Asda axes bonuses for 10,000 staff amid struggles
Asda has scrapped bonuses for thousands of staff following the supermarket chain’s declining performance.
More than 10,000 Asda managers were told by the grocery retailer that they will not receive any payments, despite typically expecting them in the first three months of each year, according to The Telegraph.
The decision has already faced a backlash, with one former Asda employee warning that staff would look elsewhere due to the news.
They told the publication, “Morale will be rock bottom. Even Allan [Leighton] won’t be able to pick them up from this. This will mean some of the top talent looking elsewhere,” while another cautioned it could cause “anarchy” in the business.
The news follows a tough year for the grocer. In 2024, it attempted to arrest its steady slump in sales, but still delivered a damp performance over the festive period leading to its worst Christmas in a decade.
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In February, data from Kantar showed Asda was the only supermarket experiencing a decline, down 5.2% compared to the same period last year, and with sales of £4.63bn compared to £4.882bn in 2024. It now holds 12.6% of the market, in contrast to its previous 13.6% and is due to reveal its full year results in the coming weeks.
The cancelling of the bonuses for its senior staff also comes just months after new chairman Allan Leighton returned to lead the supermarket in November.
He has since pledged to turn around the struggling supermarket and has made strategic decisions such as the return of its Rollback initiative, the axing of its Aldi and Lidl price match and a series of redundancies.
Yet the retail veteran has still warned Asda’s comeback might take as long as five years to be implemented. Leighton added that his initial priority would be to “restore Asda’s DNA”, including making improvements to price and availability, and hiring a new CEO.
11 Comments. Leave new
Allan performs the biggest gaslight ever by confirming today that there is to be zero bonus and starting managers were told this back in January.
Asda today is the conservative party of old. Full of old men, rife with cronyism and throwing money at management consultants
Perhaps if Mohsin hadn’t been fingering the auditors this would have panned out better
Hopefully they have also scrapped Head Office and Board bonuses too. I’m sure being a Northern heritage retailer .. you’re all in it together ??
They took the bonuses of the collages years ago , we lost out on buying shares, they took our £20 bonus at Christmas as well they took our canteen away , the collages get nothing anymore, it’s so far run down everyone is absolutely Feb up ,
They are putting the money to one side so they can pay out their equal pay claim court action.
Totally agree, hopefully they will also take away their bank holiday benefits like they did to us
The colleague bonus was stopped they do all the work, why should manager’s get a bonus worth thousands while colleague’s get nothing. Everything has gone for colleague’s the canteens, no vending machines, nothing at christmas, Easter, no christmas meal, no bonus there’s nothing for colleague’s there all unhappy. It’s gotten worse since the asset stripping brother’s have taken over.
The store managers are getting their bonus but the department managers aren’t.yet thay do most of the work and cover for stores managers when they are absent. We had to hear this via the press not the company just shows how much they value their staff….Zilch
The store manager don’t care about their staff all they care about is their bonus yet the staff do all the hard work and have no bonus.
We colleagues are not valued.
Absolutely awful company to work for when you’re a good manager. The leadership is shocking compared to Sainsburys / Tesco, it was a laughing stock of an experience for myself as a young manager. Really not surprised the company is in the position it is and to be honest in my opinion the managers don’t deserve a bonus. In my opinion, in the store I was at (Stoke On Trent based), Managers are overpaid colleagues who want to act like children, they have serious culture and leadership issues with bullying traits – a total lack of inspiring leadership. With that being said, they haven’t successfully executed the colleague lifecycle and remain to have a workforce dominated by under-skilled, under motivated and un-willing people – all of which is in the power of the manager. Managers do not have the skills or experience to provide fair, best practice performance management and are lead by their personal emotions. I’m not saying people need a degree to be a manager, but how can a manager provide fair performance management to colleagues when their own personal performance is embarrassing. You could say I am happy I left and to not be representing their management team any longer.
I worked for Asda for 22 years until I was bullied out of my job last year.
I used to love working for Asda.
The new store manager they brought in was the worst manager I had ever come across.
The opps manager was also a bully.
It became a vile place to work.