RetailCraft - digital retail, ecommerce and brands - Retail Podcast

This episode is for retail operators who believe that the store estate is an asset, and that the people running it are the brand. 

Ian Jindal chat with Shannon Osman, Head of Retail at Footasylum, who has built her career from shop floor to leadership and brings a practitioner's clarity to questions that often get buried in strategy decks: how do you actually recruit, retain and develop a predominantly Gen Z workforce at scale? The conversation covers Footasylum's distinctive hiring model, its social-first content machine, the Locked In franchise, and a franchise expansion into the Middle East — all through the lens of a retailer that has won Retail Employer of the Year while opening stores, not closing them.

Key themes
  • Rethinking recruitment from first principles: Footasylum scrapped the CV-led process and replaced it with group in-store interviews. No CV submission, just availability, knockout questions, and a live group exercise. The best candidate on the day gets the job, eliminating unconscious bias and filtering for exactly the communication skills the role demands.
  • Retention as proof of concept: Staff turnover dropped from 107% to 75% after the new recruitment model was introduced. Seasonal hires - historically the hardest to retain - are now routinely offered permanent roles at the end of peak. The data follows the culture, not the other way around.
  • Progression without a title change: Shannon is direct that promotion is not the only form of progression. Recommending a book, setting personal goals alongside professional ones, giving people a voice in operational decisions - these are the mechanisms Footasylum uses to keep people invested. The goal-setting process (two work goals, one personal) runs from February, reviewed quarterly, owned by the individual.
  • Communication at scale: With almost 70 stores and around 1,300 staff, Footasylum adopted Zipline as its internal communications platform - chosen because it looks and behaves like social media. Execution and readership rates are tracked, but the rationale was engagement, not surveillance. The platform was used to run a company-wide vote for Store Manager of the Year, generating 1,300 responses.
  • Social as a commercial engine: 1.2 billion organic views across social media last year, up 35% year-on-year. Footasylum sits in the top 5% of TikTok users globally, alongside the BBC and Sky Sports. Its Locked In series - influencers and content creators in a house format, competing and generating content — drives 200,000 additional app downloads per run and feeds directly into in-store footfall and on-site conversion.
  • Middle East expansion via franchise: Footasylum has signed a franchise agreement to enter the Gulf region. Shannon visited the Mall of Emirates, Mall of Dubai and Dubai Hills ahead of the announcement. The market's appetite for elevated retail experience - and the presence of a significant UK expat base - makes it a credible fit for the brand's positioning, which sits above the mass market without claiming luxury.

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What you'll learn
  • Why removing CVs from the hiring process can improve both the quality of hire and long-term retention and how to structure a group interview that actually tests for the right things.
  • How to build a communication infrastructure that reaches every layer of a large store estate, not just the management tier.
  • What "progression" looks like when you can't always offer a title or a salary uplift and why that matters for a Gen Z workforce.
  • How a content-first social strategy translates directly into measurable commercial outcomes: app downloads, footfall, and omnichannel conversion.
  • How to approach franchise expansion into a culturally distinct market while preserving brand DNA and why the right partner matters more than the right playbook.
  • Why listening to store managers is not just good culture but good operations: some of Footasylum's most efficient decisions in the last 18 months have come from the shop floor up.

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Chapter structure
  1. Introduction — Who Footasylum is, its 20-year history, near-70 store estate, and core Gen Z/Alpha consumer
  2. The store in 2025 — Why physical retail still matters, and what it means to have Gen Z staff serving Gen Z customers
  3. Rethinking recruitment — The CV-free group interview model and the results it has produced
  4. Growth and expansion — New UK stores (including Merthyr Tydfil), and the Middle East franchise deal
  5. Retention and culture — Retail Employer of the Year, goal-setting, and the meaning of progression
  6. Communication at scale — Zipline, why it works, and how it changes the relationship between head office and the shop floor
  7. Locked In and the social engine — The Locked In series, 1.2bn organic views, and the omnichannel flywheel
  8. Shannon's own journey — From football coaching in the US to Head of Retail; the constants that haven't changed; what's on the learning list for 2026

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About the guest
Shannon Osman is Head of Retail at Footasylum, the UK apparel, footwear and accessories retailer with almost 70 stores and a Gen Z–first positioning. She has spent the majority of her career in store-based retail, moving through the operational ranks to a leadership role with P&L responsibility for the entire physical estate. Since joining the role, she has overhauled Footasylum's recruitment model, introduced a scaled communications platform, and helped lead the business to Retail Employer of the Year 2025. She is also part of the team driving Footasylum's first international franchise expansion into the Middle East.

