A day in the life at the newly renovated Belk HQ – meet Carrie Brown, Senior Planner

Ever wonder what it would be like to work at Belk’s headquarters? Yep, the same Belk you’re thinking about – the retail giant we all know and love, focusing on Modern. Southern. Style.

Located in West Charlotte, Belk’s headquarters is where all the magic happens to make their 293 stores thrive in the Southeast market.

Belk is putting their final touches on a massive renovation and we wanted to find out what a normal workday day was like. They’ve added tons of common areas to meet and hang out, along with a state-of-the-art gym, new cafeteria, and coffee bar. They also redid all of their employee workspaces to open up the area. Critical.

To get the inside scoop, we talked with Carrie Brown, a Senior Planner at Belk to find out what a day in her life is like.

7 a.m. My alarm goes off and immediately both of my dogs jump into bed and want to cuddle. My Saint Bernard mix, Jackson, curls up by my feet while my overweight Pug, Frank, sits on my pillow and snorts in my face.

8 a.m. After getting ready, I give the pups a treat and head out the door. I live in South Charlotte, so my commute is 30 minutes to the Belk HQ. Lately, I’ve been listening to podcasts and it makes the drive fly by. Today, I listen to an episode of “Oprah’s Super Soul Conversations” podcast.

8:30 a.m. Arrive to work and eat a breakfast bar while checking my emails. The VP of planning I report to emailed me about a pricing strategy we’ve been working on this week. He wants to see more data so I spend the next hour analyzing the unit lifts we get from running similar promotions, apply the learnings to my strategy, and email it back over.

10 a.m. My desk neighbor asks for help with a difficult formula in excel. I usually get asked for help from different people a couple times of day, but I’m an excel nerd at heart so I’m happy to help.

11:30 a.m. We have an open Planner position in our division and have a candidate here today. I cross the building to meet her for our interview.

12:00 p.m. Back from the interview, I grab my lentil soup and bring it back to eat while I work on some sales projections a vendor had requested.

1:00 p.m. I’m still hungry so I head to our café to grab something else. We have a deli bar, rotating specials (today is bibimbap), soup and salad bar, and a grill station. I make a salad with grains and tofu then check out.

1:30 p.m. My VP grabs my buyer and I to discuss the pricing strategy with him and our DMM (divisional merchandise manager). We finalize our decision and I return to my desk to draft a one-pager recapping the promotion and detailing the analysis.

3:00 p.m. Once a month, we re-forecast our sales and promotional discounts by day and load them into our planning system. I have a new Assistant Planner that started this week, so I sit with her to train her on how to do it.  After we’re finished, we walk with our team over to the coffee bar for an afternoon pick-me-up. I buy a London Fog Latte.

5:00 p.m. I have a meeting next week with our Chief Planning Officer to review spring sales promotions for my buying office, Crown & Ivy. He wants to see how our inventory and sales are positioned for key marketing events this season. I spend some time compiling these numbers and pulling ad-hoc reports to support the plan.

6:30 p.m. I call it a day and head to the fitness center. We’ve had a lot of new amenities pop up in the last year or so here, but I was most excited about the gym. I get my workout in by hitting the elliptical and yoga studio then head for home to see the pups and cook dinner with my husband.

Carrie’s advice for scoring a position and thriving at Belk?

“Be curious, energetic and open to change.”

Belk takes pride in their positive, inclusive, vibrant and fast-paced environment with plenty of access to senior leadership.  Plus, providing opportunities to make an impact is huge for their culture.

If this kind of work environment makes you swoon, take a look at open positions with Belk.

They’re hiring like crazy. And in addition to the culture and new renovations, they also offer fun perks like onsite car washing, an associate discount at Belk stores, and paid volunteer time.

They’re looking to hire a ton of Charlotteans within the next year, and as a smart, good looking reader, your chances are high.

This content was created in partnership with Belk. Photos by Laura Sumrak.