Amanda's career began on the Marks & Spencer's graduate scheme, where she worked for 10 years before moving to Asda. Starting at Asda as a Store Manager, Amanda progressed over the next 15 years to Vice President - People.
She joined Dunelm in March 2015 and is currently the Stores and People Director on the executive board.
She didn't plan to work in HR or personnel as it used to be called. When she was on the M&S grad scheme she had the choice of personnel or being a store manager and couldn't think of anything worse than dealing with people's problems.
When she was at Asda, she started to mature and realise that good stores were run by good people, and bad stores had people issues. This led her to appreciate the importance of how you lead and manage people in a business, which led her to Asda House and beginning her career in that field.
Asda in its heyday was brilliant at making totemic examples of the importance of values - all colleagues one team for instance.
She's carried some of that learning with her to Dunelm - where it is real and not just about slogans on a poster on the wall.
During the pandemic Amanda says they've actually got a lot closer to their colleagues, keeping connected to them via regular video messages, using the intranet to keep the conversation open, even leading to a new company value - stronger together.
They'd do 'all store coach calls' (Dunelm's name for store managers) - with the aim to listen, learn and understand. Not just listening to act - as you can often do the wrong thing.
Feeling at Home Wherever you Work was born from it.
An approach to hybrid working that is very much led by the colleagues and the teams. They've avoided gimmicks, not been prescriptive and kept it personal to the individual.
They've created different spaces in the offices, shared spaces and hot desks, plus social activities such as quizzes, crazy golf, BBQs.
They've created a wellbeing calendar, bring your dog to work day (to introduce each other to all the lockdown puppies and dogs), plus tours of the building.
Lane4 from EY, have helped them figure out how you lead a hybrid team. 75% of people say they're more productive at home, but a similar amount feel more connected in the office.
The other aspect they've considered is how you join a new business remotely. They're growing and employing a lot of new people, so Amanda is conscious of doing that better. How you make a new starter feel part of the company from day 1.
As a leader you can't just focus on what you care about or what your own needs are. You have to respond to what your team want, and do the right thing by your people.
Amanda thinks the future of work in the next 6-12 months will be very interesting - it's going to be dictated by the market - there have never been as many vacancies - so you need to ensure you are truly meaningful for people. Are you a good company, that cares, cares about the environment, cares about its people.
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