Bookstore Assistant Manager

Description

Love struck Books & Cafe is a vibrant community hub in the heart of Harvard Square where the love of literature meets the art of hospitality. As a romance-focused independent bookstore, we are a space grounded in inclusivity, joy, and connection. We celebrate love in all its forms, offering a welcoming, highly curated retail experience and a dynamic, celebrated events program that connects readers with their favorite authors and a passionate community.

The Bookstore Assistant Manager (AM) is an integral operational leader and people developer who serves as the right hand to the Bookstore General Manager. In this role, you help steer store operations, champion our signature hospitality, and cultivate leadership capabilities across the entire bookstore team.

Balancing floor leadership with administrative excellence, the AM fosters an accountable and joyful store environment where team members thrive. You will lead staff training initiatives, coach supervisors and booksellers in operational follow-through and organizational skills, and support essential HR and scheduling functions with discretion and professionalism.

Working in close concert with department leads, the AM helps weave our retail floor, literary programming, and hospitality into one seamless, unified customer experience.

• Mentor and cultivate leadership capabilities across the entire team, coaching Lead Booksellers and floor staff on effective shift management, prioritization, cross-departmental collaboration, and independent problem-solving.
• Teach supervisors how to actively train, monitor, and develop other employees, equipping them with tools for constructive feedback, objective evaluation, and supportive mentorship.
• Oversee and refine structured onboarding and continuous training curricula for all bookstore roles, ensuring thorough proficiency in customer service, POS systems, and store standards.
• Assist the GM with essential human resources functions, including recruiting, candidate interviewing, performance reviews, and personnel documentation, handling sensitive staff information with discretion, fairness, and professional composure.
• Present a united front with bookstore leadership, modeling workplace expectations, addressing performance challenges empathetically and promptly, and nurturing an inclusive, uplifting team culture.

• Manage or partner closely with the General Manager on creating and maintaining balanced, budget-conscious staff schedules; administer time-off requests, shift swaps, and coverage to support store traffic and high volume peaks.
• Plan, execute, and follow through on storewide operational projects, procedural rollouts, and seasonal transitions, keeping projects organized, on timeline, and aligned with store goals.
• Model exceptional time management and organizational systems, actively teaching these competencies to supervisors and staff to optimize daily workflow and prevent floor bottlenecks.
• Maintain disciplined, responsive management of store email inboxes, administrative logs, and internal communication channels, ensuring prompt follow-through across shifts and departments.
• Develop, document, and uphold clear Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), opening/closing checklists, and floor audit routines to guarantee consistent execution.
• Regularly serve as the senior leader on duty, overseeing daily building operations, emergency protocols, customer escalations, capacity limits, and store safety.
• Uphold financial integrity through regular drawer reconciliations, register discrepancy tracking, and adherence to store cash handling procedures.
• Serve as the second-in-command…