Waitrose shop staff face risk of job loss in overhaul

Staff are at risk of losing their jobs if they do not agree to work more flexible hours. Waitrose is asking employees to change their working patterns and will be having conversations with them soon to introduce changes to contracts.

In a staff video seen by the Financial Times, Waitrose retail director Tina Mitchell said employees may need to “make sacrifices and compromises” while warning that streamlining operations “may result in some partners leaving the business”. 

She said: “Unless we change how we work, there’s a real danger that the partnership won’t exist in the form that we want it to in the future.”

Mitchell added that the upmarket grocer is aiming to have “the right amount of partners doing the right tasks at the right time”, which includes having enough staff on the shopfloor at its busiest times.

Waitrose told staff it lost £400 a year for every full-time employee and a third of its hours were “in the wrong place”.

Waitrose said: “We want to provide the very best service to our customers… to do this, we’re asking some partners across our shops to change their working patterns and are proposing to cease night shifts at a small number of stores.

“This isn’t something we take lightly and we’ll be supporting our partners through any changes.” 

The supermarket is planning to unlock 4 million hours of “productivity savings”, equivalent to £50m a year, from changing work patterns.