Mitchell Coyston - Footwear Manager
I started with the company in June 2011 as a casual sales assistant at the Leicester Town Centre store where I first got the taste of fast paced retail. I instantly enjoyed the job and got a real hunger to be the best and get as many hours as I possibly could. In February of 2012 I was given a promotion to a full time member of staff which made me even hungrier to achieve more within the store and the business. The store manager and other senior managers worked a lot with me to help me improve and be better and in the June of that year I was given another promotion to footwear supervisor.
Eventually after a lot of guidance from my Area Manager, Store Manager and The Home grown course I was promoted into my current job role as Footwear manager in June 2014, where my responsibilities include running my own department and the 30+ staff members that work within it, Complying to company guidelines, meeting sales targets and of course trying to be the best Footwear department in the business.
The company also has given me amazing opportunities in that I helped support stores in Hungary and Austria for a year where I helped to train staff and understand our business better, one of these store being the Budapest Arena store which is one of the biggest stores in Europe where I helped support there footwear team for 2 weeks.
There is a lot of training and guidance offered to staff members in terms of staff development and I found this out first hand when I went on a week’s training course at our Shirebrook head office. The training team there really helped me to become a better manager and a more confident person all round and I try to use the guidance they have given me to make my team the best.
The company has changed a lot since I first started in that it is very customer service driven now and strives to have the best rewarded staff in retail but still always tries to move forward and be even better.
There are a lot of Reward schemes for the business and for every staff member, the company gives a lot back to the staff through commission based incentives and bonuses. I myself have been able to buy a car through bonuses I receive and also my staff members benefit a lot from this as well with one member of staff managing to go on three holidays to Egypt and Dubai all paid for through his commission earnings in the last year.
I would encourage anyone with a well driven ambitious attitude to try this company as the rewards and team atmosphere are definitely in my eyes the best in retail.
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