Boots to axe 700 backroom jobs in latest shake-up
The Walgreens Alliance Boots company released a statement detailing the major cull in backroom jobs, explaining it was part of a strategy to try and ‘reset the business’ as it needed to transform to adapt to the ‘rapidly changing’ needs of consumer.
Consumer needs
One of these consumer needs that require special attention is in the ever-growing digital arena, an area the company admits it is under-resourced.
“Boots has an incredible heritage of delivering care and support to communities across the UK for over 165 years,” said Boots president Simon Roberts.
“While we have continued to deliver a solid performance in recent years, despite challenging market conditions, we cannot be complacent and must be stronger and more agile going forward, to meet the fast changing expectations of our customers.”
Boots has said that the reduction in jobs will be achieved through a combination of natural attrition, redeployment, retraining and redundancy, and that a formal consultation process with staff would begin soon.
Plans in place
There is also a plan for new investment to make the retailer ‘a true omni-channel retailer’, which Boots says will see the creation of a new customer offer, with the moves to impact on stores in the UK and Ireland, including Boots’ opticians.
“Together with my leadership team, I believe this plan will make Boots even better for our customers and drive sustainable future growth. We also remain fully committed to our presence in Nottingham, which has been the home of Boots since the very beginning,” continues Roberts.
“We have not taken these decisions lightly, and understand the impact that today’s announcement may have on our colleagues. We are fully committed to doing everything we can to support all our people as we transform Boots and strive to be even better for our customers and patients.”
