Amazon has hired an experienced store recruitment coordinator as it prepares to open a chain of physical shops in the UK.
Ryan Taylor was previously recruitment coordinator for Home Bargains, where he was responsible for ‘supporting new store openings’ through ‘bulk’ hiring of management and teams.
He liaised continuously with area managers to ensure they were provided with timely recruitment of store staff at all levels.
He recently joined Amazon as human resources area coordinator, having left Home Bargains in December.
The Grocer revealed last month that a number of sites had been secured for the UK’s first Amazon Go food stores, where customers are automatically charged for their shopping when they leave. A senior real estate source said at the time stores of around 5,000 sq ft had been acquired in “key central London locations”.
That followed a Daily Mail report that Amazon Go stores could open in Surrey, Kent, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Essex and Middlesex, as well as London.
At the weekend reports emerged that Amazon was also poised to launch a new grocery chain in the US, in a venture separate to both its Whole Foods supermarkets and 10 Amazon Go stores.
Read more: Amazon Go secures central London retail space
Taylor’s LinkedIn page describes his top key responsibility at Home Bargains as having been ‘Liaising with store area managers to ensure all recruitment needs are met within a timely and professional manner, for roles such as store assistants, lead sales, supervisors, assistant managers, store managers and trainee managers’.
Based in Liverpool, his others key responsibilities included ‘Supporting new store openings by supporting the recruitment of a full management team and bulk store assistant staff’.
Before his two years at Home Bargains, Taylor was a recruitment consultant.
His LinkedIn connections include store staff working for a number of retailers.
His appointment emerges the day after that of a former senior Tesco figure to a ‘special projects’ role at Amazon. Prior to his recent appointment, John Farrell spent 11 years at Tesco, in roles including group transformation director, MD of new business development and finally business support director.
The Telegraph reported at the weekend that a UK-wide push of Amazon Fresh, the tech giant’s same-day grocery delivery service, was also planned following a recruitment drive. Amazon Fresh launched in the UK in 2016 but the service remains limited to London and a selection of postcodes in the home counties.
Amazon declined to comment on Taylor’s appointment.
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