Ambitious store supervisor, Joseph Showler, looks back on his time on I’m Running Sainsbury’s and discusses his highs and lows
My adventure started on a rare quiet night at work when I entered a competition – which culminated in me running Sainsbury’s. Originally, my winning idea was that as a company we should live up to our slogan and make it easier for customers to try something new. To do this, I suggested we designate a location within our stores, so that customers could find out which products are new for them to try. From this, I was told I had potential and that they wanted to see whether I had what it took to be a store manager in a short space of time.
On reflection, the whole experience taught me a lot of things, that at the time I never knew I had learnt. I now know how to manage my time more effectively – and I also learnt that your actions will define who you are.
However, during the three weeks that I spent running Sainsbury’s, I often felt stressed and at times overwhelmed due to how much was being asked of me. In hindsight, if I could have changed one thing about the experience, I would have realised how big an opportunity it actually was.
I was being asked to learn a year’s worth of teaching in less than three weeks and I think I failed to understand how difficult that would be. I think if I had realised this, then I would have fared a lot better in the challenges set.
Don’t get me wrong; there were a lot of great moments along the way and my favourite was interviewing a member of staff for the role of team leader. It was great asking questions and giving an excited young employee the opportunity they had desired for more than two years. When my three weeks were over, the one question I asked myself to validate the experience was, ‘If you could do this all again, would you?’. The answer has always been ‘Yes’.
I’m Running Sainsbury’s, Tuesdays at 9pm on Channel 4
Comments
Joseph is out of his depth, painful to watch the car crash.. round of applause to Sainos for giving someone the opportunity but was he really a good candidate?! I am sure he is a lovely guy but did I miss the so called ‘people skills’? The deputy store manager in the Paddington store showed more ability in two minutes than Joseph did throughout the programme. Whole thing smacked of a sullen 16 year old on work experience, what a missed opportunity!
At the beginning of the show, we are told that Sainsburys are the oldest supermarket chain in Britain. They’re not. There is a Northern chain of Supermarkets called Booths who were established in 1847 making them older than Sainsburys.
I like the idea Saisbury’s have to develop their colleagues and fast-track them to management positions, but I thought the trial was a bit harsh. I’ve developed things loke this for companies and ensured that there was always a mix of classroom based and on the job training to ensure skills are provided then developed.
Well done Joseph, you gave it a real good try and good luck for future
how unfair was this programme. A lad from one of the smallest of sainsburys outlets put in instant charge od areas of thier biggest. Joseph has more about him than the pompous guy managing him. Sainsburys can learn from this “customer first” because judging by this episode that is not csomething they beleive in. Total nonsense programme. Channel 4 need to get their programmes in perspective. your attempt to produce your own version of the apprentice has failed badly
Sorry Joe, you weren’t particularly good at anything really. Apart from sitting in the office looking at the screen and ignoring the phone ringing.
Still not sure what the relivance of a 85k store to a small convieniece has in common. Joseph worked as he only knows and the feed back was not of a constructive nature..Having transfered myself from a 75k store to a small shop in a competitive organisation, Opporationally the stores are miles apart and fast tracking on to the other is nearly impossible, dont believe Sainsbury have shown themselves in a very positive way as a good employer. However Joseph has shown what a commitited member of staff and how passionate he is about his job.
joseph far play you where top sport for taking part.Think sainsbury store management stitched you up by not giving more support on guidance.Instead of knocking you down.Believe in yourself you will go far
This programme comes across as having absolutely nothing to do with how they (Sainsbury’s) want the person in question (Joseph) to progress – it is purely a publicity stunt for Sainsbury’s, which I think is disgusting when you are involving people that genuinely want to better their career and sadly want to improve the establishment that they are working for.
Intentionally setting a person up for a fall and making them feel stupid, he was not given (from what I could tell) any real training, not knowing what he could and could not do and constantly being bombarded with negative comments from a Manager that in my opinion needs a few negative “feedback” sessions himself!
