Morrisons is cutting budgets and reducing working hours for some of its instore staff, as future budgets for some roles will be cut significantly.
The supermarket has issued a statement on its Community Champion roles following reports which revealed its plans to cut budgets and reduce working hours outside of stores.
The statement, which said Morrisons would be making “some adjustments” to the role, came after sources claimed that affected staff will be given less working hours for their Community Champion role, instead spending more hours in other departments.
Every Morrisons store has at least one Community Champion, meaning the news will have wide implications for local communities across the country.
Subscribe to Grocery Gazette for free
Sign up here to get the latest grocery and food news each morning
The supermarket’s ‘Community Champions’ are a paid full-time or part-time role which involves working in the local community and providing funds to different causes.They often work across the country by visiting nearby schools, hospitals and care homes as well as organising groups and events such as litter picking.
A spokesperson for Morrisons said: “Our Community Champions and the role they play within the local community are incredibly important to Morrisons.
“Through the pandemic we made exceptional investments in community hours at a very difficult time for communities and we are now making some adjustments.”
They added: “After these changes most of our stores will still have more hours for community work than before the pandemic.”
Last year, the supermarket had allocated a total budget of £1.4 million to Community Champions in the UK
“Most Community Champions work in their own time, spend their own money helping others and this is the thanks we get,” one source told the Telegraph & Argus.
Another claimed: “It was announced that Community Champions would have their hours halved, meaning they can’t go out into the community and work with the services/charities that they have built up relationships with.
“They want us to just bring money into the store. Our partnership charity will also suffer because we won’t have the time or resources to do events for them.
“It’s so sad to have it come to an end after all the hard work we have put in. We are all devastated to have to let our communities down. But I understand that in the current economic climate, changes have to be made.”
The news comes as Morrisons raised its prices more than any other major UK supermaket last year, causing shoppers to switch to other grocery retailers, new research shows.
