Asda chair admits Issa co-owners ‘ripped the heart out of the colleagues’
Asda chairman Allan Leighton has admitted the previous stewardship of the supermarket under co-owners the Issa brothers “ripped the heart out of the colleagues”.
The retail veteran, who returned to Asda in November after stepping down as chief executive in 2001, told The Times that brothers Mohsin and Zuber Issa had “ripped all the hours out of the stores” in a bid to cut costs. He added: “We put all the hours back.”
Leighton admitted: “Why we are where we are is largely self-inflicted”.
“We had a financial plan, but we didn’t have a business plan. There’s a big difference. We have now got a plan, everybody understands what it is we’re trying to do,” he explained.
The chairman’s comments come as Asda once again found itself outpaced by its rivals this week, following damp sales over Christmas.
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In Total Till Roll data published by analysts Kantar, Asda remained the only supermarket with a negative change year-on-year, down 5.2% compared to the same period last year. It now has only a 12.6% market share.
Leighton, who previously said Asda’s turnaround would take three to five years, told the title he was focused on “all the basic stuff right”.
“I’m not looking for the silver bullet or the next great idea. It is about getting the range right, getting the price right and getting the availability right. And we’ve got to win the hearts and minds back of our people.
“These are the things that we need to fix, but they’re under our control, they’re not reliant on anybody else to do it,” he said, adding that the business had already upped its availability from 90% to 94%, with a goal to get back to the 98.5% level it was in 2001.
In recent weeks, Asda has brought back its iconic Rollback scheme – a replacement for it’s Aldi and Lidl price match scheme, which it dropped mere days before, made a series of senior hires across its leadership team and axed bonuses for thousands of staff citing the supermarket’s struggling performance.
54 Comments. Leave new
Some of the managers behaviour towards colleagues are rude,
I doubt that the NEW management wanted to cancel the bonus, but if cash is short then it is better to retain it within the company. I do accept that the Issa brothers were responsible for how Asda is today and as usual it is the workforce that is paying the price. I hope that with the new management Asda will return to be the supermarket it was previously.
The rollback isn’t that good i noticed prices of other things going up at £1.50 they are ripping us off i don’t shop at Asda very often and it’s my local supermarket!!
Don’t think managers should get bonuses as it the staff who do all the work with no thanks and lousey pay.
This is exactly the same at Poundland all the managers get a bonuses while the frontline staff , who do the work , get a few pounds in vouchers to be spent in store at Christmas. No wonder they are having issues, staff morale is very low .
A resurgent Tesco, Aldi & Lidl will make things incredibly difficult for Asda now. It will be interesting to see how their market share responds.
One of them is still an exec and owns 25%
Leighton is swinging and clutching at straws morale is on the floor and all the cost cutting is going to finish it all
I’ve been there 7 years it was a good place to work when I first started staff on shop floor willing to help customers but now hardly any staff and the staff that are there are doing jobs for 2 people no bonuses asking if we want to go home early or have a day off unpaid or use your holiday up cause they are saving on hours over spent how can you be over spent when the work force has been cut by over half I want to use MY holidays when I want them also will NOT take unpaid days why should I, even
stopped giving us free milk in the canteen for breakfast and drinks what a joke !
Asda need more boots on the shop floor , people who are willing to work & put the effort in & pull the shop out of the mere
It’s going to be tough against a resergent Tesco and the discounters, an interesting battle is taking place.
I worked for Asda for 11 years and saw the company going down hill soon as the brothers took over Asda. They stripped the shelfs of stock and the suppliers wouldn’t get paid. So they had really bad stock issues
Asda Manager expects a bonus without performance.All that’s wrong evidenced there.You got a skill set walk and go else where.
He’s put the hours back. Has he fuck. Got managers who are dedicated doing 60 hour weeks to help their departments get by. Now scrapping their bonus is a new low.
