Tesco has announced a sweeping management shake-up across all its larger superstores and Extras and confirmed it is to close all its remaining fresh food counters.
The move is part of a series of efficiency savings announced today by the UK’s biggest supermarket, which will in total affect more than 2,000 roles.
Tesco said the shake-up was needed in order for it to “remain competitive”.
Today’s move sees Tesco roll out a new management structure across all its bigger stores, which will see the removal of 1,750 lead and team manager roles.
It follows a similar simplification of its management structure announced two years ago across its 350 smaller superstores.
Tesco is introducing 1,800 new shift leader roles in these stores and realigning its manager roles so they are all of equal size and complexity.
Staff affected by the changes would have the option of moving into shift leader positions with financial support, or taking redundancy, it said.
Meanwhile, Tesco announced it was closing its remaining 279 counters, having already axed 300 in 2019.
It claimed to have seen a “significant decrease” in demand for counters over the past few years and said customers no longer saw them a s a significant reason to shop with Tesco.
It said staff affected by the changes would be moved to new roles. It added it would continue to work with third parties to run counters in some stores.
Tesco also announced further cuts today, including the closure of eight pharmacies, moving overnight roles to daytime in 12 stores and reducing hours within some of its Post Offices.
It is also removing what it said were a small number of roles in different functions of its Welwyn head office and closing the Tesco Maintenance National Operating Centre (NOC) in Milton Keynes.
In total those changes mean a further 350 roles will be affected across the business, on top of the 1,750 management roles.
Tesco said it had entered into a consultation process with union Usdaw on these proposals and stressed it currently had around 2,000 vacancies across its stores, in addition to the 1,800 new shift leader roles.
“These are difficult decisions to make, but they are necessary to ensure we remain focused on delivering value for our customers wherever we can, as well as ensuring our store offer reflects what our customers value the most,” said Tesco UK & ROI CEO Jason Tarry.
“Our priority is to support those colleagues impacted and help find alternative roles within our business from the vacancies and newly created roles we have available.”
The latest job cuts at Tesco come after Asda last week announced it was to remove more than 200 night shift manager roles and switch more than 4,000 night workers from overnight to morning and twilight shifts, as part of a major shake-up of its store operations.
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