Team Leader Review

I am a team leader in my store. This means I run the store and the team when my store manager isn't in. As a team leader i am responsible for making sure that the store runs smoothly, and legally when I am in. Some of these tasks including, opening and closing the store, baking, working delivery, completing legal and cash checks, etc.

Mostly developed existing skills. Throughout my apprenticeship I have managed to find ways to get the most of myself and my teams. Be this through coaching, motivating or even just basic problem solving. My management skills have improved massively during this time, and I have also become more confident with my future in this role

At lot of the topics that we coved in the apprenticeship was quite intriguing and thought provoking. I have never really put much thought in to the way I manage my shifts, but this has made me look at it from a different viewpoint, and I enjoyed that very much.

Overall, I feel that this program was very well structured. Most of the units we coved flowed in to the next one, and the progression felt natural. At the end of the apprenticeship all the necessary units and criteria had already been covered so I didn't have to go over stuff again.

I have 20% of my contract to do my apprenticeship work. For me that was 6 hours a week. I felt this was enough for me to do all my work on time and develop my knowledge and skills. On top of that, my store as a whole was very supportive throughout the process especially when it came to my project

I personally didn't need much help during the length of my program. Most of what we covered was self explanatory. I will say however, plenty of support was offered up to me, and my tutor was always willing to help. On top of that, the mandatory learning conferences that we had to attend were really useful in giving us some of the knowledge we needed for our work

A lot of what we covered during the course was based on how to be a good retail manager. Straight from the first week, I had found that I was interpreting skills and knowledge from the program in to my day to day work life. Examples of this are my communication skills had been more efficient, I had a more in depth idea how to get the best of my staff, and started coaching my team

Once a year we have a coop fun day, where all coop employees can go and enjoy a day in the sun. We also have a careers month, where different parts of the coop company will give speeches about what they do, sort of like a careers day in school, for people that might be thinking of changing their position in the company

Yes

I have worked for the coop coming on to 4 years now. The last few years have been very tough, with covid, the cost of living crisis, the queens funeral etc. But through every step of the way, coop have been doing all they can to support their teams, and make sure that we can do our jobs as safely and supported as possible

The job can be hard to begin with, a lot of the stores I have been to run on a one-to-one basis, meaning there's usually only you and another member of staff in at any one time. But, once you get hand of the basics, the job gets easier, and the company will offer you all the support they can