B&Q to Move Replenishment Activity From Night to Day

B&Q has today (5 October 2018) announced proposals to improve customers’ shopping experience in stores by moving 1,750 colleagues to shop floor roles.

They include moving replenishment activities from overnight to daytime to improve stock availability and customer service throughout the day. Colleagues currently working overnight in non-trading hours will be offered the opportunity to work a new shift pattern so that B&Q has more customer-facing colleagues in their stores.

Additionally, B&Q is proposing some operational changes to improve efficiency and drive greater consistency.

These changes are proposed to come into effect in November.

The net effect will be an increase of over 1750 more customer-facing colleagues in B&Qs 289 UK stores and a net-reduction of around 200 (FTE) management roles.

Paul Crisp, Retail and Property Director said:
“The overall impact of the proposals will be to improve our customers’ shopping experience in our stores. The changes in replenishment would mean an additional 1750 customer-facing colleagues on our shop floors, improving stock availability and customer service throughout the day. To do this, we are offering colleagues in overnight replenishment roles the opportunity to take a new day-time replenishment role instead, though we recognise that not all of them may want to take up these new positions. In addition, we are creating greater consistency in the way we operate our stores, removing duplication of tasks and improving efficiency.

“We want to be the leading home improvement company and make home improvement accessible for everyone. That means delivering great customer service and great quality at prices that are truly affordable; and to do that, we need to operate differently.

"We hope that as many nightshift colleagues as possible choose to accept these new roles but we recognise this is a difficult time for some of our colleagues. We are supporting impacted colleagues in a number of ways to help them to understand what the proposals mean for them personally.

“We are continuing to collectively consult with our employee’s representative body – the National People’s Forum, and are now consulting with our impacted colleagues.”

Source : Insight DIY Team and B&Q

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