Team Leader Review

I am a Team leader at the food store. My duties include leading a team to complete daily tasks, which supports smooth running of our store and helps us to serve our customers well. In absence of a manager I act as a duty manager, this include making staff rotas, attending regional meetings with another store managers.

Co-op provides a lot of exciting opportunities for people who want's to progress in their role. This is very important to me so I have attended every course I was allowed to, these include Team Leaders Boost programme, Food Safety course and Apprenticeship scheme. I have learned a lot from all these programmes, especially Apprenticeship, which I am currently still on.

I love attending Learning conferences, I am very sad I only have one left. It is a great opportunity to meet other people, share ideas. I find it fascinating how stores in different areas and different sizes have different approach or prioritise different procedures. This also helps me to understand Co-op better, of how it works, what it stands for, etc. All these things I never knew when I was only seeing my own store.

I find a structure of the Apprenticeship is well planned out, we have a good introduction on what to expect and what timescale we have to work with. I have came across with some challenges in allocating time for apprenticeship when work was extremely busy. I am very lucky I have very helpful tutor by my side. My only concern is My English and Maths studies took longer than expected, so I couldn't concentrate on my main Apprenticeship until the very end.

I don't get enough support from my employer at the moment as my store doesn't have a managers. That means some information I had to research myself or ask my tutor for support. Although this helped me to be more independent and become better at research, it was also very time consuming.

When things got really busy and difficult at work, I knew it was an option to take a pause on my apprenticeship. I never needed it, but it was good to know I had the choice. My tutor was absolutely fantastic and would come back to me in matter of hours whenever I was stuck on the task or needed reschedule.

I have better commercial awareness of a Co-op as a whole. This helps me to make better choices at work with my colleagues and customers. Understanding how my own stores KPI's can impact company is empowering. I also learned about different management styles, communication. Written assessments also helped me to improve my English writing skills.

There is always an opportunity to involve with local sporting teams and events. I always take part in local celebrations like Remembrance Sunday, Easter and Halloween trails and local fundraisers. Either as part of the Co-op, local school, netball club or simply as a local resident. I enjoy how working for Co-op made me more aware of what is going on the area.

Yes

It's a great place to work, flexible hours available to work around childcare, which is very important to me as a mum of 2. I also enjoy working with team which is diverse and interesting. Co-op offers great rate of pay and great carer opportunities for those who wants to further their roles.

Just be yourself, always. That is all that matters as Co-op embraces diversity in their team and I believe it is absolutely amazing. You also have to enjoy working with people, as job can get quite repetitive and same, but people, both staff and customers makes the job more enjoyable.