Head Office Jobs Explained

Think retail and you probably think about high streets and shopping malls and the stores within them. Think retail jobs, therefore, and most people will picture the store assistants, managers, assistant managers, product demonstrators and more who make your favourite stores tick.

But no major store exists in its own bubble. Behind the scenes is a whole army of people in a wide range of retail head office jobs who makes sure every store (online and physical) can get on with the business of serving customers.

How do retail head office departments contribute to the success of a retail business?

The list is almost endless. There are head office retail roles that involve creating and/or buying the products the store sells. Or making sure products get to where they need to be exactly when they’re needed. Or buying/leasing stores, building and running websites and apps, looking after the organisation’s people, and making sure that, in the end, the company’s activities make money.

If they don’t outsource their recruitment (or parts of their recruitment) to people like us, they might run that from head office. They’ll definitely run onboarding and training from there. Head office is where every store layout is planned, where every new sales campaign is conceived and where the organisation’s customer service standards are developed.

It’s also where the organisation’s business strategy will be devised and set out by a senior leadership team who’ll all be working from head office.

You get the picture. Everything that a retailer does — and everything a retailer is — starts in head office. So if you want to have a role in retail where you help shape that, you’ll need to find the right head office retail role for you.

But what exactly do all those jobs involve?

What are the roles and responsibilities of head office departments in retail?

HR

In many ways, HR is much the same as HR anywhere else, but in addition to the regular tasks that every HR person deals with (pay, training, HR policy development, performance appraisal etc), as you grow your career you’ll find yourself dealing with issues that are particularly relevant to the retail sector.

In an industry (in)famous for high staff turnovers, how do you ensure more people stay? How do you recruit the best people when there’s a shortage of real talent? How do you create a culture that your people can buy into? And how do you ensure your organisation doesn’t just say that it’s diverse, inclusive, sustainable etc, but delivers on its promises?

Retail HR people with all these issues.

Finance

No business will stay in business very long unless it makes money. So of all head office departments, this is the one that carries perhaps the greatest influence on the organisation.

At junior levels, retail finance jobs may focus on ensuring employees and suppliers get paid. As your career develops, you may be an accountant with the organisation, responsible for ensuring the books balance, for financial compliance or pricing management. And as your influence grows, you may have a strategic role, setting budgets and overseeing the business’ financial health so it can continue to grow.

Buying

For fashion brands, it starts with the world’s great fashion events (like London Fashion Week). That’s where the latest styles appear on the catwalk, and it’s a fashion buyer’s job to understand how those latest collections — together with what’s happening on the street and in social media — will become the trends that everyone’s buying into next season. Then, buyers oversee development of those new product ranges.

It’s not just fashion, of course; it’s a similar role whether you’re buying tech, toys or tents.

Merchandising 

Merchandisers tend to work hand-in-hand with buyers, but while the buyer’s role is all about predicting what customers will want next (and then finding it), the merchandiser’s role is more about making sure the right goods are in the right place at the right time. As a merchandiser, you’ll predict sales and profits and ensure the product ranges are delivered on time and in the right quantities to meet demand.

Visual Merchandising

How come, when you walk into any of a retailer’s branches, every store looks pretty much the same? The same products given the same focus and prominence in displays. The same store layout. The same approach to window design.

It’s all down to the visual merchandising team. On the face of it, you might think this is one of those design-based head office retail roles where people develop new concept stores based on what looks good, but there’s hard science and deep data behind the visual merchandising role too.

That’s why you’ll need to balance creative flair with data analysis, marketing, psychology, and technical skills such as lighting and colour theory.

Design

Some brands only buy the products they sell. But some (especially fashion brands) are famous for creating their own. As a head office-based designer, you’ll be part of the team that puts together the next collection, and you’ll spend your time researching the latest trends, sourcing fabrics and developing the prints that will become next season’s must-haves.

Customer Experience

How do ensure that the experience a customer enjoys in one store will be replicated when they use another branch? How do you ensure online and offline service standards join up? How do you design seamless customer journeys, and how do you set out how all stores should put things right when they go wrong?

In a head office customer service role, you’ll be developing or helping to deliver solutions for all the above.
Tech

Virtually every retail brand now relies on online sales to make up a significant chunk of its business, but customers aren’t content with a ho-hum website and app. They want innovation, personalisation and something that makes choosing what to buy (and then buying it) easy. That’s why tech is the head office department that has grown faster than any other in recent years.

Some brands do lots in house. Some set the tech direction at head office and then work with tech partners to deliver it. Either way, it’s an exciting space to be right now.

Other retail head office departments

Although we’ve explored some of the ‘meatier’ retail head office jobs that you’re likely to find in most organisations, there are plenty of others that will be part of the head office mix.

Legal, marketing & PR, creative, quality control, sustainability and corporate social responsibility are all likely to have a role within a retailer’s head office. It’s just that these are often smaller departments or functions that are outsourced to partners.

Although every retailer will have a marketing department, for example, each retailer will have its own view on how much of the marketing work should be done in house and how much should be outsourced to a creative agency.

All the above may still offer opportunities for you, though, depending on your skills and experience.

Find retail head office jobs with us

Ready to take the next step in your retail career? Take it with Zachary Daniels. Talk to us now.