Got to agree with you there’ he’s not put the hour’s back into store everything is still the same no staff – shelve’s half empty ‘ and that’s because you don’t see any staff on the shop floor after 5 – 6pm.
They should never have been allowed to buy Asda in the first place. These guys were millions in debt and were allowed to go millions more in debt just to run the best supermarket in the UK 🇬🇧 into the ground
I worked for asda for 18 years and in that time i felt that it was a good place to work in whilst we were under walmart but as soon as the issa brothers took over the heart and soul was ruined and staff moral went down due to the treatment received. Mainly due to bonuses cut and lack of respect to the hard work that the colleagues put in.
Colleagues haven’t had a bonus for years!! They worked colleagues into the ground, no moral and definitely no respect
I think ASDA will struggle to pay the interest on their massive debt. This is a Woolies and Wilko all over again. They are in ever decreasing circles. Mr Leighton has got the poison chalice.
I don’t know if it is the same in other stores, but for ours the Home Shopping department is losing us a ton of money. The fact drivers processing returns can’t just LOOK at packaged meat and see it is turning grey… They still put it on the shelf.
Asda can increase its availability to 98% but they need the colleagues to put the stock out and get the standards back in store, I worked for Asda 10 years ago and have recently come back, but it’s not the same, the store are not in a good place, never enough people on the floor, stripped all the experienced managers out and put inexperienced youngsters in their place, when are they going to invest in their people.
I started work with EG from 2012. After they bought the ASDA all went upside down. Staff value is not recognised at all. Now they are treating us like a robot. After Zubar left the company and started the EG on the move, most of the senior ASDA staffs moved to EG within last couple of months. If EG starts a supermarket in our area, I will also leave ASDA. Downfall started to ASDA.
Fundamentally the brothers loaded it with debt and had no idea of running Asda
Good luck Mr Leighton
The kiosk at Asda Gloucester used to open at 7am was changed to 8am rarely it’s open on time customers cannot buy lottery tickets or cigarettes I have seen people on numerous occasions get fed up and walk out without purchasing because kiosk not open on time why why why
He’s correct about the effect the brothers have had on the staff, what he’s left out is he has added to the misery by cancelling bonuses two weeks before they’re due to be paid whilst not having the courage or decency to tell staff, leaving us to find out via the media. Bonuses are included in our overall salary package. This is a despicable move, blame staff for senior directors faults.
Colleagues didn’t get a bonus anymore so managers definitely shouldn’t get one
Everyday colleagues working the shop floor got bonuses ripped off us long ago. Took me articles to see that managers were still getting them till recently. One rule for thee.
No a bonus is a discretionary benefit based on the business performance and achieving agreed KRAs
Don’t forget all colleagues had their bonus stopped a couple of years ago so I don’t see what the problem is
They took everything off colleagues you know the ones that get YOU your bonuses but nothing was done about that and you are all complaining your not getting you bonus this year aww bless ya heart
Yes he has but the brothers stopped the shop floor workers bonus as soon as they arrived so sorry no sympathy for the managers. Asda shop staff
Bonuses are exactly that,a bonus. If the company isn’t performing then you can’t expect a bonus. The fact it’s not your fault is a different issue. Remember all the John Lewis staff had the same when their profits dropped but they turned it round, hopefully Allan can do the same.
As an Asda manager, I totally agree with you, with all the new ways of working, new systems, extra workload, to find out what little bonus we do get, has been been pulled, via the press, and still waiting for comms from Asda themselves is absolutely disgusting, treat like bottom rungs of the ladder.
but you are the bottom management rungs of the ladder
Agree totally on your comments the blame did not lie with Managers or Colleagues
Bet you didn’t care when colleagues bonus was scrapped
Well what can I say glad managers have lost there bonus after the way colleagues have been treated ever since the takeover it’s about time they looked and stripped some of the arrogant managers out of stores to many good colleagues leaving from being overworked underpaid and verbally abused by managers and needs to be proper unplanned visits by area managers instead of being tipped off and arriving at stores thinking everything is ok when in reality it’s not
Axing the bonus was the wrong thing to do. Colleagues have worked hard all year and to find out via media that we aren’t getting them is disappointing. The lack of a business plan was down to the senior leadership.
