Almost a quarter of the store staff caught up in Tesco CEO Dave Lewis’ radical management shake-up have been made redundant, The Grocer can reveal today.
It means an estimated figure of around 1,000 staff – mostly team managers, but also line managers and deputy store managers - have accepted redundancy terms negotiated with Usdaw, following the shake-up, which was announced by Lewis in January.
However, Tesco has said that 55% of staff impacted by the changes have decided to stay on with reduced pay and a one-off buyout payment, whilst a further 23% of staff stayed in equivalent paid roles.
Tesco retail director Tony Hoggett said he had been surprised at how appreciative staff had been of the rationale behind the changes and said Tesco was “delighted” that it had retained the big majority of its managers.
“It went down much better than we’d anticipated,” Hoggett said. “In the backdrop of a business transformation the thing that I’m really pleased about is that there was very little challenging of the why or the how.
“I think because we were extremely transparent with how we handled the consultation process as everyone understood why we were doing it although of course people were concerned about their futures.”
Hoggett said the exact proportion of in-store management staff leaving as a result of the shakeup was 22%, slightly less than the 25% of team leaders that decided to take redundancy when the shake-up was first trialled last year.
Team leaders that decided to stay will face pay reductions of around a fifth of their pay as they move to alternative roles, although established team leaders got buyouts of more than £6,000 as a “financial cushion.”
Hoggett stressed that the estimated 5,000 staff whose roles have been removed because of the shake-up or closure of 43 Tesco stores was outnumbered by the 6,000 extra store staff brought in since last October, an investment he pledged would be ongoing
He also revealed that 700 Tesco staff had been promoted as a result of the shake-up.
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