Quotes
  • "The staff members on the shop floor are the most vital employees in the business. They are what represents you as a company — that's the face-to-face interaction your customers are having, ultimately."
  • "Our staff retention has gone from 107% down to 75%. We are retaining people now because the people we're employing want to stay with us."
  • "Anybody can open a door for you. It's up to you to walk through it."
  • "Everyone thinks progression is going for the next job title. Progression is reading a book your line manager sent you that you never even knew existed."
  • "Every single mall I entered just felt like Footasylum should be there." — Shannon Osman, on her first visit to Dubai and Abu Dhabi
--  Run time: 35 minutes
INFORMATION:
[ 🖥️ ]
Footasylum - https://www.footasylum.com/
[ 👨‍👧 ]
Shannon Osman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannon-osman-84bbb2260/ 
Ian Jindal: www.linkedin.com/in/ianjindal/ 
[ 📷 ] (c) Ian Jindal / www.instagram.com/ianjindal

Creators and Guests

Host
Ian Jindal
Founder of RetailX and CustomerX
Guest
Shannon Osman
Head of Retail at Footasylum

What is RetailCraft - digital retail, ecommerce and brands - Retail Podcast?

Multichannel retail, ecommerce and digital business - interviews, analysis and discussion with Ian Jindal and InternetRetailing

Ian Jindal (00:01.112)
Hello and welcome to the studio. Now, you have to be careful. I advise all of our listeners to be seated from now on because there's just too much excitement about to happen. Firstly, we have two Welsh people in the studio. Not happened before, may not happen again, but it's a great pleasure to have a fellow Welsh person here. We're also talking about one of the hottest categories.

i.e. sneakers but at the cutting edge of sneakers and more importantly we're focused on the store and on people and just to give us the fourth of third our guest is absolutely spectacular but we're going to talk a little bit about her football as well and how that led in so i hope i've set that up well enough Shannon so do you want to tell everyone Shannon Osmond from Foot Asylum

Shannon Osman (00:48.827)
Hehe

Shannon Osman (00:53.819)
Thank you.

Ian Jindal (00:57.96)
you are, a little bit about your role and a little bit as well about foot asylum in case people aren't able to place you immediately in the sneaker world. Shannon.

Shannon Osman (01:10.841)
Of course. So I'm Shannon Osmond. I'm the head of retail at Foot Asylum. So we are an apparel footwear and accessories retailer. We stock several genders, men's, women's, children's clothing and footwear. So we are now 20 years old. We had a 20 year anniversary party last year, which was wonderful.

Ian Jindal (01:33.742)
Wow.

Shannon Osman (01:34.612)
We have got almost 70 stores now in the UK and we have just signed a contract with a franchise partner. So we're going to the Middle East, which is so exciting, which I'm sure we'll touch on a little bit more later. But yeah, that's for asylum. We are industry leaders when it comes to generating content related to our consumer. And I'd hope for anyone that's been in a photo asylum store, you've had.

Ian Jindal (01:44.046)
Mmm.

Shannon Osman (02:01.051)
just the experience of being in foot asylum and felt like you're part of the community.

Ian Jindal (02:05.73)
Great, now, sneakers represent a very broad market from old people in wide-fitting soft shoes to athletes to hype beast style leaders to people just following their own fitness activities. So where in that world do you sort pitch your tent and say, this is what foot asylum adds to the incredible

wealth of provision that already exists.

Shannon Osman (02:37.787)
So Footers Island work with some of the best brands in the world. We are brand incubators. So any brands that are up and coming, we try and secure those brands as early on in the journey, support them and then make sure that we help them capitalize and get the best format possible to be able to launch their brands. We've had so much success with this in the past. And again, another key part of this is we understand our consumer.

We understand who it is that we're targeting and we really try and make sure that we gear towards those individuals, whether it's visiting one of our stores or the interaction that they get with us online.

Ian Jindal (03:16.142)
So tell me about those consumers, because a couple of years ago...

we did an interview with Mike, Chief Digital Officer at Foot asylum and I got back from New York, I was telling my kids and they were just sarcasm central. They go, dad, do you even know what foot asylum is? And so I had a bit of grief of them. So my assumption is that it's a younger or fashion forward audience, but tell me how far off that assumption is or not.

