Yasmin Naylor is a Sales Assistant in the fashions department at Beales in Bournemouth. She is working towards her apprenticeship in Retail Operations. Yasmin joined Paragon and ITE Training as part of the Retail Skillshop, a programme that allows young people to gain work experience in several retail environments before gaining full-time employment. After just two weeks at Beales, Yasmin's employers were so impressed with her potential that she was offered a permanent position. She has since been working towards her apprenticeship, gaining qualifications and building her practical skills. Yasmin said: "I have been able to learn about all the different aspects of retail and customer service through on the job training. Being in the retail environment has really improved my confidence in dealing with people as well."

Tracy Stewart, Asda (top)

While at university I helped fund myself with part time jobs at McDonald’s and Marks & Spencer. This was a great introduction to retail, and I found that the part of the job I enjoyed most was the contact with customers: serving, selling and resolving issues. When I graduated, it was time to choose a career. I knew that retail management was for me and joined Sainsbury’s on their graduate training programme, based in North London. When I completed the programme, an opportunity arose to live much closer to home. I joined Asda as the Provisions Manager at the hypermarket in Minworth, near Birmingham. With responsibility for a team of nearly 100 and sales of several million pounds a year, my first appointment as a department manager with Asda was a real challenge! I worked hard, made plenty of mistakes, but also learnt loads and had fun with a great bunch of people. After about two years at Minworth, I was offered the opportunity to trial a new management role, looking after the service over counters at the Perry Barr store in Birmingham. The trial was successful and when Asda decided to implement the new counters role in all large stores I was soon busy training each of the new counters managers in the district. No one was more surprised than me when this led to me being invited to join the training department at Asda’s head office in Leeds. My career plan had been to reach store manager, I hadn’t thought about roles outside the stores. The prospect of being able to support the training and development of thousands of employees in our stores was very exciting, and as I have worked in various training roles since then, I guess that it is a passion which has never subsided! It is tremendously satisfying helping people develop and grow – I had found my vocation. Asda became part of the Wal-Mart family in 1999, and the exchange of ideas, best practices and people has been two-way. The largest company in the world, Wal-Mart has stores in 11 countries and an amazing 1.4 million employees. Retail is, increasingly, a global business, and Asda colleagues in various roles are currently working with Wal-Mart in Japan, Germany, Canada and the United States.

In 2002 I was invited to the role of Head of Training and Development for Wal-Mart in Canada, taking on the responsibility for the training of Canada’s 60,000 employees. Taking my wife and three kids (the youngest was one-year-old!) with me, we spent 18 months on expatriate assignment in Toronto and it was a fantastic experience for all of us. Living and working abroad can be challenging – it is easy to underestimate the impact of culture shock both at home and at work. There are so many day-to-day things you just don’t know! But Wal-Mart provided an excellent programme to help prepare the whole family for the experience.

I started as a Saturday girl, now I manage the store and in the future would like to help in the training of staff.

I used to be extremely shy and lacked confidence, now I love working with people and retail has changed my life.

I made a decision early on that I was not going to go into further education and went straight into working in an office. This was totally boring and I had always liked shopping, being a girl this is understandable.  A friend who was working in retail asked if I would like to earn some extra money as there was a vacancy for a Saturday assistant. The only reason I agreed was the discount you received on the clothes. 

Within a couple of months I had been made redundant from the office job and was working full time in retail.  The rest is history, my confidence soared which had a lot to do with my work colleagues who ranged in age and the older people took me under their wing. 

Within a year I had been made department manager within the interior design department and progressed to managing childrens' wear as well. Whilst filling a temporary Store Manager position I was asked to undertake a management qualification. This made me realise how much there was to running a store and managing people. Having completed my qualification the Store Manager position became available on a full time basis and I was appointed. 

My duties include managing staff, their rotas, keeping to budgets, managing stock profit and loss, security, dealing with the money taken keeping the store clean and tidy and deciding which products to promote and visual merchandising. 

How did I get here?

• Saturday Sales Advisor about £5 per hour
• Customer Service Advisor £10K
• Assistant/Trainee Manager £14-18K
• Department Manager £14-18K
• Store Manager £18-24K plus discount and clothes allowance

What other opportunities I have

• Area Manager £28-45K plus loads of benefits inc. company car
• Fashion Buyer £30-50K plus loads of benefits

What training can I do?

• BTEC Business Admin and Retail (Level 1)
• BTEC Business (Levels 1-3)
• BTEC Retail (Levels 1-3)
• NVQ’s in Retail Operations and Customer Service (Levels 1-3)
• NVQ in Retail Management (Level 4)
• Diploma in Fashion Retail (Levels 2 and 3)
• And loads of other qualifications, including routes to University
  
  
  

Apprenticeships completed:
Retail 2 then progressed to Customer service 3

The retail apprenticeship helped me understand Legislation surrounding Retail and gave me confidence to complete my Key Skills in Application of Number and Communication. I was pleased to achieve a recognised qualification and it has given me the drive to progress to Customer Service level 3 and achieve key skills at level 2.

The qualifications made me more aware of customers needs and helped improve my customer service skills. I am now more aware of solving customer’s problems and after achieving two qualifications I feel confident to start the Dispensing Technicians Course.

Click here to read what Joanne's manager, Connie Jones thinks about her progress.

My name is Paulette Romano. I am 42 years old and I have two children ages 23 and 12 years old. I have done various jobs in my life, mostly in the retail sector which I have always enjoyed.

I was unemployed and unsure as to where my future career was heading, when a leaflet came through my door about a Retail NVQ level 2 course at my local college.

I decided to enquire about the course and spoke to a member of staff, who invited me along to the college to explain the different modules to be undertaken, and I was offered a place on the programme, which I accepted, knowing my employment opportunities in Retail would increase by being part of this course.

Since starting the NVQ I have enjoyed each session and I have learned a lot about Retail. My confidence has certainly grown with this knowledge.

As part of the course, my tutor arranged for me to attend an informal meeting with the Recruitment Manager at John Lewis in Liverpool to look at opportunities for work experience. At the meeting I was made to feel very welcome and having explained my working background to date, I was delighted to be offered not only work experience but a part-time job at the store!

Since then I have attended a store induction day and I am now on an ongoing in-house training programme, as well as continuing with my NVQ 2 in college.

To date, I have received excellent feedback from my Department Manager and Section Managers, and was pleased to be part of a recent successful Customer Care week. I aim to continue with my training so that I can gain the qualifications necessary to build a worthwhile career.

In short, that small step into training for an NVQ at college has turned my life around and opened up all sorts of exciting new possibilities for employment in the future!