For employees to be scared of a manager is certainly not what I call good management – now write that phrase down!!! Ridiculous.
Poor Joseph, they certainly had it in for you!! You tried too hard to impress and you did seem to work alot harder than any manager i have ever seen on a shop floor. Well done to you for your effort, if i where a member of your team, i would definately feel more motivated to work hard. Showing staff you can get stuck in and help at anytime, shows good management. Keep up the good work and if Sainsbury’s can’t see potential, move to a different chain…..
Jo’s original idea for a space in stores to display new products was shelved by Sainsbury’s then they took him on a three week fast track course in management. Now they systematically demoralised the poor chap. The system turned out to be more negative the Jo would ever be. I found the staff put in place to test him were really up themselves and were no help to him at all and deep down Jo was really hurt by their comments. Surely a better process would have been to get Jo to shadow the deputy manager for three weeks then in the fourth week he would run the store. Sainsbury were very short sighted. Well done Jo you did everything you could with dice stacked against you
I was so surprised at the lack of guidance offered to Joseph under the guise of ‘training’ – it was as though he was receiving training by ‘David Brent.’ It appeared that all people wanted to do was shoot him down in flames. Even if someone were to be fast-tracked into a managerial position and lets be fair this happens frequently with graduates – they need to be given instructions as to what their duties in each role should consist of. Where was the job description for Joseph to peruse? Where was anyone with anything positive to say? Talking behind someone’s back and saying what they should be doing is hardly training.
Would it not be more sensible for someone to actually stay alongside a manager and see what is done on a day-to-day basis at least for the first week. To give negative feedback on a daily basis is not productive. To go to members of staff and ask for their feedback on a new member of staff is not productive. The whole process really showed up how bad the training facilities are. Senior people trying to look smooth and out-do and critisize a junior member of staff at every given opportunity. No directive, no written training plan – somewhat done on the hoof. An inability showing how Senior Management did not appear to know how to talk to junior members of staff.
The whole programme left me disappointed with the feeling that much more needs to be done to teach people how they should talk to people they are training and the fact that they should really show people how to to the job. This is no time for allowing the ‘David Brent’s’ of this world be ‘Captain’s of the Ship’ or as specified in this programme ‘the bus driver!’
I can not believe anyone in their right mind would think that excersise could possibly work. Surely a good manager is defined by the quality of his/her training. This young man was given none, and then expected to know how to manage. Lack of training reflects in the service given by the company to it’s customers. We see the resukts of this in the stores every day. Joseph does indeed have potential, that needs harnessing and guiding. I wish him well
I think you did very well. It was quite a huge step making you produce manager and checkout manager.
I think the manager in the large supermarket was quite ridiculous really. First of all his quotes made no sense and him being disappointed when you were not looking at him when he was giving you advice was a bit odd. You wanted to get the job done. His opinion was manager first, job and customers second. No way, it’s the other way round!
Well done.
joseph`s running sainsburys. i thought was filled with alot of mistakes made by Sainsburys.Sainsburys have a duty of care and all i witnessed was mangement knocking him down. He looked stressed and a bit like a fish out of water, but then again i suppose thats what Sainsbury`s management wanted.Let`s face it if he had achived to fast track to management it would have made Sainsbury`s management look stupid.Why give him a task he had no hope in passing nice one Sainsbury`s.The best thing he can do is go to a company which will give him time to grow and not use him to make t.v and answer alot of stupid questions…. 3 weeks to be a manager …come on guys .it`s put me off shopping at the store
Love you Joseph! Those were three really tough weeks and I am so proud of you. The managers didn’t present themselved very well at all- almost as if they didn’t understand the challenge set before you. In small stores you all muck in, no matter what status. Either way you’re a complete superstar! xxx
SAINSBURYSH , WHERE YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE TRAINED WERE HORRIBLE YOU TRIED YOUR HARDEST AND I WISH YOU THE VERY BEST IN THE FUTURE
JOSEPH YOU DID BRILLIANTLY AS FOR SAINSBURYS METHOD OF TRAINING EVEN IN THAT SHORT SPACE OF TIME WAS DREADFUL I THOUGHT, YOU WERE PREPARED TO HELP OUTYOUR OTHER COLL. ANY EMPLOYER WORTH THEIR SALT WOULD SEE THAT AS A BONUS WHERE I COME FROM GOOD LUCK.
