The M&S boss is right – executives need to get their hands dirty

Senior leaders need to get out of the boardroom and onto the checkouts, says M&S boss Stuart Machin – or risk failing their appraisals. Could top-level staff mucking in be the key to success, asks Katie Rosseinsky

Stuart Machin is the CEO of M&S (M&S)

It’s not just an appraisal, it’s an M&S appraisal. According to an interview with The Sunday Times, Marks & Spencer CEO Stuart Machin has introduced a new requirement for the 3,800 staff at the retailer’s London head office: in order to pass their annual review, each of them must spend seven days on the shop floor. And yes, that includes him and his fellow C-suite executives too. “And by the way that’s not just popping in, saying hi and doing your shopping – it’s proper work,” noted Machin, who started his career stacking shelves in Sainsbury’s as a teenager.  

No loitering by the Percy Pig display or chatting by the Colin the Caterpillars, then. Instead, employees are instructed to find a problem and resolve it. According to the Times report, for example, one HR manager successfully lobbied execs to offer up to 12 weeks paid leave to any parent whose child is born prematurely. The policy was directly inspired by a conversation with a store worker. It’s all part of Machin’s theory that the long-term success of the business relies on what’s happening on the shop floor, rather than conversations in boardrooms. And it seems to be working: M&S share prices have almost doubled in the past year, and the company recently returned to the FTSE 100 index after a four-year absence.

For Machin, “it is critically important that [the company is] ‘sleeves rolled up’ and close to colleagues who serve customers” (presumably the sleeves are courtesy of Blue Harbour and Per Una). It might sound a little bit like a scenario from the reality show Undercover Boss, but M&S aren’t the only consumer giants encouraging their head office team to get into stores (anecdotally, I’ve heard of a handful of other supermarkets doing much the same thing for years). Earlier this year, the incoming Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan revealed his plans to don a green apron and take on a half-day shift in one of the brand’s coffee shops each month. In the US, the takeaway app DoorDash (essentially the American equivalent to Deliveroo) asks its employees to make monthly deliveries too.

According to HR experts, these companies might just be onto something. “In any business, particularly those of scale [larger companies], we tend to hear employees say that leaders just don’t know, or appreciate, what they face ‘on the ground’ – that they are somehow removed from the ‘real’ business,” says Jessica Brannigan, lead people scientist at the employee engagement platform Culture Amp. This can lead to resentment: who can honestly say they haven’t surreptitiously rolled their eyes when the big boss emerges from their glass box office into the main workspace, blinking under the neon strip lights, with an air of slight bafflement as to who all these people are and exactly what they’re doing.  

For many employees, these tensions might have come to a head during the Covid lockdown, when they got a glimpse into their CEO’s mega-mansion during an all-company Zoom about, say, pay cuts and furlough. So for a boss, the advantages of “getting their hands dirty”, so to speak, “are mainly about credibility”, explains David Rice, HR expert at People Managing People. “People may know you’ve worked your way up through the ranks, but when they see you doing mostly managerial stuff, they forget it,” Rice says. “Memories are often short. “When the boss jumps in and gets their hands dirty, it shows why they ascended the ladder. It also makes them more relatable. This can help drive trust in the organisation and leadership, and help employees feel more comfortable about talking to a manager.” Lesley Cooper, the founder and CEO of workplace consultancy WorkingWell, agrees. “Employees feel more ‘heard’,” she says. “If the boss has had recent experience of what they are talking about then their voice can feel like it carries more weight.” 

For Sarah Stevens, the co-founder and director of HR consultancy e-volveHR, getting bosses out of the boardroom and into the thick of the business is “the only way of really understanding the issues that employees face in their roles”. It can allow them to unlock “insights that they wouldn’t otherwise access, whether that’s practical, like poor-performing systems or an office or floor layout that isn’t conducive [to success], or customer service policies that don’t make any sense”, she says. If you’ve got a working proficiency in management speak, you might have heard the term “gemba walk” used to sum up this process of visiting a business’s front lines. In Japanese, “gemba” means “the actual place”, where value is created – that might mean where products are sold or fixed, or where a service is provided (it’s sometimes used synonymously with “crime scene”, too, which some employees might find particularly apt…)  

If the boss has had recent experience of what they are talking about then their voice can feel like it carries more weight

Lesley Cooper, founder of WorkingWell

Of course, there is always a risk that a policy like this might backfire if handled badly. A visit from the top dogs shouldn’t come across like a meet-and-greet with a minor royal, complete with a receiving line and awkward small talk, or resemble a political photocall; they shouldn’t feel like “Common People” cosplay either. In order to avoid this potentially awkward dynamic, Brannigan recommends that these interactions take place “without large fanfare”, to make them “less of a photo opportunity and more of a real connection and learning point”. After all, no one feels like they can be honest about the ups and downs of their work life if there’s a camera pointing at them, or if they’re being filmed via iPhone for the company social media accounts.  

Low key: Visits from the boss should take place “without large fanfare” (Getty)

And, she adds, “it should not feel like an external assessor [is] being shown the best day, with all the challenges and issues undiscussed and hidden”. Otherwise the higher-ups can simply return to the confines of their offices and pat themselves on the back about how well everything’s going, without making any changes – an entirely pointless charade of self-congratulation. “If nothing happens, it’s a paper exercise and teams work out pretty quickly that it’s a PR exercise for senior leaders within the business,” says Stevens. Cue widespread cynicism (which various studies have found to damage performance at work) and an unwillingness to open up to management in the future.   

If nothing happens, it’s a paper exercise

Sarah Stevens, co-founder of e-volveHR

Instead, Brannigan says, leaders need to go in “with authentic curiosity and openness, being ready to ask questions but also to build rapport”. WorkingWell CEO Cooper also reckons that a real spirit of inquiry is crucial. “Demonstrating genuine curiosity about the roles of others and the challenges inherent in them can go a long way to preventing people feeling patronised,” she advises. And perhaps we underlings need to be a bit less cynical about their efforts too.