My Career with Boots Opticians – John’s Story

I am John Peterson, Opticians Practice Manager at Castle Mall in Norwich.

What attracted me to Boots was the health led, patient based care that encouraged colleagues to do what they felt was in the patient’s best interest. The recruitment process was encouraging and seemed to take into account my experience and make me feel really comfortable when transitioning from one company to the next.

Now after 7 years with the company I am a flagship practice manager, this means I am proudly leading one of the Top 20 Boots Opticians practices. I started my Boots journey in the Great Yarmouth practice, this gave me a great understanding of how to grow a business and achieve results.

Through my time there I was able to undertake additional roles to help my growth and to challenge myself. This included being a customer care regional champion, re-training a brand new team in another practice and occasionally standing in for my area manager.

In my current role I enjoy being in practice with my team and seeing the difference we can collectively bring to our customers on a daily basis. I love the fact that my role has so much variety as I can be performing an annual review, then I might be in a regional meeting.

The thing I love about working for Boots is how trusted I feel by my manager and the senior management to take what we are doing as a business and turn that into reality in my practice. I can use my own creativity and personality to make a difference for my team. It also means I can continually feel like an authentic version of myself.

The main thing I’m proud of is my team and the individuals that make it up. When it’s a busy stressful day it’s knowing that you can bring a smile to a colleagues face and that they will make you laugh during ‘one of those days’. Watching people grow and seeing how they use the opportunity at Boots to help is very rewarding. Both my current Assistant Managers have stepped up during their time working with me and it’s great to be able to watch people growing and developing through your leadership.

As a manager it’s important to remember the importance of making people feel good in their work. Admittedly when we are busy it’s the thing that goes out the window as you just want to knuckle down and get stuff done, however a small thank you to a colleague can make a massive difference and it’s the little things that can go a long way.

In two years’ time I’d like to see more of the same, I love working with a large team as every day is different and it’s great to see how small actions can make a huge difference for our customers. I also still relish an opportunity to use my dispensing optician skills on the shop floor. More recently I find myself more and more interested in the functions of HR and the difference that can be made to employment, I’m a big believer that if a team feel good they will deliver better results for our company and customers.

To find out more about careers with Boots Opticians, click here.