Whitbread plc (LON:WTB) is to restructure management at its Premier Inn hotel chain, scrapping the role of operations manager at each of its nearly 800 hotels.
The FTSE 100 group, which is in the process of selling its Costa coffee business to Coca-Cola, will instead create new assistant manager and hotel manager posts.
READ: Whitbread agrees to sell Costa to Coca-Cola for £3.9bn
Current operations managers would either be laid off or put in charge of multiple sites, according to a source cited by Reuters.
Employees were reportedly told of the proposals on Monday.
Whitbread told Reuters that the changes, should they go through, would help it cut costs and allow it to invest £300mln in 42 new hotel and restaurant openings over the next year, creating 1,700 new jobs in the process.
Shares were broadly flat at 4,677p early Tuesday.