Heritage Colleague Spotlight - Laura, Head of Store Operating Model

Welcome back to our Heritage Colleague Spotlights mini-series, to celebrate our 40 years of stores milestone!

Our Heritage Colleague Spotlights shine a light on some of our amazing, long service colleagues, and how they have grown and evolved with us over the years. This week we chat to Laura.

Laura’s journey into the business.

In 2003, whilst 16 years old, Laura joined the Fenton store working on the fabric desk every Saturday. Laura remembers it ‘feeling like it was more than just a job for me because of the really friendly, family feel environment.'

After realising college wasn’t for her, Laura was keen to see what this small Saturday job could lead to and ‘worked all the extra hours where I could!’

When a full time position came up, she snapped their hand off and left college. Laura very quickly progressed to Team Leader and just a year later was offered the Assistant Manager position, ‘from here is where it really started progressing for me as a career. I wanted Dunelm to be my future!’

Laura had made it clear that she wanted her own store one day so when she was offered the Store Manager role in Staffordshire, she jumped at the opportunity.

After running the Stafford store for a while and a few other stores, Laura was offered an opportunity to relocate to London and oversee the opening of seven new stores. She reflects on being part of the opening of the Aylesbury store and becoming Area Manager just two years later, a position she stayed in for 3 years.

Having been on the retail side of the business for a good few years now, Laura felt ready to explore a new area of the business. Laura became the Senior Manager Instore Customer Experience, which was a fantastic opportunity to ‘join the gaps’ between support and stores. A few days into Maternity Leave, she was offered the opportunity to step up into a new role of ‘Head of Store Operating Model’ when she returned the next year.

What has made Laura stay?

‘For me it has to be the opportunity. I’ve always been vocal about my ambition and wanting to progress, and having people to support my want for progression and opportunity has been great. If it’s opportunity you want, then you can have it. Despite our size, there is such a family feel to the business too, and I am so lucky to come to work in a job I love every single day.’

What has been her proudest moment since joining the business?

‘Opening a new store – Aylesbury – had been spoken about for 3 years in the business. It was a whole new concept compared to other stores and frankly cost the most money! It was a flagship project and to be given the opportunity to open it and own pretty much every aspect was a super proud moment for me. I was taken out of my own store for 6 months to work on it so I could build a team and focus on making it the huge opening that it was.’

What makes Dunelm Laura’s “happy place”?

‘You are so empowered to make decisions, especially in store, and you can make a huge difference. When I’ve gone into stores I’ve always had full autonomy to go in and do what I need to do and the trust and backing to do it. My “happy place” is standing in that store at the end of a project that you’ve been working on and see the real difference you’ve made for customers and colleagues – the impact you can have is tenfold.’