The Warehouse to cut up to 140 jobs in store leadership restructure

Monday, 23 July 2018

Staff are upset at 'confusion' over The Warehouse's plans to cut jobs.

The retailer has finalised plans to refine its store leadership structure, affecting jobs at 92 stores. It will remove assistant store manager and supervisor roles.

Chief executive Pejman Okhovat said it was the first change of its kind in 15 years.

'Retail and customer behaviour is changing like never before, so we need to evolve from a traditional, hierarchal structure to one that is fit for the future and the ever-shifting needs of Kiwis.

'The new leadership structure will deliver a number of benefits to team members and therefore customers, including increased staffing levels at peak times, better leadership support during trading hours, improved sick and holiday cover and better-defined career pathways for team members.'

* The Warehouse plans job cuts at 93 stores

* The Warehouse staff frustrated by uncertainty of job losses**

As a result of the new store leadership structure, it is anticipated that there will be between 120 and 140 fewer full-time equivalent roles across The Warehouse's stores.

He said efforts were being made to re-deploy as many team members as possible into vacant roles. All workers will now be required to work weekend and evening shifts.

But First Union, which represents some Warehouse staff, said there was widespread confusion.

It had been informed that the one-on-one interviews would begin on Monday and the timeline workers had to apply for jobs was from Monday until August 1, with jobs confirmed by August 10.

Organiser Kate Davis said the union had urgently requested a meeting to get clarity.

'There was not enough time during the consultation process, and now interviews have apparently begun today when the jobs aren't even up on their website yet. It's a mess, and members need answers.

'There is already misinformation out there. Some staff believe they will not receive redundancy if they do not apply for any of the new roles, and these new roles do not suit many workers who need a decent number of secure hours.'

Members are worried that if they don't have a 20-hour contract it will affect their Working for Families benefit.

'They do not have the basic right of job security, they are living in limbo, and all this while underemployment figures remain very high, people want more hours and women are hugely overrepresented in these figures yet companies like The Warehouse are making these moves.'

Davis said it was a move to casualise the workforce.

'TWL is using the worse possible form of restructuring by throwing everything up in the air and making far more people apply for jobs than they need to, creating far more stress and concern amongst workers and members than they need to. '

She said the type of restructure was one that utilises the law against workers, making them partially redundant but without a redundancy package.

'Our rule of thumb is that if a permanent worker's hours are cut then that is a partial redundancy. The problem is the company is forcing workers to apply for a job with a cut in hours and will then say there is no partial redundancy because the worker applied for the new job.

'Workers thought redeployment was the favoured option at the last meeting, now they are being told redundancy is a key option with one manager stating that, 'considerable redundancies will be inevitable'.'

Davis said the fact the company had taken on The Appliance Shed added insult to injury.

It follows a three-week consultation process.

Where recent vacancies have arisen in stores in recent weeks, The Warehouse has attempted to hold the permanent role open as a potential redeployment opportunity, and used temporary and casual employees to do the work in the interim.

The retailer will not contribute to moving costs if people take a job in another region.

Kmart has previously said it would offer jobs to staff who were laid off.

Retail NZ spokesman Greg Harford said a flatter structure did not necessarily mean fewer career opportunities.

There could be more specialised opportunities, he said.

'The retail sector is a big employer, and more than 215,000 people work in the sector - that's around 10 per cent of all people working in New Zealand. There are great career opportunities in retail, although the shape of particular jobs will continue to evolve over time as customer and business needs change.'