Supermarket folk, in ere.
- Thread starter McPhee
- Start date
Just wondering if any other OCUK users working for a supermarket have had the joyous redundancy news over the past couple of days
Sainsbury's manager here, checking out.
Sorry to hear the news...one place I would have always thought a safe haven was the Supermarkets however I guess with Aldi & Lidl putting the squeeze on it does affect the bottom line.
Have you got a plan B in mind?
I don't think anything is much of a safe haven these days!
I don't know of Sainsburys employment structure, but the way the news articles are playing it is that it's mainly managers that they're getting rid of? Which makes it sound like they've maybe recruited one too many managers over the years, and they're now an easy target to cut costs.
I work for a large IT company, and at one stage we had something like 350k employees globally. Between my role and the CEO, was about a dozen layers of management and senior management. They've stripped about half of them out now, and things run much smoother.
Soldato
Middle management always seem quite vulnerable to me.
Soldato
I work for a supermarket. DEFINITELY too many managers!
Soldato
Girlfriend got signed off as team leader Monday then made redundant Tuesday. Good times.
I worked in Sainsbury's in the early 2000s and recall a structure change then with a lot of the band 3s being demoted to 2s but a couple being promoted to junior managers (there were also promises that no jobs would be lost due to self-serve checkouts!) is this now pretty much a reversal? Hopefully things work out for you.
Been aware of management being cut back on for a month or two. Department and area managers.
Nightshift premium rates were removed (option of having the premium bought off or being made redundant iirc). Think the only premium now is for driving delivery vans.
Trimming the costs it seems. Obviously not immediately since you need to pay off everyone you laid off but a longer term view.
Supermarkets have a substantial turnover of staff (e.g. students finishing courses) so when someone says there will be no jobs lost all they have to do is hire less for a while if they want to have less basic staff.
It's not a lie but it's not all the truth either.
Nightshift premium rates were removed (option of having the premium bought off or being made redundant iirc). Think the only premium now is for driving delivery vans.
Trimming the costs it seems. Obviously not immediately since you need to pay off everyone you laid off but a longer term view.
Supermarkets have a substantial turnover of staff (e.g. students finishing courses) so when someone says there will be no jobs lost all they have to do is hire less for a while if they want to have less basic staff.
It's not a lie but it's not all the truth either.
Yep. A few years ago I didn't have a job as I quit it to go travelling with the girlfriend at the time... Sainsbury's was the first thing that I got and I was there for... 2 weeks. Fortunately something better came along. I'm sure plenty of others also see it just as a stop gap.
Oh nvm I was thinking of old information which rumoured a few job losses, found out today that all team leaders and managers were told earlier this week they were being made redundant.
That's everyone above basic staff.
They can step down to basic staff, take enhanced redundancy pay and go or reapply for many fewer managerial positions (and agree to be more flexible to boot).
I suppose it's less difficult for the company than trying to pick and choose who to get rid of, everyone goes then they can be picky on who they let back in again when they reapply.
Pulls the rug out from thousands of people with a great variety of circumstances, some training up, some with the company for decades, all of course will miss the income from a stable job.
Heard it was pretty emotional.
That's everyone above basic staff.
They can step down to basic staff, take enhanced redundancy pay and go or reapply for many fewer managerial positions (and agree to be more flexible to boot).
I suppose it's less difficult for the company than trying to pick and choose who to get rid of, everyone goes then they can be picky on who they let back in again when they reapply.
Pulls the rug out from thousands of people with a great variety of circumstances, some training up, some with the company for decades, all of course will miss the income from a stable job.
Heard it was pretty emotional.
I was planning to leave this year anyway; just trying to decide what to do next. Either back in to catering, in a restaurant or on my own as a street trader, or in to web development. Got some work lined up for the summer already, so I've got plenty of time to make my mind up yet. I definitely want out of retail, out of management.
I'd had enough of Sainsbury's by about October. The direction of the business is changing, and it's not a journey I wish to be part of. Hopefully it works out in the long-run, but all I'm seeing is exasperated, increasingly demotivated staff, year after year of mediocre results, and a share price that hasn't recovered since the previous CEO announced his departure.
The structure for a supermarket is generally: Store Manager -> Deputy Store Manager -> Department Manager (maybe 6-11 per store) -> Team Leaders (maybe 15-30 per store). Everyone below the Store Manager had their role axed on Tuesday. The new structure basically removes the Team Leader role and rebrands Deputy Store Manager and Department Manager (with less of both in the business), with just enough changes to the roles to stop anyone having a right to them under "suitable alternative employment".
This restructure is quite big. The press haven't had the information.
In stores, it's (by my rough calculations) almost 22,000 jobs at risk (±2000). With about 8000 replacement roles (±500). Then there's the online fulfilment centre and a few other roles. And this comes straight after thousands of redundancies last year.
Over twelve months, it must be close to 10% of the workforce who have had their notice.
To be honest, I can see that the changes need to be made. Much of the internal unrest could have been avoided if the current executives had the first clue on how to handle people. The presentation was basically "We will restructure the business as follows [...]. By doing this, we will save £X per year, helping us achieve our goal of saving £Y per year by year Z. Oh, by the way, this does mean you may not have a job".
Sorry to hear that.
There's a lot of people in that same boat. At least she'll get paid at full T/L rate and if she leaves her redundancy will be at that rate. There's a lot of people who would have been signed off if not for Christmas, who now have to spend months in limbo being paid training rate for doing the full job, followed by possible redundancy at the training rate. Combined, that will easily be thousands of pounds of missed earnings.
There's a chap in a store I used to work in who had literally been a Team Leader in Training for a week, as of Tuesday. Had he failed the interview, his job would have been safe.
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The wording the press have had says the "headcount will remain the same". Which implies no job losses. But what it actually means is "we'll recruit the same number of people we lay off". There's also a huge opportunity to cut down worked hours. 13,000 employees on full-time hours would be 500,000 hours per week. 13,000 employees on 12 hour contracts is only 156,000 hours. Obviously that's the extreme scenario, but it demonstrates the potential saving (and how deceptive "no reduction in headcount" is).
Heard a rumour that the store managers will be next.
The logic being some stores are not considered worth having a dedicated store manager for and one might oversee two.
Soldato
Was a similar cull in Morrisons a couple of years back. Now very thin on staffing at all levels. Department managers got axed and those who survived got 2 depts to look after instead. Most of the old Duty Managers/Deputy Store Managers were either moved or roles were removed.
Wasn't a lot of fun. Took our store about 1.5 years to get stable managers again!
Wasn't a lot of fun. Took our store about 1.5 years to get stable managers again!
Same at tesco,loads of jobs lost year,nights none food went,team leaders on nights and some during the day.
I was hoping for redundancy last year as I've been with the company a long time and if that did happen I could get of nights and work part time during the day,my store is very very busy with a quiet week taking in 1.6 million £ and a busy week 1.8,we are not going to lose nights (so we've been told) but could happen in the future.
Just had a chat about managers going now so a lot of them are on tender hooks.
I was hoping for redundancy last year as I've been with the company a long time and if that did happen I could get of nights and work part time during the day,my store is very very busy with a quiet week taking in 1.6 million £ and a busy week 1.8,we are not going to lose nights (so we've been told) but could happen in the future.
Just had a chat about managers going now so a lot of them are on tender hooks.
That seems pretty poor.
Well I don't know about that.
When I say it was bought off them it was based on time spent on nightshift I heard the number of ~30k for a manager who had been on shift for ages.