Shannon Osman (03:48.433)
So, Foot Asylum's core consumer is Gen Z, Gen Alpha. So, you'll see from the social media content and stuff we've done, we really gear to our consumer. Gen Z, Gen Alpha, throughout our journey has been who our consumer is and that's who we try and target in every aspect of what we do.

Ian Jindal (04:10.222)
Now we...

You mentioned you've been going forward 20 years and so over that time the youth has changed. the the youngster of 20 years ago now has responsibilities and is probably off to Decathlon buying cheap football shoes and trainers for their kids. that age group has moved on. So how do you maintain a relevance to each new successive year of

you know of new young customers without them think your God that was my older brother or sisters That's so uncool. How do you keep that contact as the world changes?

Shannon Osman (04:54.565)
I think it's so important to be able to move with the times. We've just been on a journey when it comes to customer service at the moment because using customer service as an example, from when we were younger, you would...

expect to walk into a store, be spoken to, hi how are you today? And that big conversational piece. Gen Z, Gen Alpha are far less conversational on a store journey. They, if they could get something in seconds quickly with limited interaction, but then just want to speak to someone as and when they're available. We've literally gone through every gear of our business to make sure that at each touching point of when our consumer changes, we change with them.

Ian Jindal (05:37.786)
That's very interesting. Especially because as a brand you put so much effort into social and easily shareable content but yet the store is a place where if you like it's a sort of conversation freer zone because people I assume already know what they want to just going in to buy.

Shannon Osman (06:03.459)
Yeah, I think Gen Z, Gen Alpha coming in in groups, they're all together. And I think technology is at the forefront of everything these days. And if we are not quick enough to be moving with the times to understand that's how people shop these days, then we will get left behind.

Ian Jindal (06:20.248)
Hmm, that's interesting. Well, let's really jump into the shop because you in your career have had a store focused journey. So, you know, we all talk about Omnichannel, the Ecom channels, etc, etc. But, you know, we spend a lot of time in store.

doing store visits and I'm always struck by the difference that the brilliant frontline staff make. So just tell us a bit about the contribution you think that frontline staff make and then we'll talk a little bit about how you're recruiting and training them. So if you had to sum it up to someone who didn't get retail, what's the pitch for the role of the store and store staff?

Shannon Osman (07:12.879)
Is it vitally important? Like people say that the high street is dead and there's no longer any almost value to bricks and mortar. This so is like the staff members that are on the shop floor of the most vital employees in the business. They are when a customer comes into the store, what represents you as a company and that's the face to face interaction that your customers are having ultimately. So it's wonderful when you've got the marketing content, the wonderful website. But if you do want that

face-to-face interaction and you go into the store these individuals are your brand representatives so it's very important that they're made to feel like that and that they've given that experience to the customers

Ian Jindal (07:50.126)
Mmm.

Ian Jindal (07:57.184)
Now, I get that. It's lovely to hear it, but your life is a little bit harder than most of general retail because...

you want a large store estate and a lot of your staff are themselves Gen Z. So I can understand straight away this great to have Gen Z, talk to Gen Z. I love that. But if one accepts some of the common cliches, Gen Z are quite difficult to train, retain, motivate. So do you to dispel some of those misconceptions or maybe just tell

how you mobilize a largely Gen Z staff to be these outstanding brand ambassadors.

Shannon Osman (08:47.621)
So for us, when I got into this role, a big thing for me was with the world of AI at the moment, it's not lost on me that people are generating their CVs through AI. So that is one thing. And then a second thing is...

Everybody's CV says I'm punctual, reliable, I've got wonderful communication skills and there's probably five to six words that are the key trigger words in any CV. And then probably in the past, everyone's got experience of employing the individual. And actually, they probably don't obtain at least three to six of those skills that they've listed in their CV. So when I entered into this role, a vital thing for me was changing the way that we recruit.

So what we chose to do, we're going to take the CVs away and we are going to upload the job vacancy with the availability that's required. And then you get invited to a group interview and the best person on the day gets the job, regardless of anything else. And for me, I think there was slightly unconscious bias, maybe when recruiting, you'd see certain CVs and be like, no, I don't want that one or...

Managers have preferences, right? Everyone has a preference to certain things. This takes away all elements of that because when you stand there on the day, you see who the lead candidates are. And I think, yes, our workforce may be predominantly Gen Z, but they've gone through the rigorous thing of standing in a room in front of loads of people and showing that they can converse through loads of different question sets or group activities to be the best candidate for the job.

