Retail Planning and Communication Manager

Are you a retail professional with significant experience in planning and communications in a centralised retail operations team?  

Do you have a strong understanding of retail and trading principles? 

Do you build excellent relationships with those around you, to collaborate effectively? 

If so, our?Retail Planning and Communication Manager opportunity?could be your perfect next role! 

About the role: 

This role is key to the introduction of a new central operations team in Harding+. In this new position, you’ll play a pivotal role in bridging the gap between the commercial trading teams, the wider business and retail teams by acting as the ‘gatekeeper’ for communications to retail. You’ll attend and influence trading meetings to ensure actions are agreed and communicated effectively to Retail teams as well as managing the road map for retail. 

This is a great time to join Harding+, as we transform our retail operations to drive our business forward by delivering exceptional guest and colleague experiences. You’ll play a vital role in this, by developing clear communication plans with a holistic view of what, how and when we communicate to our retail teams. 

Based in Avonmouth (Bristol) on a hybrid working basis 2-3 days a week. 

Compensation – competitive salary, bonus scheme, pension, 4 x life assurance, healthcare, 25 days leave annually (including Christmas shutdown) 

What you will be doing: 

• Attend and influence in weekly trading meetings, ensuring markdowns, markups, and other trading actions are communicated in a planned and effective way. 

• Develop clear and concise communication plans to ensure trading actions are effectively communicated to Retail teams taking into account workload capacity in Retail. 

• Maintain regular communication with Area Managers and Shop Managers through the most appropriate channels. 

• Act as the "gatekeeper” for workload and communications from HQ to Shipboard teams, influencing and ensuring customer and retail needs are being prioritised.  

• Act as the “voice of Retail” in HQ, thinking and acting on behalf of our teams and guests. 

• Support implementation and manage the Retail intranet ensuring it serves as an effective communication tool for Retail, using feedback to improve it's effectiveness. 

• Work closely with Commercial teams to create and deliver briefings on new products, promotions, and other key initiatives to the field team. 

• Ensure all product and promotion information is communicated clearly and effectively, with a focus on helping Store Managers and their teams understand the benefits and selling points of new offerings.

About you: 

• Strong understanding of retail and trading principles, particularly within the cruise or retail industry. 

• Proven experience in a retail planning, communications, or similar role, preferably within the cruise, retail or hospitality industry. 

• Knowledge of communication strategies and tools, including intranet systems like Work Vivo. 

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to convey complex information clearly and effectively to large scale audiences in written format.

• Exceptional organisational skills, with the ability to manage multiple tasks and priorities simultaneously. 

• Strong influencing skills at all levels, able to work at pace and with energy to get the job done for retail.  

• Must have an existing right of eligibility to work in the UK. 

Key Attributes – trust, collaboration, respect, passion, drive, resilience 

About us: 

Harding+ is leading the way in innovative onboard cruise retailing, working closely with our cruise line partners and brand partners to ‘make every cruise better’.? We stay at the forefront of retailing and consistently provide outstanding customer service, culminating in winning the Cruise Retailer of the Year award for 2022 and 2023. 

Harding+ is an equal opportunities employer.  We believe passionately that employing a diverse workforce is central to our success, making recruiting decisions based on your experience and skills.  We value your passion to discover, invent, simplify, and build.  Protecting your privacy and the security of your data is a longstanding top priority for Harding+. 

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