Area Manager in Swansea

Location: Covering South West England & South Wales

This position is managing up to 35 high street retail sites. Please only apply for this role if you have experience managing multi-site clothing retail. The successful candidate will need to commit to a high degree of flexibility regarding travel throughout South West.

Hours: Full time & permanent (40 hours per week)

Salary: Competitive

Benefits: Company Car, Pension, Retail Discounts

An excellent opportunity has presented itself to join our client, as their Regional Manager. An industry leader in the fashion sector, we are actively recruiting for a Regional Manager to join the management team, reporting directly to the CEO.

As the Regional Manager, you will maximise business profitability of your stores by optimising sales opportunities whilst working within planned costs. You will manage day to day operations of all stores within your region, deliver excellent customer service through staff training and leading by example, providing an excellent service to all customers.

Primary Responsibilities

• To achieve and exceed sales and profit budgets in the stores and the area overall.
• Driving sales performance, ensuring operational excellence, and the delivery of exceptional customer experiences.
• Plan, monitor and regulate the financial performance of stores, identifying opportunities, remedying issues, and maximising the return from existing resources ensuring profitability with the region.
• Take a leading role in setting business objectives and budgets in line with Retail strategy.
• Responsible for ensuring measures take place in order to reduce operating costs and protect profitability, taking effective action to combat shrinkage and controllable expenses.
• Accountable for the recruitment, training, development and engagement of the Management teams and the colleagues in their Region.
• Communicating with head office, ensuring relationships are established with all key stakeholders.
• Utilising data to make informed decisions with profitability at the forefront of your decisions.
• Arrange structured visits to your stores ensuring stores are focused on efficiency, productivity and operational compliance.
• Take responsibility for the development and succession planning of Store Managers through coaching and empowering them to manage their stores effectively and achieve KPIs.
• Ensures full audit compliance across health & safety, loss prevention and HR documentation and practices.
• Managing and developing your management team within your region, dealing with all conduct or capability issues in line with Company procedures and within a timely manner.
• Assisting with ad hoc projects with the central Retail Ops Team.
• Take a leading role in setting business objectives and budgets as well as agreeing with Store Manager plans and strategies to achieve the same.
• Take responsibility to ensure that high standards of customer service and satisfaction are achieved and maintained in all stores.
• Plan store strategies/layouts in line with divisional sales strategies and ensure the stores implement the agreed seasonal and promotional plans.
• Identify new opportunities to profitability expand each store business potential and feed back to Head Office any other business opportunities, e.g., potential new sites.
• Ensure that stores are crewed effectively to maximise sales and maintain store standards, within the set cost parameters.
• Take responsibility for ensuring every possible measure is taken to reduce the operating costs stores and protect profitability. Taking effective action to combat shrinkage and controllable expenses.
• Ensure that the company procedures for cash and stock handling are followed within stores and security procedures are being followed within stores.
• To recruit Store Management in conjunction with HR, in line with the needs of the individual store and company.
• Take responsibility for the effective Induction and ongoing training of Store Management in line with company Induction Guidelines.
• Identify and develop individuals with potential for succession, and in conjunction with HR maintain an accurate succession plan for the area.
• Monitor the ongoing performance/behaviour of Store Managers and take disciplinary action as required within company procedures and personal limits of authority.
• Ensure Store Managers recruit, induct and train their store teams in line with company procedures and programmes.
• Ensure Store Managers monitor their team’s performance ongoing, and carry out Annual Performance.
• Ensure that stores maintain a safe working/shopping environment in line with the HASWA and company procedures, and carry out Risk Assessment of new stores or as directed by the Health and Safety Department.
• Flexibility is essential since the job-holder's working hours will be determined by the requirements of the business.

Experience & Requirements

• Previous experience as an area/ regional fashion manager, fashion experience is essential, with fast fashion preferred.
• Experience with managing teams of up to 50 staff members and multiple sites.
• Ideally experience with managing 30+ sites on a regional basis.
• Experience with budgeting, managing and driving the sales process.
• Confident in leading large teams and ensuring your team is performing to the best of their ability.
• Exceptional customer service skills.
• Experience with managing budgets, increasing sales and dealing with profitability.
• Ensuring KPI’s are hit and sales targets are exceeded.
• Flexible to work weekends and longer shifts when required.
• Happy to be contracted 40 hours per week, with shift flexibility.
• Proficient in administration, reporting and health & safety.
• Previous experience with recruiting, onboarding, training and developing staff.

If you feel these qualities describe you, then we would like to hear from you. Please only apply for the role if you are comfortable with the role outlined below. Please submit your career details to Andrew Bridges at PDA SEARCH & SELECTION LIMITED.