Tom

Working in the People Team at M&S means tackling important issues, not just for our business, but for society. 70% of our workforce are female and we are known to be a good employer, but our objective is to be the best place for women to work in retail. That means making practical improvements on everything from maternity leave to female representation in senior roles.

Our role has evolved from backroom administration to being a data-driven, strategic function focussed on adding tangible value through helping the business be closer to colleagues. It’s about understanding the benefits of being an engaging place to work.

My job is to understand how colleagues feel about life at M&S and then do everything we can to improve things. It’s not just listening, but acting on what we hear, to create positive change for our people. Whether we are helping managers engage with their people more effectively or responding to what colleagues have told us in our surveys, I can see the work we do feeding through into higher customer satisfaction ratings and team productivity. When people have their say, and see the business acting on their opinions, the impact is enormous.

I’ve been fortunate to do many different jobs in my time at M&S, and no experience is ever wasted. When I came back from my career break, I joined the data & analytics team. Working with tools like PowerBI and Excel, I learnt how to cut data and tell the stories that support the case for change. Now I am using exactly those skills to provide an evidence-based approach to engagement. The correlation between great managers who have regular catch-ups with their teams and high-performance has been studied across many industries, and our data tells us exactly the same output. It’s great to be able to tell that story with our internal data, which only strengthens M&S’ investment in developing leaders – we want to be a place where every colleague has a brilliant line manager.

That instinct for listening to people is in our DNA. The ‘Closer to Customers’ programme means that everyone gets to work in a store for seven days a year. We’re not just helping out; we are encouraged to understand the customer experience and the challenges colleagues face in store. It changes what we do in the Support Centre. I know too how lucky I have been with the people who supported my development. There were so many inspiring line managers who encouraged me in my career, but also took an interest in me as an individual. Again, it’s listening that made the difference.