Retail Management Placement Review

The first 7 months of this placement involves working in stores. During this time you start as a store assistant and work through the different roles up to the store manager, where eventually you should have the ability to run a store. After this you spend the rest of the 5 months in head office completing project work. These are real life issues which Aldi requires you to research, analyse and present your findings.

During my placement, I would say I have developed my managerial skills, due to the fact at the start I couldn't have imaged running a store, however by October I was running the store all by myself. I would also say I have learnt more about communicating professionally, during placement you meet loads of new people from store assistants to store operations directors, so knowing how to communication professionally is something I've developed.

When working in my first store, after 3 months I was given a set of keys to the store and to the safe in order to run the late shifts and sort the money on shift. which was a huge responsibility that was scary at first but soon felt easy after a few shifts. As well as this during our project time we were given the briefs and allowed to make them our own.

During placement you are given an area manager mentor who is someone you can go to if you need help or have questions, you also spend various weeks throughout the year working with them. My area manager mentor was very helpful and always tried their best to help and give advice if I asked. they also made me feel valued whilst I worked the weeks with them.

In all the stores ive worked in, I have loved the culture and atmosphere as ive found all the people in them to be lovely an extremely friendly and helpful. The head office is lovely but it is very quiet most days as lots of departments have moved national.

Overall I have enjoyed my placement year, it has been a tiring, hard but eye opening experience which gave me a real insight into the work. I have enjoyed meeting so many lovely new people and liked the responsibly that was given to me. However whilst working in store, as it was long hours and weekend work it was harder to enjoy life outside of work. But once we came to head office and it became more set Monday to Friday hours my work life balance became better.

Yes

Be prepared for long hard shifts whilst when you first start working in stores, but as long as you try your best people will apricate and respect you as a manager.