On the eve of New Look’s 40th birthday celebrations and in a week where speculation mounted that it is set for a £1.7bn flotation next year, the retailer has completed its head office move from Weymouth to London. Here, four figures from across the business tell Amy Shields the rationale behind the move and how they’ve dealt with the challenges it has created

Guy Lister

Guy Lister

Marketing director


Lister joined New Look in 2007 and was key in overseeing the move

We had a real challenge ahead of us at the time we made the decision to relocate. We were expanding massively, we were trading ahead of the BRC figures and we had a real forward momentum.

But when it came to supporting that growth, particularly internationally, we had a challenge with getting people to come to Weymouth.
My personal experience is that about one in three potential candidates shortlisted for a role dropped out when you said the job is inWeymouth. So, you were left with a third of the pool of resource that you can recruit from.

We were looking at significantly upping our game in terms of the calibre and talent of our teams so, as a business with an obsessive customer focus, benchmarking against the best in the world, we would obviously have a
difficult time if we continued to be in Weymouth.

It was something that we had talked about for years and with Carl McPhail coming in as chief executive in April last year, it brought a new impetus.

The current climate is difficult of course, but we secured a fantastic deal on the new building with all the options that we wanted, and a brand new build that is custom built for us.

As well as our commitment to a new building in London, there are still 250 people in Weymouth running our support functions in HR, finance, logistics and IT and that is going to continue to be a big part of our business. We have got ideas to redevelop the site, invest in the environment and we want to get some of that embedded this year.

We were overwhelmed by the volume of people that wanted to come with us to London, we thought that maybe between a third and half would relocate. Two thirds decided that they would come with us.

To be a serious international fashion retailer we need to be at the heart of the capital. What is fantastic is that we are less than 100 yards from Oxford Street, with all of our key competitors on our doorstep.

H&M and Zara are two retailers that have established themselves as global retailers that we admire. We also look at specialists in individual markets, so we have a lot of intelligence around France, Belgium and Holland. But as we expand around Russia, Singapore and the Middle East, there are others that we benchmark against.

One thing I have been very keen to deliver in this building is bringing the customer to life.

We have done a huge amount of work on establishing who our customer is. We have got our own social network - called My Look - which we are going to be able to put on screens in the office cafe. We have got notice boards in the main atrium so that we can communicate trading messages, feedback research etc, so one of the challenges is bringing the customer to life in an everyday way.
There is a lot of energy, fun, drive and determination at New Look, so it has been rewarding to see that manifest itself in the new building.

Fran Theanne

Design Concept Manager


Theanne has worked at New Look in concept design for four years, based in London. He designed the look of the offices


There is often a divide between a retailer’s stores and its head office. I wanted to break that down. New Look is one business and it should be seamless between stores and the office.

There are lots of different elements in the office that are found in our stores. The meeting rooms feature the stores’ wallpaper, the range rooms have got the stores’ fittings.

When we created the new store look, first launched in our Liverpool One store, it gave us a new look and feel. By featuring that in the office the business is saying we are happy with that look and feel. What I didn’t want to do was create something ad hoc and out of sync with the business.

Caulder Moore were the agency used to do Liverpool One and it felt a natural progression that they would do some work on this.
If people and their families were going to invest in moving to London with the upheaval of it all, I wanted them to feel that it had to be worth it.

A lot of time was spent on the range rooms and making sure that people had world-class facilities. Improving their working lives was at the front of our thinking.

For example, in the range rooms, each one has a webcam. It means that at night, the teams can set up a room, the webcam knows that our partners in China will be calling in at 2am. China dials in, has a look at the collection, writes up their notes and the next morning the buyer comes in and sees the comments. The business does not miss a day.

We said from the start that we wanted an open plan layout and that was really important. We made sure that everybody sits outside of their range rooms or marketing rooms, so they can use it as a natural extension of their own space. In Weymouth, it would take 10 minutes to get to the range rooms. The desk is for emails - but the rest of the time is in the range rooms, building ranges.

The office is nice and new, crisp and sharp and fashion-focused. It feels like a really good buying environment and reflects our forte - fast fashion.

When you walk around the office you see a lot of product because that is what we are all about.

There are areas the teams can customise themselves to show where their inspiration has come from and make the business feel design-led.

The offices were designed very much around what the teams want; they are the customer, so in the same way that we would treat it in stores, we found out what they wanted. If you delight your customer, you’ve achieved what you set out to do.