Ian Jindal (10:29.558)
And so these are real life. This isn't like a group, you know, meet or zoom call. You get the people in the room. It's literally like shark tank or, you know, a competition. And so when you have. So the two questions, what gets you in the room?

Shannon Osman (10:43.313)
It's old school. Yeah.

Ian Jindal (10:51.886)
to begin with. So you you've got a thousand CVs all written by AI, all saying how, you know, they're the best person ever with the same keywords. how, question one, how do you get the people in the room? And then secondly, what are the criteria you're looking for once they're in the room?

Shannon Osman (11:09.595)
So the first part is so there isn't a CV you just pre program your availability into the system. If your availability matches and they may be five trigger questions as to are you able to do X Y and Z and maybe not they may be knockout questions and then you get invited to a group interview. So the managers will invite.

approximately 10 people to each group interview and it'll be within one of our stores. So Oxford Street is an example. Jasmine, the store manager will invite those 10 people and then you'll do a mixture of exercises. it may be like a team building exercise to see who that person is that leads that thing. Cause I think a big thing for me is it's all well and good wanting to work in customer service, but you've got to be able to communicate.

Ian Jindal (11:59.34)
Yes.

Shannon Osman (12:00.067)
And this is if you have a one to one interview with someone, it's very easy to get the conversation flowing. If you're in a group environment with big personalities who are all vying for the attention is who has the most consistent performance throughout that. And I think that's what it is, is the consistency and having the personality and allowing for that to come out during this one hour session.

Ian Jindal (12:26.702)
fantastic and do you find that that acts then as a sort of filter for people who just want to be at keyboards applying? Has it been well received or you know people complaining that it's not fair?

Shannon Osman (12:41.361)
No, so our staff retention has gone from 107 % since we started this down to 75%. So it's reduced, we are retaining the people now because the people we're employing want to stay with us and we are employing people that want to do the job that we've sent out.

Ian Jindal (12:58.742)
Right, this is a better match.

Shannon Osman (13:02.285)
a much much better match yeah and if anything our seasonal hires are probably the best example of that because previously you'd get seasonal hires that were put into the pressure cooker at Christmas and almost like

struggle through it. Now we come to the end of December and the store managers are calling the area managers being like, want to keep them all. Can everyone stay? And we're keeping a lot of people's numbers to be able to call them back and rehire in the future, which is, I think, a big testament to this new recruitment strategy.

Ian Jindal (13:33.664)
Interesting. Now, alongside the retention...

you've also got quite a significant expansion period. we're being told on the one hand we're in a post-High Street era, whatever that means, but yet you're opening a load of stores here and also in the Middle East, which we'll come on to in a second. So how are you managing to, especially going to a new area, to manage that growth?

Shannon Osman (14:06.545)
So everything for us is a team effort and that goes across every single thing that we do. Community and challenge are two key values that we have within our business. And this goes to even our new stores. We have a meeting, we have key stakeholders that sit there. If someone truly believes in something, it's all about the figures and the photographs and the site visits and spending time in that area to make everyone else believe in. So we're opening a store in Merthyr Tydfilm.

midway through this year. I am slightly biased but it was my idea but it was about me getting everyone else to understand what is so great about Mertha and why we should have a store in that location and backing it up with catchment area data or figures that are related to the area such as the new ski slope opening and it

Everything that we do relating to those new stores is data driven and getting the knowledge from the people in those locations.

Ian Jindal (15:07.49)
Hmm, mean it's interesting balance of this very human hands-on eyeball-to-eyeball approach along with the data. that's, it's good to hear that combination but also a difficult line. Yeah, no, you do need both. Now I'm going have to come for the opening. I take that as an invitation because the listener will not know that I grew up.

Shannon Osman (15:20.751)
Yeah, you need both. Yeah.

Ian Jindal (15:31.07)
five miles from Merthyr, so I could call it a of local store. Talking about

staff though. You've been a bit humble because we haven't mentioned yet that you won retail employer of the year 2025 and there were some great quotes attributed to you from that you know people work for people and progression isn't a title so I love those. So we've covered the hiring tell me about why people stay with you now and what a career looks like.

at Foot Asylum.

Shannon Osman (16:12.229)
I think everyone wants to be part of something, regardless of what job that you do, you want to feel like you're included, your opinion is valued and you're actually part of something.

