Senior execs at UK retailer must spend regular time ‘at the coal face’

 “And by the way that’s not just popping in, saying ‘hi’ and doing your shopping – it’s proper work,” CEO Stuart Machin told the London-based Sunday Times newspaper in an interview.

Machin started his own retail career by stacking shelves at Sainsbury’s, a British supermarket chain, when he was a teenager.

Marks and Spencer is a major British-based multinational retailer that specialises in selling clothing, beauty products, home products and food products. 

In his Sunday Times interview, Machin said that the long-term success of the business relies on what’s happening on the shop floor, rather than conversations in boardrooms.

Important to be ‘sleeves rolled up’

“It is critically important that [the company is] ‘sleeves rolled up’ and close to colleagues who serve customers,” he stated.

According to a report in another UK newspaper, The Independent, there are examples of other customer-facing businesses doing something similar.

Earlier this year, the incoming Starbucks coffee shop chain CEO, Laxman Narasimhan, said he would be donning an apron and taking on a half-day shift in one of the brand’s coffee shops each month. 

DoorDash, an American online food ordering and food delivery platform, requires its senior managers to do monthly deliveries to customers.

In an interview for The Independent article, HR and workforce development expert, Jessica Brannigan, said there is merit in the strategy.

“In any business, particularly [larger companies], we tend to hear employees say that leaders just don’t know, or appreciate, what they face ‘on the ground’ – that they are somehow removed from the ‘real’ business,” she explained.

Another HR expert, Sarah Stevens, said it allows management to unlock “insights that they wouldn’t otherwise access, whether that’s practical, like poor-performing systems, or … a floor layout that isn’t conducive [to success], or customer-service policies that don’t make any sense.”