Opening Doors

I recently had the amazing opportunity to interview Steve Winfield who is the Store Manager at the Worcester Tesco Superstore that has developed a local partnership with our Mencap Training Academy team in Worcester. We talked about how Steve has developed his career at Tesco and how he has been working with the Mencap Training Academy and our supported internship learners. I loved learning about how we work together and have been building our relationship. I hope you enjoy reading this interview as much as I did writing it!

My name is Steve Winfield. I'm the store manager at Tesco's Worcester Superstore. I'm from Worcester, so being a Store Manager here has always been a bit of an ambition of mine because it's my hometown, it's where I live, it's my community . My friends, my family, they all shop in the store, so it's always been a bit of a goal. This is my 30th year with Tesco. I started working here when I was 17 years old, filling frozen foods and have progressed to where I am now. I did some management training and became a Team Manager and I then did a bit of time at one of our Express stores. I've also worked at one of our Metro stores, before moving towards my current role which is as a Store Manager. I’ve been at this level for just over 10 years now and I’m very proud to be a Store Manager.

In terms of working with Mencap, it was an opportunity that was presented to me initially. We were approached by some people from Mencap and were asked if working with the supported internship programme would be something we’d be interested in? We met up with some learners to see if they could do the kind of roles that we have in the store and the rest is history. We've struck up a very good relationship with Mencap locally now and we always seem to have somebody in our store doing a work experience placement. There’s always people coming into the store and working with us and we've had some really good success stories. We've had colleagues that have come to us from Mencap originally who have gone on to be employed by Tesco, while others have gone on to work in other businesses elsewhere.

It’s been so good to give people an opportunity to develop within a really fast-paced industry and I always find the journey really rewarding. We often start with learners that don’t want to say hello to me, who go the other way when they see me or other colleagues coming and who just don’t really want to speak. But at the end of their placement, they’ve become so chatty and are totally different! It's great to see that kind of evolution in our colleagues. Seeing that kind of progression is one of the things that most excites me in my role. Whether they go on to paid employment with us or not, we definitely always see a progression.

I think it's so important to be inclusive, especially as such a big employer. In our community, we're the biggest employer around, so I think it's really important that we're doing the right thing from a values point of view. That's part of my job as a Store Manager - to make sure that we're doing all those things.

Supported internship learner, Harry working on the tills at the St Peter’s store. Harry successfully used the skills he developed in his placement to secure a paid job at another Tesco store in Worcestershire.

A lot of people are nervous about working in supermarkets. I think this includes some people with a learning disability , for example, because they are nervous about the big crowds you sometimes get in a supermarket. I want to try and break down those types of barriers and show that anyone can work in a supermarket. We want to make it really easy for colleagues who have disabilities to still work for us. We are working with people with lots of different kinds of disabilities at the store, not just learning disability. We are also supporting people who are blind to work in the store and we have colleagues who are deaf.

I've loved learning from the young people who’ve come to us from Mencap. I've loved getting to understand from them about what we can do as an employer to make them feel

more included. I'm a real believer that sometimes managers can be barriers to inclusion because we think we know best. We think we know what people can and can’t do and what we need to do to support them. But what we’ve found from working with learners from Mencap is that they will actually tell us what they can do and they will tell us what kind of support they think they need to be able to work around their disability. Often, what we find is that we just need to adapt our policies a little and make some small changes here and there. And then we can really make a difference to that individual and really make a difference to the whole team.

Working with Mencap learners has also really stretched the thinking of myself and my team managers around what we can do to support people. It's been really good for colleagues having to think a little bit differently about how they work and how they communicate and how they support people in their team. I've definitely seen a growth in my colleagues as well. Our work with Mencap learners in that sense has been a two-way process that has helped me to get the best out of my team as well.

We’ve really appreciated the skills coaches that come from Mencap and accompany the learners on their placements in the store. They act as a sort of learning partner who stays with them throughout the day. I've struck up good relationships with the skills coaches and they've been able to help me with decision making and supporting measures and things like that. We always have to make sure we're doing the right thing from a health and safety and legal perspective and the skills coaches also advise and help us with that. As the store manager, knowing that colleagues who need support have got someone with them at all times, making sure they're safe and are operating safely is really important. Without the skills coaches I'd feel a little bit more nervous, especially in the early days when you've got a new person starting out.

With the support of the skills coaches, Mencap learners make quick progress. We've got a learner currently on placement who just comes in and checks in quickly with their manager before cracking on with his job. He's one of the team already and all our other colleagues treat him as such which is fantastic to see.

The thing I'm most proud of is when somebody actually becomes employed at the store. We’ve got a colleague currently called Elyse who works at the store now as a picker. She

came to us through Mencap and was on the supported internship last year. She’s a fantastic colleague, really keen to learn and all her colleagues loved working with her from day one. When a vacancy came up in the store, Elyse applied and she got the job. She’s now one of our best pickers. She goes around the store and does a really good job picking all the dot-com orders for us in the morning – that means she finds everything that people have ordered online so it can be delivered to them. When you work with someone who ends up getting a paid job with us and a permanent contract that goes to show that it's a good thing to do and it's all worthwhile.

Elyse working on the aisles at Tesco.

We've had lots of other colleagues who have come to us from Mencap. One learner I remember, for example, Tate, has sadly left us now, but he's gone on to do another job that he’s always wanted to do, and he’s been able to do that because of the skills and confidence he developed with us. I’m really proud of that as well, helping people to not just get a job, but to start their careers.

Natalie Duo is a co-trainer at Mencap, delivering learning disability awareness training to employers. She is a graduate of one of our supported internship programmes, during which time she completed work experience with The Financial Times. She now continues to indulge her love of writing through regular interviews with our employer partners.