i work for sainsburys and the only thing im going to say about this entire programme is – i was the same as joseph – i loved my job and loved the company – felt really valued, However, i’m now ashamed and embarrassed to admit to anyone whos watched this programme that i work for them and dont feel valued at all – justin king and jackie connor need a reality check – and by the look so does jason whitaker
Totally agree with the majority here – J was treated badly throughout, his manager was surely doing a David Brent impression for a bet?! Deputy store manager was fabulous, I hope she’s appreciated. Sainsburys – you’ll need more than a cheeky mockney chef to get us back on side after this, better get your PR department mobilised sharpish.
Sainsbury are bang out of order for this. the poor bloke – I missed the first ten mins of the show and assumed he must have already been a manager for them to give him the responsibility and the criticism he received for not knowing what to do. then I was so shocked when I realised at the end he worked for such a small store and was on the checkouts.
Sainsbury should be ashamed of themselves for this cheap publicity stunt . they tried to make Joseph look like a idiot and now they do themselves.
he seemed like a nice young man who tried his best.
SAINSBURYS BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES I WILL NEVER SHOP THERE AGAIN.
Im not sure whether i would rather be the Helicopter pilot or the Bus driver!
At first i thought the program was a spoof due to the fact that the manager was actually making up training quotes and Joseph was portrayed as the ideal person to carry out a fast track course..
From my helicopter point of view, Sainsbury’s need to get a grip of their corporate craziness and i would say that judging by the rest of the bloggers… My bus is pretty full on that one!
This programme has been really badly edited as joseph did really well in his three weeks and did alot more stuff than they showed, but i guess being good doesnt make great tv! i still cant see why they couldnt do josephs original idea as they gave the first girl becky a space in the shop for her feed your family for a fiver meals, why not the same space for new products. well done joseph!
20+ years ago I worked as a graduate trainee for Sainsbury’s. During the training programme we were given a number of weeks training in each dept before being required to run the dept for one week, while being assessed by the manager. It wasn’t always perfect – some store managers used us to cover dept managers’ leave so we could end up in charge with only a couple of days training. Even this, however, was better than the treatment given to Joseph – to drop Joseph in the deep end in a massive store was simply setting him up to fail, and the cliches trotted out by the store manager were just cringeworthy! Joseph may not have paid full attention when being spoken to, but at least he was trying to keep the shelves stocked in the apparent absence of his produce team (were they all on the checkouts?) rather than taking a helecopter view – perhaps the manager would have been happier if Joseph had waltzed about admiring the empty shelving!!
Sainsbury really didn’t come off well in this series. If I worked for their Marketing/PR team I would be looking to limit the damage and make sure that the consumer perception of the brand does not deteriorate as a result. No company wants to be seen as treating employees badly, but unfortunately the programmes have showed hard working, dedicated employees have the enthusiasm knocked out of them. For a company as successful as Sainsbury, this was a very disappointing portrayal.
I agree with majority of comments. Joesph, Sainsbury’s set you up to fail and the gave you nothing but negative feedback for your efforts. (Except for Justin King who valued your excellent customer service and people skills). You cannot possibly be expected to run a dept, never mind a store when you are not trained in the operating procedures. I think you are an excellent candidate to take the relevant management training courses so that you can progress up the career ladder, and I wish you every success. As for the manager at the large store with 25 years expereince, who was supposed to be your mentor and coach, he is in urgent need of a communication and people skills course!
