Operational innovation product manager Review

I am responsible for the production and roll out of digital applications which make our food store colleagues life easier and save the business money. I manage the timelines and budget of the project and manage the team to make sure everyone works together to meet the target deadlines. I work from home on my laptop, having virtual meetings over Teams.

Absolutely! I have been thrown in at the deep end and had to figure a lot of what I needed to know as I went along. Doing the degree apprenticeship has helped me in giving me knowledge and skills I have needed for my role. I still need to learn a lot of things.

I enjoy it less and less as time goes by. It was supposed to be over a long time ago, but due to delays during the Covid pandemic and my year out for maternity leave, I am still in the degree after 5 years. I am starting to get very disengaged with the programme and at this stage cannot wait for it to all be over.

I suppose it is well organised. It just felt a lot better structured pre-Covid. I cannot fault the course lead or the tutors though for the effort they put in to keep a track of everyone on all cohorts.

Little to none. When I was working in a store as a store manager, I had definitive time off work to do my studies and assignments. Now I am in head office and working remotely, I do not get any time off to do the degree and my shifts are not covered at all. I just have to work longer on the days I am officially working or do the degree in my own time, in evenings and at the weekends which is near impossible with a new baby.

It was much better at the start. Recently I have had some struggles at home and I have requested extensions. I have been waiting weeks to find out if it was honoured or not and I am not inclined to complete any work at this stage as no-one is coming back to me with any response. There does not seem to be much sympathy for the students since the uni lost the contract with our employer.

I have no doubt that the qualification is helping me achieve great things. I have progressed twice since being on the programme, getting promotions that I do not think I would have gotten otherwise. I have techniques that my peers do not have and resources which I would not have seen. The question is whether this will continue after graduation.

Not really. There are much less social opportunities since moving into a head office role, and less still since Covid. There have been attempts to kick start things again but they have never taken off. Plus, I live over an hour away from the office by train so I cannot do much socially.

Yes

They have always treated me well, which is my number one stand out priority. They do have different priorities since Covid where profit is number one. But having said that, without profit we do not have a business and we do not have jobs, so the penny pinching is understandable and I can see this better now that I am off the shop floor.

Own your own development. There are chances, but you need to go out and find them. No one will come looking for you. If you are applying from outside of the company, the main thing they recruit for is the right behaviours. It is not all about what is written on your CV, but how you deal with a situation.