Not family friendly. Greed is priority - Store Manager Jollyes Employee Review

Thanks for sharing your views and we're sorry you're feeling this way. We are going through some changes to the way we work which is always difficult when people have been used to working in a particular way. Our 'full time' manager contracts have always been to work 5 out of 7 days which is standard in the retail industry, including being in store to support their teams during busy days such as weekends. We're simply addressing some inconsistencies across the working week deploying our management teams to provide the best customer experience. We understand store managers would want to work weekends as that is when our customers are in store. It’s a chance to lead by example, support their teams at peak times and ensure our stores are running at their very best to be able to deliver great service. We have reviewed the store operating model to ensure we're optimising the mix of leadership colleagues to team members, again to benefit our customers. We do appreciate there will be some that don't agree with our plans and for that we are truly sorry, but again for balance there are those that can see the bigger picture as we're continuing to grow and ensure we have the right structures in place to have people in roles where they're needed most. Regarding the initial briefing of that decision, for a national business with 100 sites, the most sensible way to deliver a consistent message to everyone at the same time (so some didn't hear before others) was by an online call, rather than have people travelling across the country to attend a meeting in person then drive home, which wouldn't have suited everyone - so the follow up meetings were done at a local level. Jollyes are absolutely a family friendly business made up of lots of parents and carers with various responsibilities and we have lots of policies and benefits to support families, so colleagues can enjoy long and successful careers with us, so we're sorry you feel that we aren't. Being asked to work some weekends genuinely shouldn't be a 'new demand' if managers have been working the 5 out of 7 days and supporting their teams during the busiest shifts which we don't think is an unreasonable ask in a retail business, where a store manager is instrumental in directing their own store's performance. Thanks again for sharing your views and if you have any further feedback or specific points to make please do share with our people team.