Pros
The actual teams in the stores. Have worked with plenty from others stores whether it be via covering them or visa versa and all have been joys to work with. Was very lucky to temporarily have a different regional manager look after us when our region didn’t have one during peak, she was fantastic and genuinely wanted to help and support as much as she could given she had to look after nearly 30 stores all across the midlands and south.
Cons
Upper management. Our region is the one with the most new blood and have consistently have been on the receiving end of the negative effects of the politics that the store managers have to deal with daily. Very high turnover rate of management within the new stores due to a lack of support outside of that given from other store managers. Refusal to listen to the staff within stores when they give genuine explanations as to why numbers don’t look great compared to the absurdly high targets new stores get given (example, the people counter is counting one person multiple times as they enter the store which greatly skews the numbers compared to reality) and turn to cast blame on the staff themselves regardless of the work they put in. Current regional manager consistently putting down and threatening the jobs of multiple store managers despite the terrible behaviours shown in the store of the deputy regional manager being overlooked due to clear favouritism. They are currently trying to foster a “them vs us” mentality within stores by instructing the store managers and store support manager to stop helping their teams out with tasking and service and to create fear amongst the team of their managers.
