YOU may recall that one of this week's little controversies regarded a thoughtless Tweet sent out by a very senior manager at Tesco. (BBC report here)
The nub of this was that he gloated - IN A TWEET!- over his team's success in closing some distribution depots, replacing them with new ones, offering such poor wages that existing staff had little choice but to jump ship. A cheap way of cutting staff, although one does wonder whether it is not constructive dismissal.
In the process Tesco, hardly famous for high wages, has cut distribution depot workers' wages by as much as £8,000 and drivers by up to £15,000.
Anyway, in the spiirit of harming Tesco... nah, I mean sharing don't I... here is the exchange so far between me and the big T
FIRST I WROTE to several people including Philip Clarke and the offending manager. Mr Clarke got a factotum toi reply (so would I actually) buit he managed to use my mail to Strachota and not the one to Clarke:
:
From: Richard Woods
[mailto:richard.a.p.woods@btinternet.com]
Sent: 03 July 2013
19:49
To: scstrachota@hotmail.com
Cc: Tesco Email Service
Team; Relations, Investor; Office, Press; enquiries, cr; Clarke,
Philip
Subject: Awesome lack of intellignce?
Or...
...the true face of caring Tesco revealed by a hireling? Astonished
to find you on Linked-IN Mr Strachota - most of the people there are
professional managers. I guess you are pretty pleased with yourself. 800 jobs
lost, depots closed, salaries cut by £8-15k - must be your red-letter day.
Wouldn't it be great to find your family members among the people you have
mis-treated. Now, the Tweet has been deleted - your turn next we hope.
Richard and Janet Woods, now completely ex-spenders of about £8-9k a
year with Tesco. (We had already reduced it as far as possible; now it will be
zero and my wife's phone will change network ASAP.
Richard and Janet Woods
TESCO REPLY:
On 05/07/2013 12:40, ceo.customerservice@tesco.co.uk wrote:
Dear Mr & Mrs Woods
Thank you for your email to Philip Clarke, our Chief Executive, to which I have been asked to respond.
This tweet was intended to acknowledge that difficult decisions had been taken in order to make significant changes to our distribution network. Steve has spoken to our colleagues at Harlow in person to explain this and they recognised that it should be seen in that context. Nonetheless, we sincerely apologise if the tweet caused any offence, and it has now been removed.
Thank you once again for contacting our Chief Executive's office. I hope that, despite your experience, you will give us the chance to restore your faith in our operations, by coming back and shopping with us again.
Kind regards
David Weaver
Customer Service Executive
FINALLY, my response:
Dear Mr Weaver
Thank you for your reply on behalf of the CEO who is of course too busy for such matters. I would ask you to consider however whether a Tweet is, was or ever could be the right place for such communications? Does it not indicate the depth of contempt in which staff are held by this man? My point in complaining and why I hoped it would reach the CEO is that your employee appears to be exposing the real policy of Tesco. In short to maximise profits regardless, minimise and even avoid tax payments to the point of immorality, reduce wages to subsistence levels and cut staff wherever and whenever possible.
I have been in business and management long enough to know with virtually absolute certainty that this is a doomed policy. Since it is a competitive environment all the others will do the same. In time you will all have employees/customers who earn too little to shop in your environment. You will be unable to recruit staff for the pittance you are prepared to pay and your costs will start to rise as Government wake up to the price of their compliance and begin to crack down on you.
The words goose, golden and shoot spring to mind. All I can say is that I shall do all in my power to dissuade people from using your shops or myriad other services, to avoid investing in your activities and, if already investor to dump you (I shall for example check with my pension payers and urge them to re-consider). They need to do this before the public dumps you. Which may be sooner than you or Mr Strachota think.
My regards to you and my hope that you too get out soon,
These worms ARE for turning,
Richard Woods (a former customer spending about £10,00 per annum with Tesco).
The nub of this was that he gloated - IN A TWEET!- over his team's success in closing some distribution depots, replacing them with new ones, offering such poor wages that existing staff had little choice but to jump ship. A cheap way of cutting staff, although one does wonder whether it is not constructive dismissal.
In the process Tesco, hardly famous for high wages, has cut distribution depot workers' wages by as much as £8,000 and drivers by up to £15,000.
Anyway, in the spiirit of harming Tesco... nah, I mean sharing don't I... here is the exchange so far between me and the big T
FIRST I WROTE to several people including Philip Clarke and the offending manager. Mr Clarke got a factotum toi reply (so would I actually) buit he managed to use my mail to Strachota and not the one to Clarke:
:
From: Richard Woods
[mailto:richard.a.p.woods@btinternet.com]
Sent: 03 July 2013
19:49
To: scstrachota@hotmail.com
Cc: Tesco Email Service
Team; Relations, Investor; Office, Press; enquiries, cr; Clarke,
Philip
Subject: Awesome lack of intellignce?
Or...
...the true face of caring Tesco revealed by a hireling? Astonished
to find you on Linked-IN Mr Strachota - most of the people there are
professional managers. I guess you are pretty pleased with yourself. 800 jobs
lost, depots closed, salaries cut by £8-15k - must be your red-letter day.
Wouldn't it be great to find your family members among the people you have
mis-treated. Now, the Tweet has been deleted - your turn next we hope.
Richard and Janet Woods, now completely ex-spenders of about £8-9k a
year with Tesco. (We had already reduced it as far as possible; now it will be
zero and my wife's phone will change network ASAP.
Richard and Janet Woods
TESCO REPLY:
On 05/07/2013 12:40, ceo.customerservice@tesco.co.uk wrote:
Dear Mr & Mrs Woods
Thank you for your email to Philip Clarke, our Chief Executive, to which I have been asked to respond.
This tweet was intended to acknowledge that difficult decisions had been taken in order to make significant changes to our distribution network. Steve has spoken to our colleagues at Harlow in person to explain this and they recognised that it should be seen in that context. Nonetheless, we sincerely apologise if the tweet caused any offence, and it has now been removed.
Thank you once again for contacting our Chief Executive's office. I hope that, despite your experience, you will give us the chance to restore your faith in our operations, by coming back and shopping with us again.
Kind regards
David Weaver
Customer Service Executive
FINALLY, my response:
Dear Mr Weaver
Thank you for your reply on behalf of the CEO who is of course too busy for such matters. I would ask you to consider however whether a Tweet is, was or ever could be the right place for such communications? Does it not indicate the depth of contempt in which staff are held by this man? My point in complaining and why I hoped it would reach the CEO is that your employee appears to be exposing the real policy of Tesco. In short to maximise profits regardless, minimise and even avoid tax payments to the point of immorality, reduce wages to subsistence levels and cut staff wherever and whenever possible.
I have been in business and management long enough to know with virtually absolute certainty that this is a doomed policy. Since it is a competitive environment all the others will do the same. In time you will all have employees/customers who earn too little to shop in your environment. You will be unable to recruit staff for the pittance you are prepared to pay and your costs will start to rise as Government wake up to the price of their compliance and begin to crack down on you.
The words goose, golden and shoot spring to mind. All I can say is that I shall do all in my power to dissuade people from using your shops or myriad other services, to avoid investing in your activities and, if already investor to dump you (I shall for example check with my pension payers and urge them to re-consider). They need to do this before the public dumps you. Which may be sooner than you or Mr Strachota think.
My regards to you and my hope that you too get out soon,
These worms ARE for turning,
Richard Woods (a former customer spending about £10,00 per annum with Tesco).
