UK clothing, food and home retailer Marks & Spencer is to cut 950 roles across its central support functions in a bid to accelerate the restructuring of its business.
In a statement today (20 July), the retail group said the move related to its plans outlined in May to accelerate the pace and scale of its transformation plan and make three years’ progress in one.
As part of this, M&S will create a new retail management structure that it says is fit for the future, removing role duplication, providing clearer leadership accountabilities and freeing up its retail teams to focus more on the customer.
This will affect 950 roles across central support functions in field and central operations and property and store management. M&S says it has started collective consultation with its employee representative group and has set out its intention to first offer voluntary redundancy to affected colleagues.
“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,” says Sacha Berendji, 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 announced GBP1bn of actions in May, including GBP500m of cost reductions and other actions to manage cash, in addition to drawing up its Never the Same Again agenda to accelerate transformation and invest further in digital.
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By GlobalDataThe plans include adding around 1,600 core clothing and home lines to the Ocado online platform, and developing a faster, ‘near-sourcing’ supply chain to enable the test and re-order of seasonal fashion lines particularly for the online business.
And as part of a “renewed management team”, M&S appointed the commercial vice-president of Asda’s George brand, Stephen Langford, as its head of clothing and home online, and Richard Price as managing director.
The move by M&S follows news today (20 July) that Ted Baker is also to cut 500 roles across its operations.
