District Sales & Operations Manager

WHSmith; Birmingham; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job summary

WHSmith is seeking a District Sales & Operations Manager in Birmingham to lead a team of Multi Site Store Managers. This role focuses on operational excellence, team development, and enhancing customer experiences across various store formats. Ideal candidates will have a strong background in retail management and a passion for driving results through effective leadership.

Qualifications

• Proven record in senior retail management.
• Experience in multi-site retail leadership.
• Ability to inspire and develop teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead Multi Site Store Managers to drive success.
• Ensure operational excellence and compliance.
• Foster a high-performing culture focused on customer experience.

Skills

Leadership

Communication

Coaching

Commercial Acumen

Organizational Skills

Job description

WHSmith Birmingham, England, United Kingdom

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Our goal is to make every one of life’s journeys better, and at the heart of this are our people, customers, and partners. As District Sales and Operations Manager, you will lead a team of Multi Site Store Managers across various formats, including InMotion, driving success through your leadership and ensuring continued growth. Your role is crucial to delivering operational excellence and fostering a high-performing culture that places people, customers, and profitability at the core of everything we do.

SCOPE

As District Sales and Operations Manager, your influence will shape the growth of WHSmith Travel. By leading with purpose, you’ll ensure our Travel stores deliver outstanding performance, foster a high-impact culture, and continually raise the bar for operational and customer excellence.

People

Deliver exceptional people performance metrics. These underpin the plan for your District and put people at the heart of your strategy.

• Lead and inspire through coaching, challenging, and empowering your Multi Site Store Managers. You will create the conditions for your team to be their very best, with continuous development that elevates their strengths and potential.
• Develop and execute a robust talent strategy that supports cross-functional roles, nurturing future leaders. Ensure every store has a clear succession plan, identifying key roles and developing the right people to fill them. You work with the Divisional Sales and Operations Managers to support the Large Air succession.
• Provide clear, candid feedback to your managers, helping them understand their performance and guiding improvement.
• You confidently address performance conversations, celebrate excellence, and understand the impact you have on others.
• Utilise one-to-one meetings and personal development plans to ensure everyone in your division understands their role and has a clear path forward. From Colleague Development Passports to quarterly leadership reviews, you ensure that each team member has clarity,
• Committed to continual self-leadership and development. Able to articulate career aspirations.
• Embrace diversity, fostering inclusive environments where wellbeing is prioritised. Your authenticity, empathy, and integrity are role models for others.
• Agile and resilient when facing people challenges, empowering your team to engage with support functions and own solutions. You are responsible for ensuring stores operate within legal and safety standards, including compliance with the Working Time Directive, Right to Work regulations, and HMRC guidelines.

Plan

• Lead a culture of commercial excellence through effective coaching, management and monitoring. You grow spend per passenger in rail, ATV, SPP and transactions in other formats, driving sales, adapting to seasonality and changing customer missions with high energy.
• Tackle performance variability across stores with a result-driven approach, narrowing performance gaps through decisive, action-oriented leadership.
• Accountable for ensuring safe and legal compliance is understood and delivered by your team, coaching, and empowering them to engage with support functions to achieve everyday compliance.
• Oversee operational targets and service level agreements with partners, ensuring they are met and positioning the business as a top-tier partner for growth opportunities.
• To be accountable for forecasts, ensuring that expenditure is within budget, targets are met, and savings are achieved where a risk to profit.
• To keep your line manager up to date with operational performance through regular reporting and communication.

Customer

• You are obsessed with the customer experience. Role modelling the importance of a world-class customer journey. Your team feel your passion and emulate it in their stores with their people and customers. Everyone in your district knows how to sell, manage queues and delight customers through friendly and helpful interactions.
• Champion a sales-focused culture on your division with a relentless focus on assisted sales, product knowledge and add-on sales, driving the importance of this in your InMotion stores.
• Foster a culture of continuous improvement where Brilliant Behaviours, High 5 Principles, and the operational clock are part of daily operations. Your team’s commitment to availability,
• Clear communication ensures store activities and brand standards are executed to the highest level.
• Use data and tools effectively to influence decisions that benefit both the customer and profitability. Empower your team to adopt this mindset, promoting a culture of data-driven decision-making.
• Support future business growth by maintaining excellent relationships with landlords, ensuring open communication, clear expectations, and mutual respect.
• Gain a deep understanding of the market where your stores operate, and tailor your approach to meet the unique needs of each customer. To attract future customers and drive

Who we’re looking for:

When it comes to senior retail management within multi-site retail, you really know your stuff. You may already be working within WHSmiths or have a proven record of leading and inspiring your team to achieve excellent results. You bring a flair for innovation and sharp commercial acumen, which will help you plan ahead as you take full responsibility for your region. However, it takes more than that to get multiple stores to perform. You’ll also need to be impeccably organised, capable of delivering through your team. Last, but never least, you need strong communication skills to connect with diverse staff and the people management experience to handle various challenges. Engaging and persuasive, you’ll inspire your team to perform and meet targets.

Seniority level

• Associate

Employment type

• Full-time

Job function

• Sales and Other

• Industries

  Retail

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