Bunnings slashes senior management roles

Bunnings has eliminated a layer of senior manager roles as part of a restructure, as the hardware giant focuses on lowering shelf prices.

Bunnings has eliminated a layer of senior manager roles as part of a restructure, as the hardware giant focuses on lowering shelf prices as customers adjust to tougher economic conditions.

According to The Australian, the Wesfarmers-owned retailer is also “evolving” its strategy in a bid to improve customer service in its stores.

In recent years, customers have complained about a decline in the chain’s famed customer service, with regular complaints on social media about struggling to find staff to help.

Bunnings employs roughly 53,000 Australians including around 1600 at its Melbourne head office, but just before Christmas last year cut up to 300 jobs in training, communications and support services.

The Australian reported on Tuesday that the new corporate restructure and redundancies were announced to senior staff last week at the Melbourne headquarters.

Under the new structure, eight regional managers who reported to general managers have been eliminated.

Bunnings managing director Mike Schneider will now have a director of store operations underneath him, with a larger pool of general managers and area managers above store managers for its 352 outlets.

Bunnings. Picture: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg/Getty

“We regularly review team structures and resourcing to ensure we have the right skills and roles to support our team,” Mr Schneider said in a statement to news.com.au.

“We recently announced some small changes to our senior retail operations team to simplify our structure and leverage investments made in our operations, both in store and in our wider team. This supports our low-cost operator model, ensures a stronger voice for our team, simplifies communication and enhances execution across our network.”

Mr Schneider said post-Covid, “this design will help enable deeper engagement with our store teams and in turn a more consistent customer offer”.

“We can confirm this will not affect our team working in stores and will simplify their reporting lines,” he said.

“Overall, our team continues to grow as we actively recruit roles across our store network to ensure we are offering customers the best experience. We’re currently working with any affected team members, all of whom have been offered redeployment options.”

At its half-year results in February, Wesfarmers reported a 14 per cent increase in net profit of $1.4 billion, driven by a strong result from Bunnings.

Sales at the hardware chain, which now contributes around 60 per cent of the conglomerate’s total profits, rose 6.3 per cent to nearly $9.8 billion.