Morrisons’ buy-out of supermarket Safeway and store acquisitions from The Co-operative meant that it was adding many new stores to its inventory. “Because we’re passionate about the Morrisons family, we needed the very best managers to move into the new stores,” said retail resourcing manager Rowena Cooper, speaking to Recruiter the week after the Recruiter Awards. “And they had to be existing, Morrisons-trained managers who could relocate to the new stores.”

The store general manager recruitment campaign would firstly centre around moving on existing managers to new stores, then moving deputy managers and ’backfilling’ new retail managers from outside Morrisons.

Cooper said the winning campaign was a springboard for what Morrisons can achieve, especially regarding its talent pipeline. “A huge part of our strategy is to open in-store pharmacies. We have 107 at the moment but are aiming to add at least 100 more within our 430 stores. The store manager campaign has shown us what can be achieved.”

She said that her team of just nine are specialists in their retail field, such as finding bakery operatives, butchers and fishmongers. However, to source the pharmacy positions the team works with niche recruitment agencies.

Winning the award gave Cooper and her team a night to remember. “We’re thrilled,” she exclaimed. “We’re all very excited and just can’t wait to enter the campaigns we’re running now in the Recruiter Awards 2011!”