Focus On: Lindsay Clifford

Acting Department Manager (Secondment)

What’s good about the job?
Important Skills and Attributes
What else do you need to know?

Lindsay is currently based in the Willerby branch. There are 160 partners working there. Willerby`s customer base is broad and it has been able to extend across the Humber Bridge with on-line shopping and a home delivery service. Willerby, like the rest of the Partnership does a lot within the community and there is even a partner employed just for that. "As a company we make significant charitable donations and in each branch we do a variety of different things for our local community, most recently we set up sponsoring the local rugby team, Cottingham Tigers and even sponsor a guide dog puppy, called Norris".

Role(s) with the business: Lindsay Clifford is Acting Department Manager (training secondment) for Waitrose at Willerby

Lindsay joined John Lewis on leaving school and worked in the Edinburgh store from 1996 for about a year, before making a move to the Glasgow store and promotion to Section Manager, Ladies Fashions. She enjoyed a variety of different roles and undertook challenges that saw her working with external companies to launch new products such as partnership‘s credit card and direct services Greenbee. Before she left, she was based in a customer service role, responsible for the branch Call Centre and Customer Administration. She made a planned move from John Lewis to Waitrose in 2006 and started on the internal training programme to become a Department Manager. This led to the secondment opportunity at Willerby as Acting Department Manager, where she has been since March 2008. Once this 8 month secondment is complete, Lindsay will move branch again.

Lindsay explains that her main in focus is customer service, availability and promoting the Waitrose brand.

A typical day can involve all or some of the following:

Collecting most recent sales information i.e. from previous day
Checking emails
Getting out on to the shop floor to work with her team, 3 Section Managers and 5 Assistant section Managers, on product availability and customer service
Reviewing financial results against targets
Review her sections performance against the Branch Business plan which all managers contribute to and agree what their individual sections will contribute to
Analyse her own performance against identified personal objectives and competencies

Lindsay confirms it is a job that requires both team working and the ability to work under your own initiative. A big part of her time is spent out on the shop floor with her partners

What‘s good about the job?

Lindsay really enjoys:

Working with people partners and customers – she gets a huge amount of personal satisfaction from delivering high quality customer service for Waitrose. Even dealing with customer complaints can be a very positive experience if you are able to ‘turn‘ the customer‘s complaint around and retain their loyalty to the brand. "It‘s an opportunity to speak to customers and to put things right so they come back."
The variety of the work – no two days are the same
The fact that she is always learning. If you want to progress you will need to keep focused and work hard on your own self-awareness and personal development to reach your goals and I am always learning new approaches to situations and ways to do things
Achieving targets
Always improving and moving forward whether it be the day to day operation or a new system. Always moving forward and it‘s a great place to be

Important Skills and Attributes

Excellent communication and inter-personal skills – you need to like people and want to work with them and for them
A ‘can do‘ attitude and positive energy to make things happen and get things done
Ability to be focused on the task in hand and what‘s going on around you
Determination, commitment and passion to succeed, both for the company and on a personal basis

"I am always learning and I always will be. There‘s been significant time and money invested in me since I started my career with the Partnership and I want to make sure the business gets a return on that".

What else do you need to know?

There may be some late night working. Lindsay works a 5 day week but that can include weekend working and she expects to work at least 2 late nights a week.

However staff rotas are worked out well in advance so it is possible to plan your social life around them!

At Willerby Lindsay can drive to work. When she was based in Glasgow however she used the train – driving was not really an option because of heavy traffic and difficulties parking.