Waitrose customer service workers who previously faced redundancy are no longer at risk.
In February, The Telegraph reported that the John Lewis Partnership – which owns both Waitrose and John Lewis – planned to cut the number of staff it employs from customer service provider Foundever, following a 17-year partnership with the firm.
According to The Grocer, most of the staff at Foundever working on the upmarket retailer’s team had been placed on 45 days redundancy notice.
However, the provider emailed these workers last week to notify that they were “no longer at risk of redundancy” after a stage of “natural attrition”.
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It is understood that while a small portion of team managers have been made redundant, 100 Foundever employees on these teams have been placed in roles elsewhere within the company.
A Foundever spokesperson told the publication that it “was always our intention to use the consultation process to find new internal opportunities for colleagues impacted by the changes structure of our John Lewis team”.
Grocery Gazette has contacted Waitrose for comment.
It comes as the John Lewis Partnership is planning to cut up to 11,000 jobs – more than 10% of its 76,000 workforce – over the next five years as it looks to cut cost base by £900m.
Although the redundancies will hit Waitrose’s sister John Lewis department store more heavily, the group’s head office staff are thought to be the most vulnerable.