Don’t worry about the queueing customers, come to my meeting, dont worry about the Bananas being off sale, just wander around having a look at everything.
The “feedback” was bullshit as well, he’s trying his best to get one of the top 5 lines in store on sale (Nanas) he’s supposed to stop and listen to the fuhrer.
shame on you sainsburys you could of ended the show on a high by really showing what happened and the success story he really was but instead you chose to show him mainly on his first day and edited to look like a whole weeks work. As he got given the job managing the veg section in the morning and checkouts in the afternoon on his first day of arriving at the store, where was the clips of the other 13 days?
Is it company policy to show your staff in a bad light when all was needed was a bit of guidance and support which didn’t come across, surely the truth would have made better TV than what was portrayed.
Joseph you did very well and all this programme has done is show how badly managed and unsupportive the stores and some staff are. I hope you get an official apology from Sainsbury’s, but let’s face it the management at Sainsbury’s appear to be so far up themselves they won’t be able to read this anyway.
An insightful episode into the workings of a store, but very naieve to think that a colleague from a local store could take on all the concepts for a major store in three weeks. I would say it was more of a PR exercise for Sainsbury’s as is the whole series. What does come across from the episodes is the complete insincerity of the top managers, very pompous and very egotistical. Also the store manager from the last episode probably summed up the the problems Sainsbury’s have in someone who likes the sound of his own voice, someone who has tried to swallow a managerial handbook and use as many catch phrases as possible without really understanding what they meant. What an absolute idiot! They gentleman in question could not find his way out of a one way street.
As somebody who actually trains people for a living I was far from impressed by the “shove in the deep end” approach demonstrated by Sainsburys. As for some of the senior management… I agree with the other comments – David Brent is tame compared with the moronic waffle spouted by some of Sainsbury’s finest! A despicable exercise aimed at humiliation rather than progression: SAINSBURYS YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES. Well done Jo, you have the patience of a saint and totally got the point: the customer is always right!
JOSEPH WAS *RIGHT*NOT TO GO TO THE MEETING BUT TO LOOK AFTER THE CUSTOMERS WHO COME FIRST BUT WHEN I SAW WHERE THE OTHER STAFF WERE ASKED FOR THEIR *FEEDBACK ON JOESPH *IF THAT WAS DONE TO ME IN THAT NEGITIVE WAY SAINBURYS COULD STUFF THEIR JOB IN THEIR ORANGE BAGS .I HAVE NEVER EVER SEE THAT DONE AND I AM IN MY MID SIXTIES .
My Layout suggestion
My partner works at Sainsbury’s in Salford (Manchester), i have a big idea but he thinks it wont work, we have been arguing about it …
I think “ALL” supermarkets have got this wrong and my idea will ensure customers receive a perfect product, increase store sales, increase impulse buys, reduce waste and make the store a nicer place ….
The big question is …
Why have fresh cut flowers by the door when you walk in, where, after 1/2 hour in your trolley they are already starting to die and take in air not water.
The Answer….
Put them by the till, where ethically this makes more sense instead of force feeding kids chocolates and sweets. This would mean taking them home in the freshest possible time, making them more of an impulse buy for customers, therefore increasing sales, and hey, wouldn’t the checkouts look good!
You could still have your leaflet dispensers where carrier bags were before, now they are not put out all the time to help global warming.
What do you think, please help my domestic argument.
Cheers
Paul
what potential did the sainsburys big guns actually see in joseph he gave a 3 min speech and suddenly they thought he was manager potential! every other sainsburys worker showed more common sense and knowledge than joseph so why wern’t they fast tracked? as the narrator said it had taken that jason guy 23 years to become a manager and they exspected joseph to become one after 3 weeks! the whole programme was a joke and that joseph should have head butted that jason for the way he spoke to him!!
