A head office reception says a lot about a company, and it often gives me an opportunity to gauge the culture and pulse of an organisation. I have been visiting the M&S HQ for more years than I can remember, but since Stuart Machin took over as CEO, the energy and drive in his mission to elevate the business is palpable as you walk through the doors at the Waterside Support Centre – a change in title that Stuart introduced to demonstrate that the office is there to support M&S stores and distribution centres to deliver for customers. What was once a formal and corporate reception area is now abuzz and alive with activity. People often talk about retail theatre on the shop floor and that’s the feeling that has been brought to the centre. In short, there’s a sense that something good and new is happening.
So why was I not surprised this week when I caught up with Chief People Officer, Sarah Findlater, and felt the same sense of energy, sincerity and authenticity that seems to be running through the company? My first question to her was about just this topic. She told me: “The energy you feel when you’re in the store Support Centre is something that is now woven through every part of the business and into stores. Stuart brings such an energy and drive to take us beyond what we think is possible and the Archie/Stuart dynamic has brought a real positive dose of reality to M&S and an unwavering focus on listening to colleagues and – as Stuart would say – an open culture where bad news travels just as fast as good.
“I have confidence that together we are making a tangible difference to our culture.”
“Stuart talks about positive dissatisfaction and an environment where everyone is always aiming higher – which is one of our behaviours – and you can feel that in how we are all working now. It’s sincere and authentic and genuine. This isn’t a corporate narrative or words on a page, it’s real and it’s how we want to show up. We all believe in it; we all know where we’re headed, and you can feel it everywhere.”
It is this drive and innovation that has kept Sarah at M&S since she joined the personnel grad scheme in 1998, but it was her love for retail that first drew her to the company. “I love retail and that is why I joined M&S. I still see myself as retail first,” she tells me.
After spending the first ten years of her career in stores, she began to move around the business in many roles – she has done every HR role in the company. It is clear Sarah is not one to become complacent and notes her long tenure as something she is keenly aware of. “It’s the thing people ask me about the most. I’m very conscious that I’ve spent my whole career at M&S. So, because of this, I work really hard to get an external perspective by talking to people, reading and learning, and I make sure I’m bringing talent into my team with diverse perspectives and different experiences.”
However, her experience within the company has also been a driving force in her ability to enact genuine change, she says. “M&S is a business that has never stood still. I’ve worked with so many different leaders at various times of the business transformation and performance, and what it means now is that I know how to get stuff done here. I know how to translate ambition and strategic direction into reality at the sharp end of the organisation.
“And what’s great is that under Stuart’s leadership, the change feels more real and lasting – he’s always pushing us as a leadership team to be sleeves rolled up. One of our behaviours is ‘we say it, we do it’, as in the past we have been better at talking than doing. So, I have confidence that together we are making a tangible difference to our culture.”
In the time that I have known Sarah, she has consistently pushed herself and the company to be better for its people, and so, four months ago, she had a conversation with Stuart about how she could be the best People Director possible for the organisation. Stuart is passionate about leading a culture that is ‘closer to customers and closer to colleagues’, with every Support Centre colleague now spending seven days a year in store and every new leader spending their first month in store. So far this year, 24 leaders have done just that, from the new Chief Commercial Officer in Food to the Head of Strategy. So, they agreed that Sarah would spend three months working at her local M&S, Brooklands, to experience first-hand what it was like to work in-store now and lead the whole organisation’s efforts to get ‘closer to customers and closer to colleagues.’
Whilst there, she worked at each level of the business, from Customer Assistant to Team Manager to Store Manager. Despite having started in-store herself, Sarah said she was surprised by how challenging she found it returning to the shop floor. “It’s more complex now than it was 15 years ago. Customers are shopping differently; we didn’t really have an online business back then and tech has become so much more important. The landscape and context is just much more complex.”
Seeing this first hand was eye opening for Sarah, allowing her to understand the real changes that need to be made rather than the assumed ones. “Our colleagues care about their store, their team and their customers. They want to do the very best they can for them. What matters to them is understanding what their accountabilities are, that their line manager notices them and what they’re working towards. I think sometimes in the store Support Centre, we think that we understand what they are interested in but the reality is very different”.
“We work really hard to do the right thing by our people and I want to be noisy and challenging and approach my role completely differently.”
A key skill that has helped lead to Sarah’s success is her ability to listen hard and always question how she can improve and do more, and it’s this that ultimately led to her time at Brooklands. She tells me, “Really listening hard and truly understanding things from colleagues’ perspectives by putting myself in their shoes has been a huge factor in being able to show empathy and then drive change off the back of this experience.
“I asked loads of questions. I was looking at everything fresh and I wasn’t defensive. I was just there to learn and that’s exactly what I did.”
Following her time at Brooklands, Sarah shared what she had learnt in a showstopping speech at the M&S Retail Conference which was held at the end of September to over 1,000 colleagues. She highlighted simplifying systems, creating a stronger connect between stores and Support Centre colleagues and investing in training up confident, exceptional managers. But most of all, she voiced her desire for others to experience what she did. “I made a call to arms at the conference to get other colleagues to do what I have done, and I’ve already had people get in touch to put themselves forward. There are others who are contacting me, letting me know that they are working to solve a problem I raised in my talk, which is exactly what I was hoping to achieve out of this experience.
“We work really hard to do the right thing by our people and I want to be noisy and challenging and approach my role completely differently so that ultimately I can encourage others to be more persistent and drive improvement.”
As the meeting comes to a close, I am struck by the resilience of Sarah, and left marvelling her appetite to do whatever it takes to play her part in the journey of transformation.
Quickfire questions:
Where were you born? Romsey in Hampshire, which is on the south coast, about half an hour away from the sea.
Tell us about your family? I have three boys aged 5 to 14. Joseph is the oldest and then there’s Henry and George. My husband, Ben, has his own business but he’s also an on-call firefighter which means being on call from 7pm-7am for four or five nights a week. He does this because he wanted to do something for the community after covid. My mum and dad are both retired teachers, and my sister is a musician. She plays flute for the English National Opera and various orchestras in the West End.
What do you do to unwind? It’s less about unwinding and more about spending time doing different things that is not work. I spend most of my time on the weekend with my boys, on the sideline of a sports pitch, ferrying them to different sporting events or feeding them!
What is your favourite film? I could make something up but it’s, Die Hard. I watch it every Christmas. I just love Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, the humour and the action.
Who are your mentors? I’m so lucky to have worked and to work still with so many incredible people and I take something from all of them. I believe you can learn something from everyone. Stuart is a great line manager and has pushed me hard to strive for more. I am also lucky to have an inspiring and experienced group of NEDs like Fiona Dawson, Evelyn Bourke and Cheryl Potter to seek advice from.
What would you like your legacy to be? Fundamentally, I want to feel that I’ve made a difference. Under Archie and Stuart’s leadership, M&S is a completely different business – more modern but back to our roots in some ways. There’s still so much more to do, but I hope my legacy will be that I’ve helped to build a culture that is closer to our frontline colleagues – who are on the coalface every day – and that really listens, so we can help everyone to be the best they can be. I also want to leave behind a team of brilliantly talented people who are going to continue to transform M&S.
My legacy isn’t only about work. My aim is to be able to say that I’ve raised three healthy, empathetic, independent, loving boys who lead and role model to create a more equitable world in whatever they end up doing in their futures. I don’t want them to change the world, but if they can change the bit of the world they touch for the better, then I’ll have done a good job.