I have learned to be quite thick-skinned in this job, but I would say the things that people are not happy with are so minute in detail it means they are happy with a lot more. Most people have been really pleased.

For me, the business made a serious point about saying it wants to be a leading business and so that should be reflected at every touchpoint including head office. With the Weymouth move we absolutely could not deliver something but a world-class venue for our teams.

I am not sure I would do anything differently now, but we shouldn’t stand still in our stores, and head office should evolve at the same time as the business.

Wendy Stroud

Senior HR manager


Stroud has worked at New Look for seven years, looking after HR functions in Weymouth and London

For a business to say: “Right we are going to move”, is one thing, but then making sure that all the right support is in place is key, because people are moving their homes, their kids, their lives.

We announced the move on January 15 and then went through a 90-day group consultation and individual consultation. We wanted to be as communicative with people as possible about the move.

We did a lot of work around explaining what the move would be like for those who decided to relocate and equally for those that didn’t, as well as for the support functions remaining in Weymouth.

We supported everyone with relocation allowances and a favourable retention package. We started the move in the beginning of August, the last group joined us at the end of September.

We have put support measures in place for those that haven’t come with us, including retraining for those who are looking externally for another role. There are also a number of people who looked internally too.

We have had a great response from applications. We are now at a point where we have about a 5% vacancy rate. Being in this location, it opens us up to people with additional skills, particularly in the international side.

One key thing we want to focus on is retention of new people and equally for those that we have brought with us. How do we make people feel really comfortable? That they are working in a great building is a great motivation - but we want to focus on making sure they stay with us.

We are now directly immersed in a market where there is a lot of competition for all the roles. It is about positioning ourselves as an employer of choice.

John Rolls

Divisional head of merchandising, menswear and kidswear


Rolls moved to Weymouth when he joined New Look in 2006. As part of the relocation he has moved back to the capital with his wife and three children


For me, when the move was announced, it was exciting.

I fully bought in from the start to the business and aspirational reasons for moving. I think there was an element of shock for the teams and there were obviously some people with families that haven’t made the move. But even those who haven’t made the move really could see the business reasons for it. For others it was a really fantastic opportunity for them to experience London.

So I think there was an initial feeling of: “This is right for the business, we buy in to that” and then that moved into: “Right, what does this mean for me?”

There were a lot of worries about the housing market - could we sell our properties? Personally, I sold mine in three days.

I was the first one to go through the process and make the move, sell the house and be up in London, which meant that I had three months where I was going back to Weymouth before everyone had moved.

But that set a good example. Every single person on my team has sold now and moved up here. So I think initial concerns around the housing market and the personal angst quite quickly went away. It was a very comprehensive and supportive relocation package.
What excites me most about this move is that we are now where we should be for our aspirations as a retailer and it is really starting to come to life among the teams.

I loved hearing two buyers this morning talking about a stunning-looking girl in a really happening outfit on the tube. Where we were in Weymouth on an industrial estate, everybody drove to work, we didn’t have the mix of competitors and directional people on our doorstep that we have here.

In Weymouth, if I had wanted to go out and look at a really good example of menswear, I would have had to plan a day around it. Whereas now, I can pop out to Oxford Street, I can pop out to our stores.

New Look has a fantastic culture that is the essence of the brand and what we have been able to do is to protect that culture by bringing a lot of the talent with us, but also bring in some new external influences to move us on.

When I look at my team now, I see a mix of old merchandisers who have got that culture of New Look sharing their best practices with new merchandisers who are bringing things in from other areas.

We are also surrounded by our supplier base, so it is a lot easier for them to come and see us. We have partners in Russia and Singapore now and, whatever way you look at it, Weymouth was another four or five hours added on to that process of seeing people.

The environment has been another big win for the team. What I really like is, if you look at my division, you have got the teams sitting really closely together - we have been able to incorporate the design teams on to the buying floors for the first time.

We have put in new IT hardware and software and the whole building is wireless. I can have ad hoc meetings in the break-out rooms. Obviously, we weren’t working with an abacus in Weymouth at all, but it has raised the bar.

It is a huge credit to the company and the teams that the move was announced in January and we are sitting here nine months later. We have relocated, people have uprooted their lives, sold houses. There was a two-day move period and then we hit the ground running and we are trading, and trading well.