We probably were guilty of that years ago of saying that we wanted to do that, but never really getting maybe the time to be able to invest in everyone. A big, big, big thing that I've done over the last 18 months is make sure that everyone in Fulton Asylum has an opinion. If you have the opinion, you're free to voice it. Some of the best operational and efficient decisions we've made over the last 18 months have come from our store managers and whether it's ways in which we could do things differently or

things they think that we already do that we need to push more. And it's about everyone feeling inclusive. So I think and to the progression comment, everyone thinks progression is going for the next job title. Progression is reading a book that you never even knew existed, that your line manager sent you on to have something that you're interested in. mean, my old manager told me to read Black Box Thinking. It was one of the best books I've ever read. I think it completely changed the way that I work.

Ian Jindal (17:00.961)
Only.

Shannon Osman (17:24.275)
and I think if you know the people that work for you well enough you can have the involvement in their progression without actually saying here's a title change, here's a salary thing, it isn't always about that because business doesn't work that way.

Ian Jindal (17:40.974)
Hmm, it's a really interesting point. So let's maybe take that as our jumping off moment to look towards your expansion in the Gulf. So I haven't been to the region in more than half a dozen times, and I wouldn't say that I've got a representative or in-depth view. But there are two challenges as well as the opportunities, of course, but two challenges there. One is working through a franchise partner.

And secondly, you know, it's not the UK's Gen Z culture. So how are you looking at that thinking, yes, I'm going to spend a lot of time on a plane. It's going to be exciting. But, know, how are you approaching getting the foot asylum DNA and the ways you've spoken about so inspiringly into a whole new region and culture at scale and pace like a big boom?

Shannon Osman (18:40.155)
So we've got one of the best franchise partners in the world and I think that's the best starting point. Someone who understands us, someone who sees our journey and sees what we stand for is the cornerstone of where we base all our decisions. The second thing for me is I went to Dubai and Abu Dhabi two weeks ago for the first time. I attended an industry event and I was fortunate enough to attend the Mall of Emirates, the Mall of Dubai and

Dubai Hills whilst I was there and every single mall that I entered it just felt like Foot Asylum should be there. Dubai, think the Dubai and the Middle East is all about elevating customer experience and giving someone their best in class experience and that's what Foot Asylum stand for, that's what we want to do. We want to make sure that we are showing up in the best locations in the world and

Ian Jindal (19:17.378)
that's interesting. Okay.

Shannon Osman (19:38.607)
This is gonna be one of those opportunities for us.

Ian Jindal (19:41.198)
So it's an interesting, if you like, nuance to the brand positioning because, you know, it's a market that responds to luxury.

and to brand as well as you know taking service of granted and then expecting something more so in a way this isn't this isn't like your mum or dad's sneakers thing this is moving you more towards a you know I don't want to say luxury because it's overused but definitely you know tip of the tree top of the pile type of retail aspiration.

Shannon Osman (20:18.341)
Yeah. And there's no reason why foot where a white foot asylum shouldn't sit amongst those juggernauts of retail that are sitting in those locations. I think if we think about the amount of expats that have gone over to the Middle East over the last couple of years, they already know who we are. They've already come from here. So I think word of mouth is going to be a big thing for us in those places as well.

Ian Jindal (20:40.236)
Hmm. I mean, let's maybe go back to word of mouth and social and comms in particular, because you exist separate to.

but part of this ecosystem where you've got the global giants like the Nikes and Adidas, et cetera, on the one hand. And then you've got specialist sneaker stores, JD, which used to be a part of, et cetera, et cetera. So you live in a complicated but connected world. So how do you sharpen that message and get it out to people? What foot asylum stands for?

Shannon Osman (21:22.833)
So just some really quick stats as to Foot Asylum's marketing strategy. Last year we had 1.2 billion organic views across social media. That was 35 % up on the previous year. We sit in the top 5 % of TikTok users globally.

with our content. We are up against people like the BBC, Sky Sports, the England team when it comes to content. So we are industry leaders when it comes to appealing to our consumer. We've had multiple series of locked in that have been so successful during this time.

So generating impact on stores has been a big thing for us and we've worked on getting uniform and POS that sits within the store to make sure that everyone understands the full journey. But we have an additional 200,000 app downloads just when locked in is on.

Ian Jindal (22:23.352)
So tell me about Locked In, just so people who haven't experienced it will know.

