Sainsbury's shop floor management rejig to affect 'thousands' of jobs

Supermarket chain Sainsbury's may cut thousands of jobs as part of a restructuring of its shop-floor management structure.

Sainsbury’s has not specified the number of employees at risk but it has said that there will be fewer management roles in each store but remaining roles having more responsibility and better pay.

Staff were told that the role of deputy manager will be replaced by a smaller number of operations managers, with the more junior management roles of department manager, team leader and store supervisor combined under the new title of customer and trading manager.

On Monday, UK grocery market leader Tesco also announced that it would axe 1,700 jobs in its plan to simplify operational structures, while analysts at Credit Suisse warned that Sainsbury's and its large supermarket rivals are likely to deliver "zero growth" in 2018, with few signs of improvement in the industry outlook, with food volume growth effectively zero.

Alongside a trading update earlier this month, chief executive Mike Coupe said market conditions "remain challenging and we are cautious about the consumer environment in the year ahead".

Simon Roberts, Sainsbury’s retail and operations director, said on Tuesday the group's new store management structure would deliver "best in class leadership" and provide a better service to their clients.

Workers can apply to the these new management roles or they can accept more junior positions if unsuccessful, or will be offered redundancy.

“We’re proposing a store management structure that will deliver best in class leadership and, in many cases, will offer an improved reward package for new management roles.

“The proposals will introduce a more efficient and effective structure, designed to meet the challenges of today’s retail environment. They will deliver cost savings to be invested in our customer offer and in our colleagues as they continue to provide the very best service for our customers.” he said.

He also reassured that their aim was “not to reduce overall headcount” as a result of this new strategy plan and that the company would try to help the people negatively affected by the changes.

Despite this, trade union Unite has called for guarantees for “no compulsory redundancies”. They have requested redeployment opportunities for the affected staff.

Unite acting national officer for food and drink, Bev Clarkson, said: "Unite will be seeking guarantees from the management during the 45-day consultation period that there will be no compulsory redundancies for our members.

"We appreciate that Sainsbury's has a good record of redeployment of staff in these situations and we will be exploring every avenue to ensure the continuing employment for our members."