Pauline joined Malone Road in January 2020, after previously working in Spar Belvoir- another Henderson Group store for six years, and quickly became a key member of the team thanks to her being enthusiastic, keen to learn and develop her skills and willing to support the store in any way she can.
Described as “everyone’s friend and a brilliant team player”, she does her best to include everyone and will help and support staff on shift to complete any task.
The team at Malone Road all say she is always ready with a big smile, full of laughs, friendly chat, words of encouragement or a sympathetic ear if required, and that she is the staff member you want on every shift, she gets the job done and has fun along the way.
Pauline has won the ‘store colleague of the year award’ every year since joining Malone Road, which is an award for all Henderson stores where staff vote for a colleague who makes a difference and deserves recognition.
For her customer service is the single most important thing within retail. The team explain that a customer will appreciate things like good value for money and a modern tidy store but it is the customer service that they will remember be it good or bad. ”Pauline is a great ambassador for providing excellent service and is often seen helping customers carry bags to their car, assisting on the forecourt, having a friendly chat with shoppers and just going the extra mile to make our customers feel welcome.”
A big part of Pauline’s role involves quality checking all products, date checking and coding making sure that all items we have for sale is within its best before date, reducing anything that is coming close to the end of its shelf life and wasting anything that is out of date or of poor quality. Pauline also takes responsibility for flowers and plants in store, a huge fresh sales driver which requires a lot of care and attention to detail.
At the start of 2023, the store introduced weekly ‘mega deals’- one grocery/fresh line on offer for less than half-price, and Pauline has taken ownership of promoting the deals to customers, engaging on the shop floor and creating some really fun, eye catching displays to ensure shopper interest.
Due to the huge growth seen at Malone Road, they have needed to recruit more staff members to serve their shoppers. Pauline has been instrumental in helping train new recruits over the past vear, including assisting with till training, teaching shop floor skills and answering any questions.
In 2022, Pauline took on the role of ‘Community Champion’ in the store. In the past 12 months Pauline has helped raise over £10,000 for charity and been involved in numerous events in the Malone Road area. Recent activity includes involvement in the ’Malone Road Gateway Restoration Project’ and developing Lennoxvale Tree Nursery. Ongoing since June 2022, staff, encouraged by Pauline volunteered over 100 hours planting trees, shrubs and nurturing saplings in the tree nursery to promote green spaces and improve the local environment. This has been carried out in conjunction with Belfast City Council, Malone Road Residents Association and N.I Conservation Volunteers.
In April 2023, the store participated in Spar’s ‘Big Spring Clean’ where staff members and local residents held a clean-up walk of the Malone Road. They also held three large scale litter picks organised by Pauline with the local Scout group and the NI Conservation Volunteers in the past 12 months, they have collected a huge 50 bin bags of rubbish in total from these events.
Another part of her role as Community Champion as lead to Pauline organising seasonal colouring competitions for children at Easter, Halloween and Christmas. At Easter, they saw 120 pictures returned to the store - all pictures are displayed in store and the team involve customers in the judging process.
Charity work plays a big part of what Pauline does and she has helped the store raise funds for charities such as Marie Curie, Mid Antrim Animal sanctuary, Alzheimer’s Society and Action Mental Health. The most recent event organised by Pauline was a sponsored climb of Cavehill mountain in August to raise much-needed funds for NI Air Ambulance which raised more than £500.
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