Well I can’t believe its January already and the hype of Christmas is all over. It was just so exciting to have so many customers in our store. You could feel the festive buzz. It seemed to me that our most popular Christmas confectionery item this year must have been candy canes as every second customer was asking me where they were. And of course, they are so yummy.
I spent over 2 weeks at home in Christchurch which was amazing. I caught up with so many different friends and it was awesome to see so many different family members at the family home down south all together under one roof– even it meant being inside 3 airports on Christmas day to get there!
I camped at a popular bay near the Christchurch peninsular with friends for New Years Eve and had actually surprisingly hot weather considering the bad luck the rest of the country had – I even got sunburnt!
Back to store and back to reality. Early January was definitely as full on as I thought it would be, if not more so! I got a one day overlap with my Store Manager before his leave began. So on top of settling back into the store after an awesome break, my workload was increased due to planned projects running concurrently. I’ve also been spending a huge amount of time preparing myself to leave the store (sounds hard to believe you have to plan to leave!), which involves finalising anything big I’m currently working on, like appraising my Team Members (evaluating with them how their past six months have gone), recruiting into vacant positiona and planning labour for the next month’s workload. These things will allow my replacement to start fresh and build on their own ideas.
I’m currently working on my ‘sign off’ presentation that is required from SMDP’s when they transition from one store to another within the programme. I need to present a 30 – 40 minute PowerPoint to senior leaders within our business on basically where I was at before I started in Te Awamutu, where I am now and what have been the biggest learning’s so far (and a lot of other stuff in between!).
This presentation is done in our Auckland Support Office which is on the last day of a 3 day course up there which is lead by our programme manager. It involves sessions with key people within our business on topics such as leadership, emotional intelligence and health and safety.
There is a reasonably large group of SMDP’s attending this session. Nearly all of us are either on, or near the end of, phase 2 of the programme (Team Leader level). So I’m really looking forward to spending time with these guys in what should be a fun, busy and productive 3 days at Support Office.
So it’s hard to believe that in a little over a week I would have left behind an amazing Te Awamutu store and team and begun a new role as ASM (Assistant Store Manager) in our Cambridge store. I recently discovered that my new Store Manager has a 3 week holiday booked in Australia, so for my first couple of weeks in my new store I’ll have full responsibility and accountability for running it, exciting stuff!
I look forward in my next blog talking about how my first few weeks at Cambridge have gone and what I have learnt!
Wish me luck for my presentation!
