The iconic department store recently launched a well-publicised opportunity for Harrods sales staff to earn a two-year BA honours degree in sales. In addition, Harrods has newly developed a multi-faceted approach to career progression and competency framework that, in the eyes of agency recruiters, will demonstrate that jobs there offer more than “just working in a shop”.

At a recent morning event at Harrods, recruiters from seven agencies learned about the store’s new three-tiered approach to retail manager roles and how competencies such as ’Resilience and Composure’ are linked to company values, and how they are defined and applied to work situations there.

“There are huge expectations on every manager that comes here. They must achieve excellence every day,” Antony Jewers, head of management learning and development at Harrods, told the group. “The challenge we’ve had was, how do we quantify it? What do poor, average, and great look like?”

Retail recruiter Grant Morris, managing director of Elite Associates Europe, told Recruiter that he found the event “definitely useful”. Morris went on to say that Harrods’ focus on professional development would be a key attraction for candidates, “as a place to build a career”.

Recruitment for the best retail managers is ongoing, Isabelle Hung, head of resourcing and graduate programmes at Harrods, told Recruiter: “This is a real core area, and we wanted to focus on this specifically” at this event.

The reasons behind the information-sharing event itself was, she added, “these guys need to feel like an extension of this business to recruit for it”.