Staff reeling as The Warehouse confirms it will close distribution centres

Wednesday, 29 May 2019

The Warehouse's iconic red sheds have lost some of their pull power.

Workers at The Warehouse's distribution centres will work their last shift on July 5, and say the announcement came as a shock and was handled poorly by the retailer.

About two weeks ago The Warehouse told staff it was considering closing 11 of its in-store fulfilment centres and culling 150 jobs in order to centralise online deliveries to a single distribution centre.

This week, in an email sent to staff, The Warehouse chief executive Pejman Okhovat confirmed the proposal would go through, and the 11 centres would close by the end of August.

A Warehouse spokeswoman said there was support available for affected workers.

Two South Island employees affected by the redundancy who spoke to Stuff, but did not want to be named, said the redundancies had taken a toll on colleagues' mental health but they had to keep working.

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One worker, who had been part of the fulfilment team for four years, found out he could lose his job while at his mother's funeral.

The 44-year-old worker said he was 'relatively unskilled' and would struggle to find another job if he did not get redeployed within the company.

Chief executive of The Warehouse and Warehouse Stationary, Pejman Okhovat told staff in an email this week that 11 fulfillment centres would shut by the end of August.

Are you affected? Email anuja.nadkarni@stuff.co.nz

'The Warehouse Group has not handled this proposal well with myself and many of my colleagues left feeling that the feedback process was only in place so that the company could say that they had consulted with us. We generally consider that the proposal was a fait accompli rather than a mere proposal.'

He said a lot of his colleagues were considering redundancy as most of the positions available were in Auckland. The new distribution centre would create about 100 jobs.

'While our team is still coming to terms with the loss of our positions, we are still attempting to be professional and get orders shipped so that our customers are not affected.'

The man said he was unsure about how much redundancy pay he would receive.

'I would expect that I would receive about eight or 10 weeks of normalised pay (over the past 12 months) if I took up redundancy.'

His store managers were also affected by the redundancy, but had been 'very supportive'.

Another fulfilment worker said the 'shock' announcement had affected her mental health.

She had been with The Warehouse for 18 months as second-in-charge of a South Island fulfilment centre, and saw herself working there long-term and moving into a higher managerial position.

'We got a message on Friday two weeks ago asking everyone to attend a meeting but no one knew why, not even our manager. We went in there thinking we were in trouble for something minor, but it was 'we're proposing closing everything down',' the 27-year-old said.

'Everyone was just in shock. It was the worst scenario. I have really bad anxiety so I had a full-blown panic attack. I came down the stairs and started crying.

'I went back to work half an hour later. I work in the store room but I was also training that day so I was running back and forth so I couldn't really go home.'

She said another colleague cried in her arms for an hour, and her younger sister, who also worked in the fulfilment centre had suffered migraines and vomited.

'We call ourselves a family. We have group chat on Facebook and went out for what we call a family dinner just a couple days before we were even told any news.

'They've broken up a family.'

She said the workers had been offered a confidential support service called OCP, but said she knew little about it and and how to use it.

First Union national organiser Kate Davis said The Warehouse's planned changes were 'significant' and had affected the mental health of some staff as their hours and shifts were up in the air.

'We've been receiving many calls from people that are incredibly troubled that they're going to have no hours by the end of the process, or their hours will be so reduced that they will lose their tax credits in the Working for Families scheme.'

The Warehouse is also trialling a new rostering system for shop staff.

Okhovat said in a statement provided earlier this week that the retailer was consulting with staff on what their shift and hour preferences were.

'It is too early to be able to understand how many may be impacted by the change,' Okhovat said.

'Until August last year, [The Warehouse's operations] had remained largely unchanged for several years despite significant changes in customer expectations and the way we run our stores.

The stores involved include Tauranga Crossing, Rotorua, Hastings, Napier, Taupo, Fraser Cove, Papamoa and Thames.

The Warehouse will also be restructuring its call centre with changes including increased service hours and adding flexibility, particularly around scaling-up during peak periods such as Christmas, Okhovat said.

It was considering outsourcing part of its call centre services overseas.

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