Any and all faith I have in the company is gone. They made the 400 people at my last workplace redundant during the pandemic (about half of which were a few years from retirement, so there’s no way they were getting another job).
Then they missed 97% of my pay when I was on sick leave due to an injury (that I got due to work by the way), and took 3 weeks to pay me back. In that 3 weeks, I had to sell most of my stuff for a fraction of its value just to pay my bills, including a card binder that I was planning to keep for the next 20 or so years that was worth just over £3k. And when I called company HR to try and get reimbursed for my losses (again, losses directly caused by the company), they refused and hung up.
The only thing keeping me at my store is that the colleagues I work with are good people and there’s no other place I can find that would take me while I’m still recovering from my injury. I can wholeheartedly say I’m ashamed to work for Asda.
Not surprised, Asda is a thing of the past once the customer has tried elsewhere, they won’t come back, empty shelves, no staff.
Same scenario is going on at Morrisons, such a shame the older companies are being asset stripped
Colleagues lost their bonuses so not going to cry that managers bonuses are gone……….
However if he’s putting hours back in store I’d like to know what our gsm is doing with them as apart from when there’s a visit, she’s still cutting hours!
I’ve worked in retail all my life. Spent 10 months working for Asda last year. It really felt like management didn’t give a damn. Our store manager was only in store 2 or 3 days a month, assistant manager maybe once a week. The daily running of the place was left to section leaders who were mostly inexperienced kids who didn’t really know what they were doing. Staff morale was rock bottom. The shelves were half empty and nobody was doing anything about it, so I got out of there before Christmas and haven’t looked back. For what it’s worth I think Alan Leighton is doing the right thing now.
Short staffed want us to work.like robot to save money
I was there when Alan saved us the Frist time And still there now 41 years I have worked there and so glad Alan is back I have five years left to work I would like to see us back on top I have every faith in Alan to bring us back
Same here, I always talk about the glory days under Allan and Archie. I have every faith he can get us back on track, but like you with only a few years left to go until retirement, can it de done in my working lifetime?
Absolutely correct by all the comments put forward. A bonus is for good performance related.
So why did the CEO of TDR and top Executives of Asda share out an alleged £30 million Christmas bonus?!🤔
Certain shop floor manager at a asda in westyorkshire made my wife ill due to them trying to make her go due to the fact she had alot more staff entitlement like sick pay
Leigh day fighting for Asda so pay up or staff will leave
It’s disgusting the way the staff are treated on this contract 6 management are blackmailing the staff with their jobs
I’ve been with ASDA over 35 years and believe me it’s the worse i have ever seen ‘ i only stay now because of my age and great colleagues ‘ ASDA used to be the best supermarket around but not anymore ‘ the issa brothers have ripped the heart and sole out of the business ‘ need i say anymore.
Worked for ASDA for 24 years from the top of the business to the management insore they definitely ripped the heart and soul out of us all.I loved working for the Company but you could see the company going down fast and its a shame I feel sorry for the colleges who are still there.Do I feel that Alan can get it back to where it was no there will be more heart break .
As an Asda manager I totally agree with what you say, on top of all the new ways of working, system changes, extra workload, to have what little we did get taken away, and to find out via the press, as yet still no comms is absolutely disgusting
Asda is all ways saving money and staff suffer because of it no staff and management bullying the staff to get the job done .I work at Nuneaton store it’s the same there no staff and we get bullied by management . Staff are sick of it .it by time that Asda do something about it . before staff go on the sick .
A resurgent Tesco, Aldi & Lidl will make things incredibly difficult for Asda now. It will be interesting to see how their market share responds.