Retail Optimisation Advisor

About the Company

Foodstuffs North Island is a member-owned co-operative behind well-known New Zealand grocery banners such as Gilmours, New World, PAK'nSAVE, and Four Square. With more than 320 stores and over 27,000 people across Te Ika-a-Māui, the organisation is focused on helping New Zealanders get more from life and on becoming one of the country’s most customer-focused and productive retailers.

The Retail Operations & Transformation team concentrates on key performance measures, including SAP support, store operating efficiency, checkout performance, and support for new store openings and ownership transitions across all three banners.

About the Role

As a Retail Optimisation Advisor, you will act as a trusted adviser helping improve productivity and lower the cost of doing business across the retail network. Based in the Planning & Performance team, you will draw on workforce, service, and operational data to identify where performance is slipping and where practical improvements can be made.

Your work will turn data into straightforward, usable actions that help Operations and Service Partners improve execution in store. This is an enabling role: you will not directly own store results, but you will shape performance by surfacing opportunities, supporting improvement activity, and encouraging better ways of working.

Key Responsibilities

• Find opportunities to lift productivity, improve labour efficiency, and reduce cost-to-serve by using operational and workforce information.
• Review rostering, labour deployment, and in-store execution to understand where performance is breaking down.
• Share practical findings that help stores focus coaching and improvement efforts in the right areas.
• Support the roll-out and use of workforce planning tools, productivity levers, and operating rhythms in stores.
• Call out risks, limitations, and new issues that may affect performance.
• Convert detailed data into simple insights that can be understood by non-technical stakeholders.
• Work with Planning & Performance, Operations, and Service teams to ensure recommendations reflect store realities.
• Help drive change in stores by reinforcing expectations and preferred ways of working.

About You

You bring a strong blend of analytical ability, retail knowledge, and influencing skills, along with the confidence to turn insight into action.

• Hands-on experience in retail operations, workforce planning, or operational improvement across multiple sites.
• Proven success in delivering measurable productivity or cost-to-serve gains.
• Exposure to workforce, labour, SAP, POS, or operational performance data.
• Experience partnering with field-based teams to support change at store level.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with a practical, store-first approach.
• Ability to simplify complex information into clear, useful recommendations.
• Confident communicator with strong influencing ability, even without formal authority.
• Organised and able to manage several priorities at once.

Benefits

• Free parking with more than 1,000 car parks, including EV charging.
• Southern Cross health plans available for you and your family.
• On-site café with subsidised meals, a mini mart, and a 5% discount in retail stores.
• Flexible working options, a birthday day off, and a variety of on-site activities.
• Access to in-house learning and development programmes and courses, flu vaccinations, and social network groups (“Tribes”).

Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility

The company values diversity and inclusion and encourages people from all backgrounds to apply, including candidates with disabilities, additional health or mental health needs, and neurodiversity.

Applicants who need accessibility support during the recruitment process can request help, which may include interview location support, a sign language interpreter, or assistive technology.

Recruitment Technology Notice

Artificial intelligence tools may be used to assist with parts of recruitment, such as reviewing applications, analysing CVs, or checking responses for possible inconsistencies or verification signals. These tools support the recruitment team but do not replace human judgment, and final hiring decisions are made by people. Candidates can contact the company for more information about data processing.