A reusable shopping bag with a logo at a Whole Foods Market grocery store in Dublin, California.
Smith/Gadow Collection | photo archive | Getty Images
Amazon’s Whole Foods is shedding some of the company’s employees as part of a planned reorganization of select teams, as the parent company scrutinizes costs more closely.
Whole Foods plans to reorganize certain global and regional support teams over the next two months, the company’s executive team wrote in a note to employees Thursday. As a result, the upscale grocer is laying off several hundred employees from those teams, a company spokesperson confirmed. A Whole Foods Market spokesperson said the cuts translate to less than half a percent of the company’s global workforce.
“We often talk about how important it is to streamline our work and improve the way we work as we go,” the executive team wrote in the note. “We’ve made significant progress in these areas through previous operational and organizational changes. As the grocery industry continues to evolve rapidly, and as we – like all retailers – face challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic and continued economic uncertainty, it has become clear that we need to continue building. We will be able to further streamline our operations, streamline operations, and improve how we support our stores.”
As part of the changes, Whole Foods, which operates across nine different regions, will shift to six regions. According to the memorandum, this move will not lead to the closure of any store or the abandonment of any store or distribution center employees.
The spokesperson said that Whole Foods is adjusting its operational structure as it seeks to expand and provide better customer service. They added that the company has nearly 50 new stores under development.
In 2017, Amazon spent $13.7 billion buying high-end groceries, a move that shocked the industry. The retail giant has acquired Whole Foods in hopes of accelerating its multi-year push to sell groceries online and in physical stores.
Whole Foods has undergone other operating changes since it was acquired by Amazon. company in 2021 It integrated global and regional marketing teams, and shifted its technology team to focus on software engineering, technical product and program manager roles, in order to “keep us growing.”
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy recently halted expansion of the Fresh Supermarket chain, amid company-wide efforts to rein in expenses. Some Fresh locations and Go cashierless stores have also closed. Some employees at Amazon’s grocery unit were laid off in a recent round of layoffs announced in January.
However, Jassy said he remains confident in Amazon’s ability to grow the grocery business. In his letter to shareholders last week, Jassy said the e-commerce giant “must find a massive grocery format that we think is worth expanding at scale” to make a bigger impact on traditional groceries.
Here is the full memo:
Improving our operational structure to better support our stores
Dear team members,
We often talk about how important it is to streamline our work and improve the way we work as we go. We’ve made significant progress in these areas through previous operational and organizational changes. As the grocery industry continues to evolve rapidly, and as we – like all retailers – face challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing economic uncertainty, it has become clear that we need to continue building on these changes. With additional adjustments, we will be able to further streamline our operations, streamline operations, and improve how we support our stores.
To achieve this, we will evolve our operational structure and make some changes to certain global and regional support teams over the next couple of months. We see a great opportunity to enhance our impact on the world, and these changes will help us fully seize that opportunity. These changes include:
- Transformation from nine to six zones With a more consistent number of stores per region. Moving to fewer regions of similar sizes will allow us to make decisions quickly, implement sustainable operations, and scale innovations. Ultimately, it will help us elevate the level of service we provide to our customers, team members, and suppliers. As we redraw the lines of our regional map, some stores may become part of a new area, but this transition will not result in the closure of any store or facility or change our commitment to maintaining the local relevance of our stores. See our new regional map and driving details below. Team members can expect to hear from their future district leader as early as next week.
- Formation of a unified operations team at the company level By shifting region-specific store operations support to a single field support team within our Global Operations team. In addition, we will relieve supply chain management work from regions, and transition these responsibilities to a new supply chain performance management function within our global supply chain team. These changes will free up stores time to focus on customer service, while standardizing communications and support around clear operational priorities.
- Promote Team Member Services (TMS) support to team members and leaders across the company By reorganizing the TMS team structures. This will help eliminate a significant amount of transactional work, which will allow our TMS teams to focus more on supporting team member experience, growth and development. This will also enable store leadership to work with more flexibility and have more time to focus on priority initiatives.
- Modify structures and improve operations for many other global support teams To provide more effective, timely and consistent support to stores and ensure support teams focus on priority initiatives. Today we will start sharing more information about the global support team changes with the respective teams. We will also meet with store and facility leadership to discuss these updates in more detail.
These changes will affect our team members in different ways. Store-based and facility-based roles are not directly affected, although there will be some adjustments to how store and support teams work together. There will be some staff reductions in some of our global and regional support teams, and those affected will receive further information today. While change is necessary and healthy for a sustainable business, it can also be very challenging, especially when it affects the lives of team members. We are committed to supporting all affected team members through these transitions.
As we streamline processes and improve the way we work, we’ll be able to respond quickly to evolving business needs, focus more on our most impactful work, and invest in new ways to serve all of our stakeholders. We are confident that these changes will allow us to better support our stores, team members, and suppliers, elevate the customer experience, and position the Whole Foods market for continued growth. Most importantly, these changes will help ensure we achieve our purpose of feeding people and the planet for decades to come.
Sincerely, E-Team
He watches: How Whole Foods has changed since Amazon took over
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