Marks & Spencers

Source: M&S

M&S said the cuts would lead to a “leaner, faster retail management structure”

Nearly a thousand jobs are to be axed in a management restructure at M&S, the retailer has confirmed.

The changes would affect 950 roles from central operations to store management, M&S said.

It said a consultation had begun and it intended to “first offer voluntary redundancy to affected colleagues”.

It was part of M&S’s ‘Never the Same Again’ programme and would mean a “leaner, faster retail management structure” with “duplication” removed, it said.

“Our proposals reflect an important next step in our Never the Same Again programme to accelerate our transformation and become a stronger, leaner and more resilient business,” said Sacha Berendji, M&S director of retail, operations and property.

“Through the crisis we have seen how we can work faster and more flexibly by empowering store teams and it’s essential that we embed that way of working. Our priority now is to support all those affected through the consultation process and beyond.”

M&S furloughed 27,000 of 78,000 employees in the government’s job retention scheme.

In M&S’s latest full-year results in May, CEO Steve Rowe said: “Working habits have been transformed and we have discovered we can work in a faster, leaner, more effective way.

“I am determined to act now to capture this and deliver a renewed, more agile business in a world that will never be the same again.”

The retailer said today: “At its full-year results in May, M&S outlined plans to accelerate the pace and scale of the transformation plan and make three years’ progress in one. As part of this, the business committed to integrate more flexible management structures into its store operations.

“M&S is now proposing to implement these changes and create a new retail management structure that is fit for the future – removing role duplication, providing clearer leadership accountabilities and freeing up its retail teams to focus more on the customer.”