Around 100 roles are at risk of redundancy at Morrisons’ head office, as part of a restructure of its convenience and general merchandise teams.
The proposals will see its Morrisons Daily commercial and support functions, which currently sit separately to its supermarket trading team, merged into one single division, effectively axing its convenience buying team, The Grocer understands.
Convenience stores will now sit as part of its retail division, under group retail director Martin Dawson, while the convenience buying and commercial functions will sit under group trading director Andrew Staniland as part of a central buying team.
It follows the departure of group convenience and wholesale director Matt Heslop in February, after less than a year in the role.
Separately, Morrisons is relocating support functions for its general merchandise division, from its Hilmore House HQ in Bradford to a new standalone office in Warrington.
Relocating to the northwest would put Morrisons’ general merchandise business closer to its suppliers in the region, it claimed. It mimics a similar move to relocate its Nutmeg clothing business to Leicestershire a few years ago.
All existing GM functions in Bradford will close when the new office opens later this year.
“To enable us to deliver a truly multichannel shopping experience for Morrisons customers, we are proposing to integrate the operation of our supermarkets and company-owned convenience stores and support office functions into a single team structure,” said a Morrisons spokesman.
“The plans will allow us to leverage the existing skills and expertise we have in the business, remove duplication, simplify our store operations and capture efficiencies.
“There will be no direct impact on Morrisons Daily stores. The proposal will also enhance our ability to deliver a multichannel approach to our trading business, leveraging opportunities with suppliers to improve our customer offer across both our supermarket and convenience formats.”
The majority of the more than 100 roles will be from Morrisons convenience functions, The Grocer understands.
“Unfortunately, the proposals will result in a number of roles being put at risk of redundancy as we integrate tasks into a single team, and we will now commence a consultancy process with impacted colleagues,” the spokesman continued.
“We understand this will be difficult news for them and will be offering them our full support, including helping them to find alternative roles elsewhere in the business wherever we can.”
It is the latest restructure announced by CEO Rami Baitiéh, as he seeks to cut costs to fund his turnaround plan.
Convenience is a major focus of his growth plan, with Morrisons in the midst of a new convenience offensive, with plans to open as many as 300 new Morrisons Daily stores a year under its COCO (company-owned company-operated) and FOFO (franchise-owned franchise-operated) strategy.
The supermarket currently has 1,820 Morrisons Daily stores, around half of which are franchise-owned.
Baitiéh told The Grocer x Retail Week LIVE conference on Tuesday that Morrisons was working to convert more of its company-owned stores into franchise-owned stores.
No comments yet