Shannon Osman (22:28.315)
So Locked In is where we put some really key influencers, YouTube, content creators and stuff into a house and they're there for a certain time period and then we just film how they're interacting, they play games and then there's ultimately a winner at the end.

Ian Jindal (22:48.856)
Wow, it's just like being in the Big Brother house but without the negatives and with a sneaker focus.

Shannon Osman (22:55.737)
Yes and it is all it is all positive I think that's the thing for us it's about humor and lightheartedness and our key key message throughout this entire period is just about fun and that key you know humor message.

Ian Jindal (23:12.11)
And do you have other brands coming to you saying we love Locked In, can we do a collab with you so it's know foot asylum on the feet and accessories but you know use this blender or you know this protein supplement. It must be a magnet for people contacting you to work with you.

Shannon Osman (23:33.583)
Yeah, I mean, I think our marketing team are inundated when locked in is come in of people to work with. We do use our third party brands as well as our own brands on the contestants whilst they're in the locked in house. So they'll be wearing loads of the different product, which is obviously a fantastic opportunity for us to be able to drive that footfall into the stores for people to come and get everything. But I think the key thing with locked in and the whole journey is we're so focused on making this omni-channel journey.

get the product in the stores you can see it on the website they download in the app and it is a big project to combine all the departments together

Ian Jindal (24:11.66)
Yeah.

Now, I should just say, if your marketing team listening that the Retailcraft podcast is available for residencies and co-labs. But going back to the Omni channel and the com side, so getting all of this data into the hands of your frontline staff must be a challenge. I know you've been pioneering quite a lot of work with workforce management information systems and helping everyone.

in the front line sort of perform at their best. Tell us a bit about that.

Shannon Osman (24:48.429)
I think our staff are so technology savvy these days and probably far more than the people that are leading them. We really wanted to get a communication platform that allowed us to be able to cater to every single person across the business. I think we were very good at head office, having communication, filtering it down to area managers and store managers, and then to be able to grasp everyone else that sat within retail was actually quite difficult.

Ian Jindal (24:57.134)
you

Shannon Osman (25:18.445)
So when we were looking for a communication platform, we really wanted to get the business that allowed us to speak to everyone. And this is where we started our journey with Zipline. So the key thing for me was I put a team of people together and they met with loads of different providers. Rightly or wrongly, they met with Zipline first. And after that point, they would just compare and everyone to those guys. It looked like.

Ian Jindal (25:25.901)
Hmm.

Ian Jindal (25:43.116)
And what is it though? Because we've got a lot of workforce management. My son has worked in hospitality as a pub manager and they seem a little bit like, you know, track you.

very admin heavy, it's all about logging in, logging off. You know, they're kind of like time cards and you know sending you staff manuals they don't have a great reputation but your Salu is super chirpy about the whole thing so what are the characteristics then of this kind of comms that really you know made you think this was the right thing for you?

Shannon Osman (26:13.454)
Yeah.

Shannon Osman (26:24.187)
The big thing that won us over is like social media. It looks like social media. You interact with it like social media. And if you're going to get the buy in of a big workforce and you want it to appeal to those users, the staff love using it. The managers love using it. We do get execution rates. We do get readership rates. There is data that sits behind it to give elements of accountability. But that is certainly not the reason why we brought it in. It was just about making sure that we could communicate

Ian Jindal (26:27.8)
Yeah.

Shannon Osman (26:54.371)
with everyone. If we had instances where we wanted everyone to vote for, we went to the retail bulletin awards and we used the platform to get everyone to vote for store manager of the year. Whereas before it was probably really limited as to the people we could ask. It would have been area managers around the table and they all would have been fighting for the person they knew the best. But now we're getting 1,300 responses as to who the person is they think should win.

Ian Jindal (27:13.783)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Ian Jindal (27:21.998)
Wow, so really engaged with and bottom up. Okay, so you have a strap line, Defy Ordinary, which apart from being pretty cool,

Shannon Osman (27:26.49)
Yes.

Ian Jindal (27:36.45)
does set up some expectations. So for a day-to-day store manager, either in Preston, Bradford or even Dubai, how do you codify or encourage them to defy ordinary? How do you bring that to life?

