This is a fantastic opportunity for an experienced Store Manager to be Cluster Manager of our Cambridge, Huntingdon Garden Centre, Huntingdon, New Market and St Ives (Cambs) High Street stores.

Job Description

We’re undergoing an exciting transformation at WHSmith to set ourselves up for the future and provide our customers with excellent service, products and concessions to keep us at the heart of the High Street. To underpin our proposed new operating model, we have created new proposed leadership roles to deliver and embed these changes.

Our Store teams are the heartbeat of WHSmith so we’re looking for an engaging, driven, articulate Cluster Manager to support the Cambridge, Huntingdon Garden Centre, Huntingdon, New Market and St Ives (Cambs) High Street stores in our High Street business. As the Cluster Manager you’ll drive maximising profitability through your store teams, by motivating, engaging and monitoring performance to establish a supportive collaborative culture across your Clusters. 

This is a fantastic new opportunity, where you will use your leadership experience to support future growth and development, energising and developing your teams to ensure they’re delivering excellent financial and operational standards and performance. Our Cluster Manager vacancies are the ideal platform for you to develop yourself and the role.

There are brilliant times ahead! Our proposed new operating model will bring new opportunities and create new challenges. By engaging your team, you will be able to really shape the culture and in turn, create a sense of pride in your stores. 

We also have new propositions including our M&S Concessions and new strategic initiatives are helping us break the mould of traditional High Street retail. So, if you are a driven, dynamic leader, that wants to play a part in leading the way, apply today!

The Accountabilities
• Remotely manage up to 5 WHSmith stores and create and encourage a ‘one team’ working environment with the Store Leader, Post Office Operations Manager and colleagues.
• Maximise the profitability of the cluster by reviewing the trading plan with your Store Leader and set and agree key actions to be reviewed on each visit
• Use the Retail scorecards proactively to manage performance and target priorities and actions 
• Play a key role to make sure your colleagues are supported, set clear and measurable targets, which are reviewed regularly, and ensure team members are aware of their performance
• Ensure training is provided and kept up to date and all team members have a review and development plan in place and are aware of career development opportunities
• Keep teams up to date on stores, cluster and business performance and appropriately challenge what can be done to improve
• Ensures legal, health and safety and legislative requirements are met across the Cluster
• Recognise and celebrate team members for a good job
• Have a robust people and succession plan in place and work with the Region to support people development and succession planning
• Maximise opportunities in the area and work with Head Office to ensure awareness of local environment
• Adheres to the Corporate trading plan and Post Office strategy.

The Requirements
• Current Store Manager with at least 6 months’ store management experience
• Confident manager and leader, able to energise, influence and motivate store leaders to deliver exceptional service and performance
• Ability to deliver exceptional operational performance through direct teams and people
• Articulate, credible and engaging communicator, at all levels of seniority
• Organised, proactive and able to prioritise at pace in a fast-paced retail environment 
• Experience managing the employee lifecycle from recruitment, onboarding and ongoing performance reviews
• Proven people development experience and focuses on fostering a supportive, productive and efficient environment
• Strong stakeholder management experience, able to influence and communicate with peers, head office colleagues and senior stakeholders with gravitas and conviction
• Able to motivate teams and build strong relationships even when working remotely

What’s in it for you
You’ve got tried and tested skills. Here, you can use them to the full. We’ll trust you to get things done using your initiative and bringing in new ideas. We welcome innovative thinking – it could open the door to new opportunities. Along with an idea-friendly culture, we offer first-class training. Want more? You’ll also be able to access a range of flexible benefits, including 25 days holiday plus bank holidays, generous staff discount, annual performance related bonus, pension and much more!

About us
You may know we operate on the high street, in rail and bus stations, airports, hospitals, universities and workplaces. But did you know we’ve been around since 1792 and have over 14,000 employees across the globe and have consistently outperformed other major retailers over the past ten years? We continue to grow by putting our customers first and have a strong culture of innovation and entrepreneurialism. At WHSmith we love progressing our people, so there are No Limits to where your career can go!