance to step into a high-impact role and help shape the future of M&S Food as we push the boundaries in our transformation.

• Lead and coach a team to deliver consistently under pressure. You’ll set the pace, build capability, and hold the line on standards.
• From sales and standards to availability and team performance, you’ll make things happen and take accountability when things don’t go to plan.
• Work across departments to deliver a seamless customer experience. You’ll need to collaborate fast, fix problems early, leading with pace and purpose.
• Drive commercial performance. You’ll understand the numbers, translate them into action, and help your team stay laser-focused on what matters.

This is a big job – with big expectations. But for the right leader, it’s the start of something game-changing. Are you ready to lead?

Purpose:

• Support the growth and profitability of the store through the implementation of the retail plan and delivery of the KPI measures for their area of accountability.
• Role model great customer service and ensure the delivery of a customer-focused service proposition through the team that delights our customers.
• Recruit and develop great talent and capability within the customer assistant team supporting the succession requirements of the store and region.
• 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.
• Support the delivery of an inspirational, improved and consistent visual customer journey instore which inspires our customers to shop and buy more often.

Key Accountabilities:

• Drive profitability and sales for their area through supporting the delivery of the Retail Plan and Store KPI’s.
• Support the delivery and embedding of the business transformation plan and change initiatives for their area.
• Deliver great standards and service by setting clear expectations with store colleagues.
• Create the right culture, role modelling new digital ways of working and leadership behaviours.
• 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.
• Seek customer feedback and take action to deliver improvement.
• Use data and insight to improve customer instore experience, improve the operation 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.
• Deliver all line management activities in line with company process and policy.
• Build an active working partnership with BIG, provide feedback and support the development of BIG reps.
• Deliver operational excellence to maximise product availability, minimise stock and cash loss.
• Ensure process and task is delivered in line with business expectation and operating standards allocating resource accordingly.
• Maintain a safe and legal store environment.
• Support visual merchandising updates across all launches, events and campaigns.

Technical Skills/Experience:

• Ability to lead a team to deliver excellent customer service and KPI’s across the store.
• Create the right culture, role modelling new digital ways of working and leadership behaviours.
• Has a good understanding and up to date knowledge of commercial, visual, operational and people processes and systems.
• Uses all available data and MI to identify commercial, visual, cost savings & customer opportunities to increase profit.
• Good working knowledge of VM principles.
• 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 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.

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.