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Publishers have broadly backed Waterstone's decision to move to its centralised hub from June and use more part-time staff in its stores. Waterstone’s revealed on Friday (1st May) that the moves could cost up to 650 jobs, equating to 450 full-time roles. An unprecedented number of comments have been left online at theBookseller.com about the news, with many critical, arguing that it could leave Waterstone's short of experienced staff, after "autonomy [has been taken] away from staff and managers".
HarperCollins group sales and marketing director David Roche, who was formerly Waterstone's product director, said it would be "naïve" to suggest the Waterstone's redundancies could backfire. Roche, whose last role was as Borders UK c.e.o, said: "Waterstone's know more as a retailer about what they themselves are doing, and what they need to preserve, than the other areas in publishing [which are] looking on." He added: "They will be far more forensic about calculating the necessary resource to get their supply chain right, and maintain range availability and customer service levels, than anyone else."
He said: "It's slightly naïve to suggest from the outside that they may be shooting themselves in the foot when they will be striving to do the exact opposite and have taken the additional time to try and get it right. What's certain is the goods-in process will be significantly simplified and there will be headcount savings to be had. It's not for us to pre-judge what the right number is."
Other publishers preferred to remain nameless and while most were fairly upbeat they were still cautious. One publishing m.d. said: "My general reaction is we knew this was coming, they have been very good at communications the plans for the hub – pros and downsides, so we knew there would be redundancies, but I was surprised by the number. When your biggest customer announces significant job losses you have to be concerned - but we’ll be speaking to Waterstone’s ourselves about that the potential impact might be – until we do that it’s difficult to say."
Another publisher added: "Situations like this are always ghastly, but while 650 jobs are at risk, if the security of the remaining 4,000-odd jobs is improved, it’s acceptable. It would be far more outrageous if the company was allowed to go to the wall taking everyone with it. Cost-saving, efficiency-increasing measures now to ensure the company remains in good shape make sense."
However, some publishers were concerned that the move would see a loss of expertise in-store. One publisher said: "It could reduce cost and make books flow between stores more effectively. We feel a bit sad about the loss of expertise on the shop floor, but maybe the people leaving are not on the shop floor."
Another publishing m.d. added: "The worry for us is also if there are less people in store how will they sell books? It's a very significant amount. I thought it would have been a lot less staff who went." They added: "It's obviously worrying. It's horrible but not terribly surprising. We have to rely very heavily on Waterstone's but it will be interesting to see how this change affects how they supply books to stores. How will stores order backlist? We're not sure because they haven't told us."
Most of the jobs affected are thought to relate to goods-in staff as the bookseller switches over to using its centralised distribution hub in Burton on Trent, Staffordshire. The hub will be run for Waterstone’s by Unipart Logistics.
More than 70 comments have been left online following the news, many of them questioning the management strategy, but others more supportive. "I find it very difficult to take issue with any of the changes that have been implemented over the last 18 months, although obviously I'm disappointed that redundancies are necessary," said "A. Bookseller". But "Disillusioned WSBoy" wrote: "Everyone in my branch is unhappy. We have an excellent manager and she has been open and communicative throughout this whole affair, and it's now really upsetting for her to have to put us through this . . . The company will find it suffers by as much as it saved and instead of coming out of the recession with a strong team grateful to its company for sticking by them they will come out of the recession shaky and unstable."
Another "bookseller" said: "The whole reason Waterstones have gone down this avenue is to take autonomy away from staff and managers. We all know that when this course of action is taken the cream of the staff move on to better pastures and take their years of experience with them. This is of no benefit to Waterstone's or to their customers."