Head Of Product Retail And People Job In London

Job Description

Salary: Competitive Plus Benefits
Location: Holborn Store Support Centre and Home, London, EC1N 2HT
Contract type: Permanent
Business area: Sainsbury's Tech
Closing date: 18 September 2024
Requisition ID: 254466

Please note the successful applicant can be based at our Holborn Store Support Centre or the Coventry Store Support Centre, if Holborn based there will be an expectation to travel to Coventry as and when required.

In a nutshell

In Sainsbury’s Tech, we power the UK’s number 1 multi-channel, multi-brand retailer. Our Product teams are made up of inspired and multi-discipline individuals who are empowered to solve hard problems in ways our customers and colleagues love and which serve the needs of our business.

Heads of Product (HoP) play a critical leadership role at Sainsbury’s and are expected to create, drive and deliver their vision for their relevant product domain to support our overall business strategy. In this case, the Head of Product for People and HR will be relentlessly focused on improving the all-round work-life experience for our colleagues through development of new and/or better systems and tooling. You will be pivotal in improving the lives of our c.150,000 colleagues every single day and, ultimately, better-supported colleagues will unlock better shopping experiences for customers in our stores.

You will be expert in stakeholder management and be comfortable defining and interpreting relevant metrics to prioritise roadmaps and support and challenge your team and your business partners. You are commercially astute and can balance ROI against desirability, viability, feasibility and longevity of a Product. You understand the importance of simplification and scaling, especially against a backdrop of a retail business which has c.1400 stores serving millions of customers every week. You are very comfortable working at the pace a retail business requires.

You will be an experienced people leader, who loves to coach and develop your team, setting stretching goals and giving open, honest and supportive feedback to colleagues to help them realise their full potential. You thrive on delivering through your wider team.

What I need to do

• Ongoing development of the Product vision for the People and HR domain.
• Lead and coach your wider team to deliver their vision of their Products, to achieve our strategic business goals.
• Ensure teams are leveraging common thinking and technologies.
• Set and define outcomes and metrics for their principal area/s.
• Spot opportunities in the market within their domain.
• Refine and optimise within defined capital and request support on priority or capacity contention.
• Work across divisions to shape dependent roadmaps and features, escalating where prioritisation trade-offs are needed across teams.
• Build strong relationships up to DD level to engage on the visions/roadmaps for their principal product areas.
• Contribute and coach better product across the division using product competency and internal frameworks.
• Take the lead to trial and embed new practices, principles and tools.
• Cultivate, develop and maintain 3rd party supplier relationships where relevant.

Specifically focusing on:

• Improving the day-to-day experience of our colleagues across the business, and especially for our store colleagues.

How I will succeed:

• Be the champion for product area, determining the right level or type of material to communicate the experience, benefits and long-term vision across a variety of audiences including development teams, stakeholders at all levels, partners and external parties.
• Be the arbitration and escalation point for prioritisation and trade-offs within their product area to deliver the maximum value and return on capital.
• Maintain a good level of awareness, interest and understanding of the existing and future end-to-end technology stacks/interfaces, including communicating clearly and coaching others on where and how to develop these technologies so they work seamlessly for customers and colleagues.
• Ensure that the team maintains a realistic 90-day roadmap, as well as a prioritised and estimated full year backlog, regularly communicating progress and proactively managing risks/issues to remove blockers. Support the team in understanding future risks to mitigate.
• Support communication and resolution of live product incidents and effectively prioritise, coordinate and communicate the resolution of production issues.
• Maintain a highly collaborative relationship with engineering, support at all levels for teams to understand and work together to solve problems for our customers and the business.
• Collaborate with the Head of Product, and other Principal Product Managers across the business to ensure consistency, drive overall strategic business outcomes/shared objectives, and continuously improve product management across the division.
• Develop a strong team of Product Managers, building the competency and enhancing the craft within the community. This includes developing a culture of learning, empowerment, experimentation and collaboration.
• Drive the team and their products towards the future organisation aspirations, through constructive challenge and thought leadership, fostering a culture where our customer ambition inspires the team to aim high and deliver at pace.
• Contribute and lead within the Product Community of practice.

What I need to know:

• Knowledge and understanding of a retail business and the technology landscape would be beneficial.
• Knowledge and understanding of HR systems and the challenges that face large organisations with hundreds of stores, thousands of colleagues and millions of customers.
• Understanding of Agile delivery and modern engineering team practices.
• Knowledge of technical product development principles and methodologies.

What I need to show:

• Commercial acumen, including understanding of the commercial drivers that determine the viability and longevity of a product, the ability to determine return on investment and use this insight to inform prioritisation, taking market context into consideration.
• Customer focus, including a relentless focus on understanding, anticipating and exceeding their customers' needs and the ability to collaborate effectively with customers and stakeholders.
• Data driven, including a drive for the use of product metrics to prioritise a roadmap effectively and the ability to use data and insight appropriately to make informed decisions whilst mitigating for any possible limitations and/or risks of misinterpretation.
• Product processes, including the ability to adapt behaviour to all stages of the Product Lifecycle, a deep understanding of delivery approaches and when to use them, a focus on prioritisation of outcomes over outputs, the ability to motivate teams working within constraints and a drive to continually improve ways of working.
• Strategic vision, including the ability to create, drive and champion a long-term product vision in line with a business strategy, the capability to anticipate the implications of how a product vision could interplay with a wide range of teams and the ability to drive collaboration with others to deliver effectively.
• Technical curiosity, including the ability to translate between customer requirements and technology delivery, the desire to engage in technical discussions and challenge teams, the ability to use a variety of techniques to develop understanding of the tech landscape and customer expectations of technology as relevant to a product or industry.
• Creative problem solving, enthusiasm for delivering change through people and technology.
• Ability to switch between strategic visioning and getting into the detail, being the authority in all aspects of the product area.
• Creating a positive and consistent impact with internal and external audiences; excellent stakeholder management skills, ensuring senior stakeholder advocacy for your product families.
• Demonstrable experience of leading and developing teams, directly and cross-functionally.
• Strong communication and influencing skills across the organisation at all levels.
• Success in delivering in multiple product teams across different stages of the customer journey.

Resources available to me:

• Multi million £ budget.
• Product Community of Practice.
• Large team of dedicated and matrixed resources.
• Learning and development within Sainsbury’s.

We are committed to making Tech a place where people love to work where diverse and engaged teams make a purposeful contribution. Sainsbury’s is committed to being the most inclusive retailer, and flexible working including job sharing is welcomed wherever possible. In Tech we welcome such conversations and are proud to champion a diverse and inclusive culture.

As well as lots of on-the-job training and endless opportunities, you’ll get:

• Colleague discount across our multi-brands – Sainsbury’s, Argos and Habitat.
• Pension plan.
• Special offers on gym memberships, restaurants, holidays, retail vouchers and more.

Work-life balance is important to us, so we offer our colleagues as much flexibility as possible in line with the needs of their role. We trust them to decide how, where and when they work, combining remote and collaborative working with a flexible approach to hours, giving them plenty of time and space for life outside of work whilst delivering against our business goals.