Woolworths to cut office-based staff

Days after the announcement that Woolworths would be recalling its staff back to the office, a planned business restructure has been put into motion, with cuts to staff imminent.

The changes for Woolworths just keep on coming as the supermarket giant has confirmed that as part of an office restructure, office-based team members will be facing future job cuts.

In a statement provided to HR Leader, a Woolworths Group spokesperson said: “In this environment, as with all retailers, it’s even more important to manage our costs carefully to allow us to reinvest in providing value to our customers and improving our offer to meet their changing expectations.”

“This week, we also asked our office-based team to prioritise face-to-face work in the office. In addition to this, we are reviewing our office team structures.”

“These are difficult decisions, and we certainly don’t take them lightly. However, they are necessary to ensure our structure is agile, efficient and remains focused on customers. These changes will also make it easier for our partners to do business with us.”

A lack of clarity remains around how many job cuts will be inflicted, while Woolworths claims the process will be undertaken with “respect, care and empathy”.

“We are sensitive that this will impact some of our office-based team, and our aim is to treat those that may be impacted with respect, care and empathy over the coming weeks and months.”

The move comes just after Woolworths announced that they would be implementing a return-to-office strategy. As of 2 June 2025, all Woolworths team members will be working at least one day in the office. By 6 October 2025, all team members will be spending at least three working days in the office.

Woolworths Group chief executive Amanda Bardwell claimed that despite the success of hybrid working arrangements, priorities have shifted towards increasing in-person connections to better serve customers.

“Over the last few years, we have seen many of our support team members successfully embrace hybrid ways of working, whilst delivering our group purpose of creating better experiences together for a better tomorrow,” said Bardwell in a statement to staff.

“A key priority for us in 2025 is to create more opportunities for in-person connection to increase our responsiveness and better serve our customers. To support this, we are evolving our hybrid ways of working to ensure we better balance the needs of our customers and business with the needs of our team.

“This means we will be introducing clearer guidelines to optimise our hybrid ways of working, with an expectation that our support office team members connect with their team in the office a minimum of three days per week, with the flexibility to work remotely for the remaining two days.”