What is the Support Office?

The Support Office is here to support our stores. We lead and work on projects to continually improve the business for customers, make Tesco a great place to work, and make our store operations better, simpler and cheaper.

From the uniforms our staff wear and the checkouts our customers use, to communicating the next big promotions to our stores and redesigning our trolleys; everything you see in our stores has been touched by the Support Office in some way.

You will be based in our office in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire. As the Support Office is there to support stores, it is important that you visit our stores and speak to our customers and colleagues. Communication is the key to everything we do in the Support Office. To ensure your projects launch successfully first time you need to ensure that everything you do will work in real life.

We have five main teams within the Support Office: Customer Service; People; Operations; Finance and Community. Each one of these areas has its own business priorities, yet they all work together to ensure that:

• we bring our business plans to life;
• we manage our workload for stores;
• we listen and act on feedback from stores.

To ensure the success of everything we do, we endeavour to:

• get it right first time;
• make it better for customers, simpler for stores and cheaper for Tesco.

What will I be doing?

No matter what you want from a career in retail, the Support Office Graduate Scheme will not disappoint. No two days are ever the same!

At the start of the year you will spend two weeks in the Support Office meeting the teams and understanding their roles. You will then spend four weeks in a store to help you to gain a better understanding of how our stores operate. You will then return to the Support Office and complete three different projects, working towards becoming a Project Manager at the end of the 12 month programme.

Remember, the role requires you to take immediate responsibility. You will be accountable for the delivery of projects. You will get to work with people from all areas of the business to complete your projects. The projects that you will be leading are real business changes - they’ve not been created to give you something to do. With your team’s support, you’ll be responsible for making the project happen, ensuring that we make our stores better for customers, simpler for staff and cheaper for Tesco.

Where could it take me?

After you successfully complete the Graduate Scheme you will be assigned to a role as a Project Manager within one of the five areas of the Support Office. Previous graduates are now working in a variety of roles. These may be within the Support Office, in our stores at home or abroad or within our international business managing multimillion pound projects. With enough drive there is no limit to your development and career within Tesco.

What skills do I need?

Throughout the year you will get training to allow you to develop your project management, influencing, coaching and presentation skills. Our aim is to support you to become the leaders of the future. To be successful in the Support Office you will have:

• Highly effective analytical and decision making skills.
• The ability to embrace change, be adaptable and innovative.
• The ability to remain resilient and optimistic when faced with challenges.
• A strong passion for retail and delivering a great shopping experience to our customers.
• A 'can-do' attitude with the drive and determination to succeed.
• The desire to continually strive to improve and to help others to improve.