One Third Of Wickes Head Office Staff To Be Made Redundant

News has reached the Insight DIY offices that almost a third of the store support staff at the Wickes Head Office in Watford are to be made redundant.

The redundancies, affecting 100 of the 300 roles located in Watford include numerous levels from customer service through to senior management. Insight DIY understands that the staff affected were advised yesterday and the process is expected to continue to run for the next 4-6 weeks.

A spokesperson for Wickes said:-

“In order to continue to drive growth for our business, we have been re-shaping our support centre to allow us to be leaner and more agile, and focus on key areas of growth in our multi-channel / digital businesses. The new structure will result in the reduction of approximately 100 out of 7,000 roles in the business. The business is committed to fully supporting all those affected.”

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The announcement comes only three weeks after Travis Perkins announced a solid start to 2018, although at the time they highlighted that performance by their consumer division including the 250 store Wickes chain, Toolstation and Tile Giant had been adversely affected by the poor weather, with sales declining 4.6%.

Read - Solid start for 2018 by Travis Perkins Group.

In their 2017 full year results call with investors on 28th February 2018 Travis Perkins stated 'Given the higher cost base in place in Wickes in 2017 to support the anticipated sales growth, adjusted operating profit in the division fell back to £82 million. Significant cost reduction activity has been put in place in Wickes to better align the cost base to the sales volumes we expect with £8 million of cost eliminated at the end of 2017, and more activity planned in this area in 2018'.

Read - Wickes hit by tough second half of 2017.

Source: Insight DIY Team

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