TESCO TRUTHS

In a desperate measure to cut costs, Tescos have announced to its managers today that a major structure change is imminent – in fact the consultations with affected Managers start tommorow.

In a sweeping move, Tesco have decided to move away from have specific Trading Managers  for different areas, such a Fresh Food Trading Manager, Non-Food Trading Manager  etc,  and replace this with a single Deputy Manager.  Existing Trading managers will be assessed against the new Deputy Role and those who do not make the grade will be demoted to the next level below – Line Managers.  In the majority of stores affected there are at least three Trading Managers, all of whom will be competing against each other to avoid demotion.  In what is, an already fraught and dog-eat-dog environment, this is guaranteed to make for a very unhappy summer at the retailers.

There seems to be considerable anger at this move, particularly from newly appointed trading managers, whom have spent the past twelve months training to become a Trading Manager (including up to three months in some cases actually fulfilling the role without the extra pay, good for development apparently!) only to find that the role is now defunct.  Why Tesco’s decided to do this to its developing management population is  somewhat a mystery, as this move was first floated 4 years ago – the feeling is, once again, that the executives either simply are not even bothering to pretend to care about their Managers anymore or they simply do not know what they are doing on a month upon month basis.  Neither of which are instilling their store teams with any confidence.

Additionally, not content with destroying the faint presence of morale amongst the Trading Managers, the Line Managers themselves were also told today that Managers responsible for the Fresh Food Deli Counters would no longer have a job, again these managers are facing sideways movements into roles they do not want or, if they recieved a poor review at the end of last year, demotion to the lower level of Team Leader.  Once again, some of these manager have only just been appointed to these roles and feel used and abused.

So this is the response to being trounced by its competitors after the first quarter, its 3.7% growth being declared as “solid” by the board despite being the lowest of all the Supermarket chains. Once again it is the UK staff which are made to suffer.

More to follow tommorow, when we have more information.

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This is THE place to get the inside view of what exactly is happening at TESCO, the UK’s biggest retailer.

We have a number of well placed employee’s from Customer Assistants all the way to Store Managers and Head Office staff – who will be blogging whats happening and how they are feeling.

We were due to Launch in three weeks time but due to todays occurances, we have decided to launch early if a little unprepared!

We are always looking for more bloggers – whether you are an employee, a rep who visits stores or a Tesco shopper!  Contact us if you fancy joining the team.

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A Thai court has dismissed a law suit filed by Tesco against a former MP, Jit Siratranont, for making comments that the supermarket giant’s expansion was at the expense of small retailers.

Siratranont, now deputy secretary general of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, was facing up to two years in jail and a £16.4m libel damages claim after he made a speech at Bangkok’s Kasetsart University saying Tesco’s expansion was “aggressive”. He also claimed that the profits from its Thai subsidiary, Tesco Lotus, were sent back to the UK, causing deeper poverty in Thailand.

The court dismissed the libel case filed by Ek-Chai Distribution System Company Limited, a wholesaler and retailer of Tesco Lotus, ruling that the criticism made by the defendant was “in good faith by way of fair comment on any person or thing subjected to public criticism”. The court also dismissed the claim of one billion baht damages (about £16.4m) by Tesco.

“We have made it clear throughout that all we want is to put the record straight and get an apology from Mr Jit,” said a spokesman for Tesco. “We are considering our options.”

Last year Tesco in Thailand launched three libel claims over separate allegations in relation to the company’s expansion.

Nongnart Harnvilai, 45, a writer for Bangkokbiznews, wrote about Tesco Lotus’s plans to open a further 130 outlets, saying Thai competitors were in for a difficult time. Tesco settled the action after seeking £1.9m in libel damages, with an apology published in the paper for three consecutive days.

A third case was brought against Kamol Kamoltrakul, an academic and also a writer for Bangkokbiznews, who is facing a £1.6m damages claim after being served with a libel writ. The Tesco spokesman said that the company was still working towards an out of court settlement over this case.

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