Assistant Department Manager Review

I had a great time working for Moto as Assistant Department Manager in one of their M&S Simply Food outlets.

Everyone welcomed me into the team and were friendly and supportive.

At the beginning of the placement we had an introduction to the company at the head office at Toddington Motorway service area. The M&S manager and site manager trained me M&S specific training as well as end of week procedures. Their are specific training courses run by HR (eg, first aid, performance management, investigation and disciplinary procedure, risk manager, recruitment and selection) which I attended throughout the year.

I was kept extremely busy; it is a real world job and you have all the responsibilities of a permanent Assistant Department Manager.

I was given lots of responsibility for all aspects of running a retail store; I was trusted to deal with day-to-day managing of the store to keep it up to M&S and Moto standards.

I am now studying to complete my final year of university and feel that it has prepared me for the future. I have developed a range of skills at Moto that will assist me in whatever I choose to do next.

The general atmosphere was good, it was a pleasure to work with everyone there.

Pretty well organized. I attended a assessment day after they had reviewed my CV. There were induction days at the beginning at site and head office. I had frequent HR visits and performance appraisals to check I was happy, working the way I should be and smoothing any problems.

There is a developed placement and graduate scheme, with a wide range of training courses. There is lots of on the job learning as you deal with any day-to-day issues that may occur.

The company seem to promote from within quite frequently so if you were a good Assistant Department Manager you could soon become a Department Manager. Assistants and Department Managers often swap between departments as well as sites to develop their career. There is also potential to develop from Department Manager to a training Site/General Manager.

When we had training we had the opportunity to catch up and if staying over night on the site Travelodge there is expenses budget you can use. I got on well with my colleagues and will try and keep in touch with them.

I worked at a site local to my home town and therefore lived back at home for the year, so same as I have always been used to.

Near Bath/Bristol/Swindon. As based on a Motorway there is easy links to towns and cities.

We had relatively frequent Manager meals as a site at Christmas, for completing a customer service project and when any of the management team left. Moto have a charitable trust which we were encouraged to support.