Waitrose warned staff their jobs could be at risk as it asks workers to accept more flexible hours in an attempt to streamline the business and reduce costs, a video seen by the Financial Times revealed.
Kicking off a consultation with its ‘partners’ - what it calls staff due to providing each employee with shares in the group’s parent company John Lewis Partnership, Waitrose has launched the Simpler Shops project to help take back some of the market share lost from Aldi and Lidl.
Waitrose’s retail director Tina Mitchell told staff that some workers may need to make “sacrifices and compromises” and warned the new process could lead to “some partners leaving the business”.
“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.
Workers may now be expected to switch shifts to make sure that shop floors are covered during the busiest period, while reductions to the number of workers required for quieter periods such as night shifts could also be made.
A Waitrose spokesman commented: “[We’re] asking some Partners across our shops to change their working pattern 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.”
Hoping to cut costs by as much as £50 million per year by rejigging its workers' shift patterns, the privately-owned group is exploring these changes after John Lewis Partnership posted a full-year loss of £234 million in March.