Vacancy Introduction

Are you ready to advance your career within our management team?

As a proficient operator, are you skilled in leading and motivating your team from within?

Imagine yourself at the epicenter of our community, contributing to the success of the largest independent retailer in the East of England.

Navigating the dynamic landscape of food retail requires adept individuals. While your Branch Manager provides support and guidance, your confidence in leading and decision-making will be crucial for enhancing our branch's performance.

With a clear vision of excellence, you aspire to surpass existing standards. Your role involves steering store standards, ensuring profitability, upholding compliance, and fostering colleague engagement. Serving our customers and community lies at the core of our mission, and your pivotal position in a larger store allows you to actively contribute to local causes and events.

The success of our branches, measured not just in turnover but in the dedication of our outstanding colleagues, hinges on your ability to provide inspirational leadership. While you may have ambitions for further management progression, your commitment to supporting your team members in their performance and aspirations is equally paramount.

Role Responsibility

• Leading your team and getting involved with all aspects of people management and development
• Support your Branch Manager in driving exceptional standards, customer service and the store’s financial performance
• Make sure that your branch is operating safe and legally
• Establish the branch as the convenience retailer trusted most by its local community
• Build relationships with other stores and colleagues and the local community
• Promoting membership

We’re pleased to offer a home delivery service in a number of our stores which is operated by our in-house teams. If there is any requirement to drive in support of this service, this will be discussed with you as part of the recruitment process.

The Ideal Candidate

You don't necessarily need to have managed a store before - we will provide you with the training and skills you need to succeed - but you will have demonstrated team leadership in previous role(s).

• Experience of working in a food retail or customer service environment
• Great interpersonal skills, able to effectively communicate with stakeholders at all levels
• Commercially aware
• Flexible, hard-working and confident
• Driven, determined and resilient
• Good understanding / level of numeracy, literacy and IT
• Self-aware, with commitment to continued professional and personal development

Package Description

What’s in it for you

At the East of England Co-op, we strive to be the best place to work. We invest in our colleagues to help them to progress in their careers and achieve their full potential. How do we do this?  

• Competitive rates of pay
• 20% discount in our food stores, along with other discounts across our family of businesses
• 22 days holiday (plus bank holiday entitlement) which increases with service
• 5% employer pension contribution
• Death in service benefit
• Access to our colleague communications app, The Loop
• Enhanced* family leave and pay arrangements
• Opportunities to grow, with award-winning training and apprenticeship programmes
• Great deals and discounts across 100’s of high street and online retailers
• Financial wellbeing support, including Wagestream®

Check out the detail of all our colleague benefits here.

* Enhanced on statutory terms, subject to service criteria.

We recognise the challenges people face trying to balance commitments both in and out of the workplace -  perhaps studying, caring commitments, or other employment. We therefore aim to be as flexible as possible, to create shift patterns that work for both our co-op and our colleagues.

About the Company

The East of England Co-op is the largest independent retailer in East Anglia, with over 230 stores and branches across Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex.

Owned by over 260,000 members – including our colleagues – our vision is to be the most valued organisation in our region, by being a better kind of business and using our profit to make a positive impact on our communities.

Our Community Cares Fund provides hundreds of thousands of pounds to support groups and good causes, with a focus on mental health and wellbeing, food justice for all and creating community spaces. 

With a focus on environmental sustainability, we’re proud to have led the way on reducing food waste, being the first major retailer to sell food past its Best Before date for just 10p. 

At the East of England Co-op, we strive to be the best place to work. We invest in our colleagues to help them to progress in their careers and achieve their full potential, whether in food retail, funeral services, property investment, travel, security, stonemasonry, events, or our support functions. 

Find out more at www.eastofengland.coop

Our Recruitment Process

If this is the job for you, simply click ‘apply’. You will be required to register a profile on our careers page. To do this simply click apply. The good news is you’ll only have to register once – after this, it’ll be easier and quicker to apply for any roles in the future too.

Please note that our working patterns are non-contractual. The advertised working pattern represents the normal working pattern for the role at time of advertisement and is subject to change.

East of England Co-op