Shannon Osman (27:53.743)
biggest thing for me is giving everyone a voice and I think actually that's out of the ordinary these days is giving everyone the chance to be able to speak up and give their opinion or give a suggestion as how to change something. We as a business change is good.

everything that comes from change you either learn from if it goes badly or if it's positive you reap the rewards of it so it's about making sure that the managers understand that you can have an opinion you can change things we do have the core basics that you need to stick to in order for the sort of function as they should do but if you've got suggestions as to how we can make that better then we're listening

Ian Jindal (28:34.626)
I mean, those people say that, but they don't always mean it. So it is fascinating to see that.

put in practice both culturally and in a human way and via technologies. That's very inspiring. Now I did trail at the top of the podcast a football story. So I am going to get serious and businessy again in a minute, but when I was researching you, kept popping up that Shannon, quote, spent two years coaching football in the US.

So I think we need to know a little bit about that please.

Shannon Osman (29:13.071)
I did.

Yeah, of course. So I was in college. I thought I wanted to be a PE teacher and all of my efforts were going towards being a PE teacher. When we were in college one day, a company came and sat with us and were like, would you like to go to America for the summer? You get paid when you're there. You just have to teach children how to play football. And I went home and I was like, I'm going like I'm off. So I was stationed in Baltimore initially.

the two years, both summers. I've done 14 different states in America. I met some incredible families who I'm still in touch with. Now I lived on marine bases so I lived in the middle of New England in Connecticut in the mountains. It was the most incredible experience, it wonderful.

Ian Jindal (30:05.602)
Wow, now, statisticians will obviously be plotting the correlation between your tenure and the performance of the US national teams. So I will let that to them. I mean, one of the reasons I liked that story was it shows an openness, a sense of adventure, a connection with people and wanting to learn.

Shannon Osman (30:17.054)
Hahaha

Ian Jindal (30:28.03)
live and listen with them rather than just spectate. So, bringing you back to a sort of business focus, you know, you've had a career from shop floor to leadership.

What do you think is the thing that hasn't changed at all? So from your very first, you know, standing behind a till in the old days to now, is there a constant that you would say, I'm exactly the same and I knew this 20 years ago?

Shannon Osman (31:01.787)
think...

Shannon Osman (31:06.51)
The expectation is still the same. Everyone that comes into a store wants that...

experience. The experience may have changed between when I was on the shop floor 17 years ago to now, but I think everyone goes to a store. They want to have a good experience. They want the music to be appealing to them. They want the staff to be able to give them the guidance that they need to get. The actual expectation of the sales assistant is exactly the same. It's just changed with time to how the customer's behavior is.

Ian Jindal (31:39.022)
So looking forward then, because you you've progressed but there's still a lot of career ahead. What do you think as you mentioned before getting a book had changed your approach as you survey 2026 what's on your

your reading list or your experience or learning list where you're do you know what I'm going to invest a little bit of time here or there because I see these things are going to make a change for my career in the business. So if you like what's on that smorgasbord of learning that you see ahead of you?

Shannon Osman (32:22.257)
So I've just been given a book for my birthday called the MBA of Business, which is going to be my next read. Someone told me that is another black box thinking and that it's going to really change the way I think about things. So I'm excited to read that. I've recently sat down with my CEO to discuss like one of my things that I wanted to focus on for my learning this year. And then I've done exactly the same with my team and they've done the same with their team. So February for us is all about goal setting.

everyone writing down those three key things as to what they want to achieve this year. And I always try and say it needs to be two work and one personal. If someone wants to pass their driving test, the business needs to be able to give them the time off to be able to do that. So the area managers at the moment are working through with the store managers and they're the same with their teams. We start in February. We review again in three months to see where everyone's at. Do we need to tweak? Do we need to move direction? But

Everyone is in charge of their own goals. I think I've said it before Anybody can open a door for you, but it's up to you to walk through that door So that's all we're do this year. We're gonna give everyone opportunities We're gonna be making sure they write their goals down and then we'll see where they Come out in a couple of in a couple of months time

Ian Jindal (33:41.006)
Wonderful, so maybe we should change your job title to director of door openings and opportunity. Good well. Listen, we've achieved something this morning. Shannon, it's been absolutely fascinating chatting with you and I think you know, given some of the stuff we're covering, you know with AI automation, etc etc. It is a timely reminder of how people.

Shannon Osman (33:46.479)
There you go. There you go. Director of door openings.

Yeah

Ian Jindal (34:08.328)
and performance go hand in hand when you're building retail experience. So massive thank you for joining us and for your openness and we wish you well and we'll catch up with you later in the year when you can tell us how all the goals are working out.

Shannon Osman (34:16.123)
Thank

Shannon Osman (34:24.209)
Aw, thank you so much, Ian. Thank you.