Tailor Shop Manager Job Description
Alts | Alterations Specialists of New York is looking for a Tailor Shop Manager
We are looking for a dynamic, professional Tailor Shop Manager, distinguished by their charisma, teaching ability, and professional integrity. This role will include fittings, sewing on the machine, representing your studio internally, building client relationships and using sophisticated tools to make management decisions. This is a full time role in New York, with salary, bonus potential, full benefits, and opportunities for future growth.
Responsibilities
Client Relationship Management and Fittings
- Maintain a professional, warm, welcoming studio environment
- Conduct Fittings according to the Alteration Specialists Standard
- Build relationships with clients, influencers, brands and stylists
- Be present and address all client issues in a professional manner – offer creative solutions
- Make every client feel welcome, and confident in the skills of you and your team. Ensure fitters in your shop are following all Alts | Alteration Specialists guides and protocols during the fitting process
Machine Production and Sewing
- Demonstrate that you are meeting personal production targets
- Teach and develop your tailoring team to be able to deliver on a variety of garments and alterations
- Cultivate proficiency with mens, womens, and bridal alterations as well as alterations of difficult fabrics
Analytics
- Keep track of production during the day and communicate with front desk, and the larger operations team at the end of each day to ensure documentation is correct and complete
- Communicate with leadership and other locations to ensure that all studios are operating as part of a whole
- Provide management with your team’s schedule on a weekly basis; inform management of any team absences or if timesheets need to be updated
- Represent your studio to the larger organization, advocate for your studio’s needs and be the leading person to assist with rolling out company wide-change at your studio level
- Constantly be evaluating processes that are not efficient and come up with solutions to better optimize our organization
- Record RFAs: Make sure that all fitters inform front desk of all realterations and the reason for the realterations that should be input in the Geelus system even if the garment is fixed while the customer waits
Team Management
- Encourage respect amongst your team and address unprofessional behavior
- Including tardiness of your team
- Work with HR to distribute all formal write-ups to employees and explain the reason for write-up clearly so the employee fully understands the reason. Hold them accountable to their Performance Improvement plans if applicable.
- Distribute work strategically amongst your tailoring staff based on internal forecasting tools and their individual abilities. Distribution should benefit the team as a whole, not any particular tailor or fitter
- Coach all fitters that are unsure or uncomfortable with marking specific alterations or following dialogue that is required to be used during fittings
- Seek opportunities to strengthen the skills of tailors and fitters in your shop to develop a strong team
- Complete full QC on all orders, yours and your team’s before the clients pick up
- Identify tailors in your shop that are making QC errors and work with the Head of Talent Development to assess the best plan of action to correct the errors including developing and administering a training plan.
- The TSM is ultimately responsible for the quality of all garments that are qc’ed and worked on in their shops
Onboarding of your team and Human Resources
- Welcome new tailors to your shop, show them their station and introduce them to the team. Make sure they are distributed the appropriate work according to their skills and preferences
- Help tailors scan work as necessary and make sure that all work is scanned out by the end of each day. Make sure that their PIN works at your location.
- Help facilitate the production report process and communicate production, report discrepancies to the Finance team in one succinct Slack messages
- Have all production reports of your team including yourself signed by Tuesday at 12pm of payroll week.
- Participate in and administer performance reviews alongside HR for your team
Attributes
- You are a skilled communicator. You’re both a great listener and an effective speaker and writer. You treat sensitive information with respect and discretion.
- You are respectful, compassionate, and empathic. You have a calming demeanor and a way of building trusting, caring relationships with ease.
- You are mission driven. You are motivated to help change the fashion industry, and move towards a more sustainable future and serve as an excellent ambassador for a cause you believe in.
- You are systematic. You derive pleasure from being highly organized, creating order, and checking things off your list.
- You are detail-oriented. You take pride in delivering beautifully altered garments and you meticulously check work for accuracy.
- You are thoughtful. You can anticipate the needs of your tailoring team and clients, and feel committed to proactively creating a supportive environment for all. You are able to recognize how your individual role feeds into the larger organization’s objectives.
- You have great professional integrity. You take ownership over your work, ask for help when you need it, and are committed to your own growth and development.
Experience
- 10+ years of alteration tailoring experience required
- 4-5 years of general fitting experience required
- 1-2 years of fitting both mens and womens garments required
- Proficiency in English required
- Strong written communication skills required.
- 1-3 years of management experience desired
- Working knowledge of excel is desired.
*This is a mid to late career role.*
Why the Role is Compelling
As the Tailor Shop Manager for an Alts | Alteration Specialists team, you would play an integral role in creating a welcoming and professional environment that has a profound impact on some of the most important events and days in a client’s life. You would establish rewarding relationships with the studio’s clientele and partner community, and serve as the subject matter expert for any alteration jobs that walk into the studio. You would feel the support of a tight-knit tailoring and operations team, and the excitement of being part of a growing, multi-studio operation disrupting the fashion industry with many opportunities to grow as quickly in your career as the brand is growing.
Alts | Alteration Specialists is committed to working with and fairly rewarding the best talent in the industry. We believe in treating people right - through fair compensation and benefits, comprehensive training, thoughtful management and specific attention to growth and development of our staff.
