Joe Fresh Apparel Specialist

Referred applicants should not apply directly to this role.

All referred applicants must first be submitted through Workday by a current Loblaw Colleague.

Founded in 2006, Joe Fresh is a leading source for modern style and accessible design, offering comprehensive lifestyle collections for men, women and children. Joe Fresh delivers quality and compelling value in categories spanning in apparel, accessories, and footwear. Joe Fresh collections are polished and sophisticated, with a focus on essential designs that appeal to a broad range of style-savvy consumers. With more than 350 Joe Fresh departments from coast to coast, the Joe fresh network is more than a great place to shop, it’s a great place to work. We’re committed to building our talented team who champion collaboration, kindness, and inclusivity. We are looking for innovative, hardworking, and collaborative team members for our Joe Fresh team. Join our team in our goal of helping Canadians Live Life Well®.

In addition, we believe that compliance with laws is about doing the right thing. Upholding the law is part of our Code of Conduct - it reinforces what our customers and stakeholders expect of us.

Job Description:

Responsible for Visual Merchandising and instore set-up Directives reflective of Joe Fresh brand standards and company strategy. The role of the Apparel Specialist is to coach, develop and train the Store Colleague on business wide training programs, Brand standards and to create a positive experience for the customer. This includes the on-the-job component of new Manager Training as well as standards and processes they relate to the department. The Apparel Specialist is responsible for training new colleagues, managers and peers on brand standards in stores.

In addition, the Apparel Specialist is responsible for delivering and rolling out core foundational training, National business initiatives and Merchandising programs to store colleagues. The Apparel Specialists will work with both the Business units and Operations team to ensure a National standard implementation of all programs and processes and the sharing of best practices across stores. The apparel specialists will have a passion for the business, solid operational experience, and a desire to make a difference by helping colleagues to develop their skills, build accountability, drive results and provide a positive customer experience.

The specialists is a pivotal role which provides required support to District Managers, Store Managers, Department Managers and other store colleagues to ensure great execution on both merchandising and operational standards in order to achieve growth in sales, profit and market share.

What you'll do:

• Ensure product fits properly onto fixtures adhering to fixture capacity/fixture height/merchandising techniques
• Hardware set up and proper spacing
• Various hang and fold strategies if required
• Identify new and carry over product
• Adhere to colour flow and overall colour story or theme; adjacencies taken into consideration
• Implement new marketing assets and placement and marketing opportunities
• Provides mannequin direction and placement as per Visual Presentation/Visual Merchandising Manager
• Communicates special instructions required to set the floor
• Communicates updates and modifications to visual merchandising as needed through store sell through.
• Working with a group of assigned stores, ensure department adherence to company policies/procedures and consistent execution of format process and strategy. Determine how variances from policy or strategy should be addressed.
• Specialists will work in partnership with the store colleagues to set directives, train and maintain the visual standards for merchandise presentation, coach existing and new colleagues on company floor standards for appropriate visual presentation an placement of merchandise during the store visit.
• Will be the Liaison between Merchandising and Operations to ensure the communication is effective to the stores (re-execution on key programs, seasonal programs, category relines, new program rollouts) taking feedback to the merchandising teams and stores, and ensuring issues get addressed.
• Participate in weekly conference calls, Business Unit Feedback/priorities, merchandising feedback in store execution challenges or opportunities, review any new processes.
• Conduct store visits, analyze department performance and provide feedback to District, Store and Department Managers. Develop action plans to address any gaps in performance or procedure. Follow up with Department and Store Managers on prior feedback/action plans in order to ensure continuous department improvement. Keep District Managers and Director abreast of progress on improvement plans in their respective stores.
• Help identify stores that require priority assistance with merchandising, reduce shrink, and develop action plans with Department Managers and Store Managers to address this issue, and work with them to implement the action plan.
• Work with departments on customer feedback and requests for new products to ensure high levels of customer service are provided.
• Ensure that department budgets are met and that departments achieve targets for sales, margins, period end results, inventory, and shrink, and other CLASS measurements.
• As required, help departments resolve external issues such as vendor credits and internal issues such as labour scheduling and interpersonal conflicts.
• As required, provide direction and support to assist with new store openings and refurbishments
• Conduct 2-4 merchandising workshops for store colleagues to attend for training on up to date brand standards.
• Follow up on Directive compliance, Business Unit initiatives and programs
• Review merchandising expectations on programs, new deliveries arrivals.
• Travel as required; expected to spend approximately 80% of time at stores.

What you'll bring:

• Operational experience as a specialist, preferably in the department he/she will be responsible for
• Retail management experience; experience working in multiple formats a plus
• Excellent problem solving, communication and interpersonal skills
• Adapt to change required by the business
• Ability to handle multiple tasks simultaneously
• Acts with integrity and respect
• Assumes and completes other duties as assigned by Supervisor
• Proficient in Microsoft office ( excel, outlook, power point)
• Adopt & Share Corporate Culture, Values and Behaviors

Key Measures (Performance indicators):

• Achievement of department sales, margins, period end, inventory, shrink targets
• Improvement of priority stores’ departments upon implementation of specialist-driven action plan
• Sales, margins, shrink of department for new stores that specialist works on opening, compared to figures of similar new stores
• Customer survey results that pertain to specialist’s department
• Apparel corporate strategy objectives.

How You’ll Succeed:
At Joe Fresh, we seek great people to continually strengthen our culture. We believe great people model our values, are authentic, build trust and make connections.

If that sounds like you, and you are open-minded, responsive to change and up to the challenges provided in a fast-paced retail environment, apply today.

Joe Fresh recognizes Canada's diversity as a source of national pride and strength. We have made it a priority to reflect our nation’s evolving diversity in the products we sell, the people we hire, and the culture we create in our organization. Accommodation is available upon request for applicants with disabilities in the recruitment and assessment process and when hired.