From the snow-covered crags of Stirling to the concrete cows and roundabouts of Milton Keynes, Stephen Craig has covered a lot of miles in his time with Tesco, starting as a checkout operator in his Scottish native city.
Now, as he steers his busy hub of a store through a hectic golden quarter, including Diwali, Halloween, Black Friday and Christmas, he’s caught up in the thick of things in the prosperous but surprisingly diverse area of Milton Keynes. Yet he still finds time to think about the next generation and the importance of attracting young recruits, including an influx of newcomers over the festive period.
How did you become a store manager? I’ve pretty much worked for Tesco all my life, starting as a checkout operator in Stirling, Scotland. I went to university in Aberdeen and stayed with Tesco while I was doing that. I got my degree, and I guess I’d got the retail bug and decided that was my future. I ended up joining the graduate scheme 20 years ago and moved down south to Essex where I did various management roles.
The first shop I ran was Basildon abut 16 years ago, a lovely little superstore and since then I’ve run seven shops as a store manager.
What’s life like in Milton Keynes? I’ve been at this shop for two-and-a-half years, although I’ve actually been a store manager in Milton Keynes for eight years. We’ve got three large format stores in Milton Keynes and I’ve been store manger of all three. I’ve done the hat trick.
The store’s been open since 1992. A few of my team have worked here since it was opened and said that when you walked out of the store back then there were fields around the shop. Now it’s lots of housing and lots of businesses, but of course still concrete cows. It’s the town of grids and roundabouts.
Is the area the store serves thriving? It’s really thriving. There’s been an incredible amount of house building going on since I moved to the shop. And there’s been a lot of customer growth. There’s a fair bit of competition around, which is always healthy, but Milton Keynes has a very significant Tesco presence. I actually live in Peterborough and both it and Milton Keynes are under an hour from London on the train. The journey to Milton Keynes can actually be done in 35 minutes so it’s become a really popular commuter town.
There is some big business presence too, from companies that have chosen to use it as their base. The beauty of the shop and the communities we serve means we stock pretty much the entire Tesco range and we really do cater for everybody.
What do you do to cater for Diwali? It’s growing. I have a very vibrant temple just on the doorstep of the shop, and the store had become quite a good destination in terms of people getting their bits and pieces to celebrate. Our seasonal teams do a great job of providing us with a trading plan for Diwali and we have that event offers in aisle one and it’s a really great trading opportunity with some really great sales.
How do you juggle that with Halloween? The space in my shop allows me to balance that really well and they work really well side by side. I was particularly pleased when we found out we’d won The Grocer 33 award on that weekend because it was such a busy weekend, when we were exiting half term, Halloween being on the Saturday and being an exceptionally busy day.
How big is the Finest range going to be for you in this period? I think Finest gives us a great edge for customers looking to treat themselves and get a great-quality product at a great price. I do see customers trading up to Finest more and more, particularly at the weekends. We have a Finest showcase fridge at the front of the shop that we showcase new lines in. I tried the Tesco Finest toffee apple panettone and it’s absolutely fantastic.
Do you get a sense that people are already excited about Christmas and wanting to put the troubles of this year behind them? There’s been a lot going on in the world and at home. I think people were probably cautious going into last week with the budget looming, and I think perhaps coming off that people have had a bit of a bounce. Black Friday is an event, and we’ve already gone early with that and have some great offers: some Ninja products that everybody loves and some great offers on Tesco Mobile.
Have you had any new elements to the store in the past few months? Twelve months ago we completed a full, really significant refresh. We previously had an upstairs mezzanine floor and we repurposed quite a bit of space downstairs, so the store is now a little more condensed and a little less overwhelming.
How is the recruitment situation? I’m actually taking about 120 colleagues on. We’re about a third of the way through the process. Everything starts to ramp up from now til the new year and it’s really important we get some extra colleagues, so I can open more checkouts and make sure we have great availability. We’ve also got lots of growth online so need extra hands with online picking.
There’s been a lot of focus recently on opportunities for young people in the industry. How do you feel about that? I’m a very passionate retailer. I love my job, and I do see a big part of my role as helping the next boys and girls to come through. We do offer a Level 2 apprenticeship opportunity for colleagues in Tesco. I’ve had 10 colleagues complete that this year. I really hope I can encourage young people to have a life in retail, as it’s such a great career.
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