Work Experience - Waitrose

Work Experience- Waitrose

Appearance

What did I do during the week?

Customer services

Interacting with the customers and providing them with a perfect service was vital whilst working in this section.

I learn't many different aspect of how the customers can shop as well as learning about all the offers which are available.

One of the most important aspects of the business as without the customers there would be no business!

There are many other services which customers can use at waitrose , such as the 'click & collect' service.-which is part of John Lewis.

Operations

I was teamed up with Steph for a day who was the section manager in charge of the operations department. This consisted of working in the offices and on the shop floor. I took part in many different procedures, from using a zapper on the shop floor to analysing databases in the offices.

Ambient Section

consists of food which does not need to be chilled but includes frozen foods. I was fortunate to sit in on a meeting about stock control and presentation of goods in the store.

When I first saw people stacking shelves in shops id thought ,and most of you may agree ,that it looks a rather easy and simple job but I can tell you that there is a lot more to it that just putting stock on shelves

Waitrose follows a smart appearance with a uniform, so for the week I was required to wear a business style dress code, also following the health and safety regulation. This contain things such as hair tied back, no nail vanish and flat or small healed shoes.

Items such as earings were allowed if they were studded etc.

I enjoyed wearing a business suit as it helped me to feel that I fitted in with the employees more.

Fresh Section

It had a very similar routine and procedure to the ambient section so I found it easy to work with.

Main aspects of the fresh section are the fruit and vegetables

What I decided to wear.........

Waitrose is an upmarket chain of British supermarkets, forming the food retail division of Britain's largest employee-owned retailer, the John Lewis Partnership.

Waitrose has 291 branches across the United Kingdom

What did Waitrose think?

In the end I chose to apply to Waitrose with having low expectations of actually getting a place for the week when I was told by the assistant manager that they only take 4 students a year! After writing a letter of application followed by an interview with many questions they finally told me when the interview had finished that id got the place for the week. I could not have felt more relieved!

Why Waitrose?

My initial thoughts and interpretation of work

My favorite aspect.

Waitrose was ideal due to a possible future aspirations of working in food retail so this gave me a real insight into the work which is done and I can happily say that it could possibly be a career path to look into.

My favourite part of working at Waitrose was being on customer services. This is because of being able to interact with the customers whereas whilst in other sections the customers presence is not the main focus of the section.

Helping an individual in the store and providing them with what they required gives you a sense of accomplishment when the customer appreciates your work.

HAPPY :)

What I got out of this experience

Overall the week was very enjoyable and I feel that I have learnt a lot from my time at Waitrose. I also feel that I have given something to myself as now I believe that I am a lot more confident in working with new people as a team and an individual with an own responsibility.

Thank you for listening and I hope you all had a lovely time at your work experience placement

To conclude the week.

My least favourite aspect

My least favourite part is hard to think of as I enjoyed every aspect, however working in the ambient section was a very repetitive process and did not consist of much skill compared with the fresh section as the stock in this section would need to be rotated, dates checked and items themselves would need to be checked

Organizing the experience

When knowing we had to take part in a work experience week, to me that felt like the most daunting and nerve racking experience id ever done! Id originally had no idea where would possibly take me or somewhere where I would hopefully enjoy.

By Genie