Assistant community shop manager

Assistant Community Shop Manager (Thursday, Friday & Saturday)

Service: Retail

Salary: £12.95 per hour

Location: Hythe Shop - CT21

Hours: 22.5 hours per week working Thursday, Friday, and Saturday

Contract: Permanent

Family Action & the Role’s Impact: At Family Action we support people through change, challenge or crisis. It’s what we’ve done for over 150 years. We protect children, support young people and adults and offer direct, practical help to families and communities. We see first‑hand the power of family to shape lives, for better or worse, so we speak up for the importance of family in national and local policymaking, amplify family voices and represent the changing needs of families in the UK today.

This is an exciting opportunity for two individuals job‑sharing as Assistant Community Shop Manager to play a key role in supporting the successful operation and growth of our Hythe Community Shop. You will help drive commercial performance, nurture strong local community relationships, and create a welcoming, motivating environment for volunteers and customers alike. This role offers the chance to shape the shop’s impact, develop your retail and people leadership skills, and contribute to the wider mission and values of Family Action.

Main Responsibilities

• Support the Community Shop Manager in driving sales growth, profitability, and commercial performance in line with set budgets and targets.
• Contribute to the development of local community relationships to encourage donations, increase footfall, and grow a loyal customer base.
• Promote Family Action’s mission, values, and brand within the community.
• Work with the Community Shop Manager to maximise Gift Aid performance, ensuring all team members are trained and targets consistently achieved.
• Ensure daily operational procedures (e.g. cash handling, banking, financial controls) are followed accurately.
• Maintain high shop standards in customer service, visual merchandising, stock rotation, cleanliness, and compliance.
• Follow the Retail Operations Manual and support the Community Shop Manager with implementing innovations and local initiatives.
• Help create a positive, motivating environment that encourages personal development and high performance.
• Support effective stock processing, storage, rotation, and merchandising to ensure optimum product availability and quality.
• Uphold Family Action’s Health & Safety and Data Protection policies, reporting issues promptly.
• Promote and embed Family Action’s Equality & Diversity principles in all work.
• Adherence to Family Action’s Safeguarding policies and processes.
• Support Retail initiatives and new concepts.
• Work flexibly to meet the needs of the service, including occasional cover in nearby shops, and undertake other duties as reasonably requested by the Community Shop Manager or Retail Regional Business Manager.

Qualifications

• Experience in retail, hospitality, or customer‑facing environment.
• Experience in charity retail or community‑based initiatives.
• Familiarity with Gift Aid.
• Strong people skills with the ability to motivate and support teams.
• Excellent communication and customer service skills.
• Commercial awareness and ability to recognise sales opportunities.
• Ability to follow financial and operational procedures correctly.
• Numeracy skills.
• Physical ability for manual handling.

Benefits

• Annual paid leave entitlement that commences at 25 working days, rising each April by one day, subject to a maximum of 30 working days plus bank holidays (pro rata).
• Up to 6% matched‑pension contributions.
• Enhanced paid sick leave and paid family leave provisions.
• Eye care and winter flu jab vouchers.
• Cycle to work scheme.
• Investment in your professional development with ongoing quality training and career development opportunities.

Equal Opportunity and Diversity

We are committed to Equality, Diversity & Inclusion in all that we do and welcome applications from all sections of the community. Intersectionality is important to us and we welcome applications from ethnically diverse communities, LGBTQIA+ candidates and disabled candidates. We are committed to increasing the representation of these groups at Family Action because we know that greater diversity will lead to even greater results for families and children and we strive for our workforce to be truly representative of the diverse communities we support.

All candidates with a disability are welcome to apply under the Disability Confident Scheme and request priority consideration for an interview, provided they meet the essential criteria for the role.

To help remove financial barriers to working with us, we will reimburse reasonable travel costs if you are invited to attend an interview in person.

All appointments with Family Action are subject to satisfactory Safer Recruitment checks.

We are happy to consider any reasonable adjustments that candidates may need during the recruitment process and you will be asked whether you require any adjustments if shortlisted for interview. We also make reasonable adjustments on the job, where required.