My Retail Journey
My career in retail started a while back…I previously worked at Tesco for 33 years, starting in 1986 as a part time assistant while I was still in full time education. I was offered a full time job and worked in various stores across South Wales as a Section Manager. I had the chance to become a Refit Manager in 2003 and supported a number of projects over the following years. In 2006 I had the opportunity to work at Head Office in Welwyn Garden City and joined the New stores and Refits team where over the next 16 years, I opened well over 100 new stores as well as 100's of refits, extensions and remodels.
In 2019 my role at Tesco was unfortunately made redundant. I took a year off to regroup and think about what I wanted to do next…but, along came the COVID-19 pandemic so I ended up working at Amazon in the fulfilment centre in Swansea. This was something completely different to what I had done previously and was a very valuable experience to see how one of the biggest companies in the world operates.
Then in July 2022, I had the opportunity to join RMS where I am currently a Project Support Assistant. My role is varied involving scoping for installation projects, ordering the equipment required on projects, phasing the works and scheduling the resource, as well as ensuring the installers are aware of the work involved in the scheme and following up with any support required. I am also the Health & Safety representative for the Installation team, ensuring all the teams certificates, training and RAMS are up to date.
SMSTS Course
I recently completed the SMSTS course through RMS, which stands for Site Management Safety Training Scheme, and is the leading Health & Safety award in the construction industry and is recognised throughout the UK as proof an individual meets the required standard and competency to operate and manage any construction site.
The course was 5 days long with assessments throughout the week and a final exam on day 5. We had 13 staff in total from RMS on the course and everyone passed, which was a fantastic achievement!
Over the course of the week, you are taken through many types of construction jobs that require SMSTS, including working at height, excavation work, the types of hazards, the legislation, the HSE, first aid and more; it really is very comprehensive.
By having even more fully qualified SMSTS individuals, it gives us a great amount of flexibility to support our retail partners by offering this level of service. Instead of our retail partners having to look to third parties to provide this service, RMS can offer SMSTS qualified and trained individuals to work alongside our installation, retail construction and merchandising teams.
In the past month alone, I have been able to put this new qualification into practice by being the Site Manager on a facility refurbishment project for a well known electric vehicle company.
We have already been asked to provide SMSTS individuals for a number of other projects in the past few weeks and we are really excited to be able to continue to offer this service to our retail partners and to provide the opportunity for development for our members of staff currently working in the installation team.
If you have a project you need support with, then get in touch with us to see how we can help: [email protected]
