Retail Store Manager

Monkhouse prides itself on getting children back to school in uniform, which gives them the confidence to start their academic year. You will play a pivotal role in supporting our valued customers through our busiest period of the year, June to September. A good proportion of this confidence comes from the service and knowledge that our team holds to guide families. You will manage all aspects of the store and live by our core values, using them to serve every customer.

Although we are a retail business, our peak unusually falls in the Summer, while Christmas is when the business has downtime. The environment is super-fast paced during the months of July to September, and we spend all the months leading up to this to prepare for serving our customers.

You’ll drive sales and company initiatives, manage essential tasks and established processes, and be willing to share and suggest ways of improving things through your daily experiences of running the store. You’ll need to be energised and organised to ensure you stay on top of core operational procedures such as stock management, providing timely and insightful data back to HQ to assist in the development of our sales strategy. You will need to be computer literate with a good working knowledge of Microsoft programs.

Keeping the customer at the heart of the business at all times is crucial to the success of the store, and you will be the driving force in delivering this through your ability to make good decisions. During our peak, you will be required to recruit additional colleagues, train and lead them to deliver the same exceptional service that you provide to customers daily. We will support you with a comprehensive induction and onboarding for every new recruit.

You’ll delegate well to encourage growth in your team, recognise great performance, and won’t be afraid to appropriately manage performance to keep them on track. In addition, you will need to organise daily tasks for your supporting colleagues and check that seasonal recruits are happy and delivering on our customer service promise.

You will build in opportunities for many applicants whose first job is at Monkhouse to upskill and build their CV. You will also be the 'go to' person for any customer issues that need resolving, requiring excellent people skills and problem-solving abilities.

Off-peak tasks include reorganising merchandise as required and reorganising the stock room after our peak season. Your job will also involve keeping engaged with the business through various initiatives and reflecting on learnings from the peak season to build in any training that you think will benefit you.

In general, you need to feel the pride that we feel as a business by ensuring the store is always visually inviting. You need to be highly organised, familiarise yourself with our full product range, company processes, money management, and rotas during our peak time. Your energy, positive vibes, and can-do attitude will be essential to the success of the business.

This is a full-time position with a 35-hour-a-week contract. Working days include a Saturday, and during our peak season, we uplift our hours, requiring a degree of flexibility. The position is available now! You will be required to complete a DBS check to fulfil the regulations of the business.

We are located in Preston with good public transport links.

Social Environmental Responsibility (SER): We take our sustainability responsibility extremely seriously, and it is only with the full cooperation of everyone that we will ensure we deliver on our sustainability objectives. Below are five things we want you to build into your day-to-day responsibilities:

• Switch off lights when the space is not being used.
• Switch off computers at the end of every day.
• If possible, avoid bringing in one-use plastic water bottles.
• Only fill the kettle for the number of cups of hot drinks you make.
• Dispose of waste responsibly by using our recycling processes.

Monkhouse is committed to supporting, developing, and promoting equality of opportunity and diversity in all our business activity. We value different perspectives and believe that diversity makes us stronger. We aim to provide an inclusive culture, free from discrimination and based on the values of dignity, courtesy, and respect. We believe that everyone has the right to be treated in accordance with these values.

As a member of the Banner group, which is B Corp certified, this commitment is an essential element of our culture.