That company was ruined mate the second a certain chairman and CEO turned up with all their Tesco chums. During the early 2000's, Safeway purposely spent money so that their share price went below the asset value of the company, hence why Morrisons, a much smaller company and very asset rich, were able to buy them. Anyone who was around in those days (the few that are left) saw striking similarities a few years ago between that and the current strategy. Then low and behold, look at what's just happened! Very clear from the inside that this was a sell up job.
We all kept telling ourselves every year at bonus time (they kept pumping us with LTIP's every April to get us to stay another year) that it couldn't possibly get any worse and yet it always seemed to. The heart has been ripped out of the company and the stores are shockingly poorly operated. Last year's restructure was the biggest bloodbath I've ever seen. The whole process was swift and brutal, we binned off or demoted almost half our loyal and skilled managers in Q1 last year. They pretended they were getting rid of Team Managers and giving us giant senior teams. But the effect was actually a demotion. Pathetic £25k salary, no training just straight in the deep end.
No Grocery Manager anymore, so the new "Replenhment Manager" just spent all his days smashing booze back stock or working unworked load the extremely under-resourced night crew had left from the night before. No Produce or FF Manager anymore, so the new "Fresh Manager" now spends all day working bananas and milk. No Checkout or PFS Manager anymore, so the new "Customer Service Manger" spends all day running the main bank and covering kiosk and petrol breaks. Etc Etc Etc. No senior team in real terms to rely on any more so you'd walk into the store in the morning as SM and they're all busy doing manual task and the shop is a bin. Only Store Manager and "Ops Manager" (deputy managers without the pay and benefits) looking at the store as a whole.
That was one of my descions to leave after years and years of loyal service. That and being sick of emergency conference calls on a Thursday about last minute payroll pulls, having to pull the demoralised and knackered managers in to the office one by one and telling them to pull all the hours out of the weekend then hitting the phone lines and telling people with 4 hour contracts and families to support that we no longer require them for the weekend. Pure slash and burn, cruel and utterly demoralising. Final straw was opening my Q3 payroll bridge and seeing a quarter of my store payroll gone in just one swoop, no explanation, no push back - "just deliver it". Then trying to make decisions of what to cut completely (whole department closures were considered, self service only after 6pm and before 9am, closing half the petrol pumps and single manning PFS all day, faking plant breakdowns in ISB and ordering in frozen doughnuts and prepacked rolls that we no longer had the manpower to make ourselves) and then going down a list of people on temporary contracts and having to let them go, whether they were good or not.
My parents always used to say "everyone will always need food". When I chose this I never thought the industry would go this way. The future now looks very insecure and scares me alot. I know pretty much nothing else and still have half my working life left.