I do feel that fast tracking certain colleagues to store management positions could be a very good idea. However there should be a specific criteria upon which those colleagues are selected. Maybe Joseph didn’t seem to prosper in this role however i did get the impression that he was very quickly mentally broken down and lost a lot of his confidence very quickly. Jason the manager he was working with at the big store was obviously very skilled and tactile however his approach came accross as quite adverse and the general impression i got overall was that Jason was looking to make himself look good knowing the cameras were watching. He is a store manager who had worked his way up from a trolley assistant with years of training. Maybe he should have looked to build Josephs confidence as this was clearly fragile.
shame on you sainsburys you could of ended the show on a high by really showing what happened and the success story he really was but instead you chose to show him mainly on his first day and edited to look like a whole weeks work. As he got given the job managing the veg section in the morning and checkouts in the afternoon on his first day of arriving at the store, where was the clips of the other 13 days?
Is it company policy to show your staff in a bad light when all was needed was a bit of guidance and support which didn’t come across, surely the truth would have made better TV than what was portrayed.
well done Joseph you have obviously survived the experience intact-dont forget “retail is detail”. If I were you I would ignore the David Brent chap and copy his number 2 “that display is crap,get it sorted!”-now that is my type of management speak
i have worked for sainsburys for the past 11 years and most of that time i have had some great managers but in my opinion jason needs further training on how to treat his staff i always say treat your staff with respect and the way you like to be treated yourself and you will get blood out of a stone joseph jason wants putting on a course to teach that the customer comes before his meetings. justin i think you did get it wrong trying to fast track a store manager and in such a large store as the one you put joseph in,all the collegues were i work felt very sorry for joseph we felt you used him as an experiment and that wasnt fair. keep up the good work joseph i think you will make a good manager one day but never forget to treat your staff with respect
The flowers argument has been done before, and many retail experts question why when you walk into Sainsbury’s you see flowers first and foremost. It sends out the wrong message.
I think that everyone who has commented above is wrong, I believe that the manger is a superstar and the programme just shows that he is doing his job the way he is supposed to. Jason’s job was to train Joseph to become a store manager in the space of two weeks and this is what he did. Joseph did not show any decent respect for Jason as he couldn’t be bothered to turn up to the meeting or follow the advice he had given him. This just shows who the better manager truly was..
I think Joseph was throw in the deep end but at the same time what Jason said to him was fine. As a store manager you can not sugar coat things what he was trying to show him is that you have learn to balance the task and the customer .
as a company Sainsbury (& the other supermarkets) should make it easier for customers to make more informed choices on meat quality. Labeling should include information on (in decreasing importance of taste quality) breed or crossbreed, age at slaughter, main foodstuff, the animal’s farming intensity, main country of growth, country of slaughter, country of processing, use of any growth hormones, use of any genetically modified feed contents.
Traceability codes should enable any packaged meat product to be traced back to the original breeder and grower of that animal. The traceability is not for the “sue anybody who might be to blame for any thing” approach, but to trace back to the source any potentially harmful disease or contamination (to humans or the animals) as quickly as possible and elimate that problem as quickly as possible too. In large processing batches [a] traceability codes will have to be batched for meat from different animals [b] mixing of batches from different abbatoirs should be kept to a minimum.
Stuart, what are you spamming with your tree hugging nonsense that has nothing to do with the conversation?
I think Joseph is a really hard worker. I agree that he should have stepped back a bit and “managed” his staff more than doing the work, but I agree that if you get stuck in and lead by example then you gain respect.
I do not like management jargon, therefore I took an instant dislike to Jason’s helicopter talk. If Jason had explained to Joseph to perhaps use a piece of paper to write things down on then maybe each person would have got a clearer message.
I think Sainsbury’s should have tried his initial idea first, then showed him how to run a big department before throwing him in and criticising his “management” style. He has no management experience, how is he supposed to learn in a matter of hours?
When I train people how to do things at work, I expect them to make mistakes, it is all part of the learning process.
Joseph should find a better job, he deserves more. He is a hard worker and those a hard to find these days.
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