Boots focuses on pharmacies as 900 office jobs go
Boots is to open many stores for longer hours and some additionally
on Sundays |
Boots The Chemists is to appoint more pharmacy development managers and extend opening hours at some branches as part of a reorganisation that resulted in around 900 head office jobs being axed last week (PJ, 17
January, p46).
Digby Emson, currently superintendent pharmacist at Boots, has been appointed
director of professional services. Mr Emson outlined the new pharmacy
structure to The Journal last week.
Boots is to reduce its seven regions to four from April. Within these
regions, branches will be in 30 areas and 250 groups. To support these
professionally, new regional, area and group pharmacy manager posts will
be created. These will replace seven existing regional professional development
posts. The aim is to devolve power from the head office and allow greater
local decision making. “We have to be more flexible locally,” Mr
Emson said. “This is a major challenge for a large listed company.”
At the same time, Boots is to have more of its stores open for longer.
About 80 will open on Sundays and some pharmacies, such as those at airports,
will open 24 hours a day. Other branches will bring their opening hours
into line with local GP surgeries. Mr Emson said that longer opening
hours would require more pharmacist-hours to be worked and investment
would be made in this.
Savings to pay for this are being made by cutting staff at the company’s
Nottingham headquarters. As expected, Boots announced on 15 January that
around 900 management posts are to be cut. Staff were told where the
job losses would fall through briefings from senior management followed
by smaller meetings during the day. Voluntary redundancy terms, greater
than those normally available, have been offered and staff with over
15 years’ service are eligible for up to 60 weeks’ pay. An
additional 290 posts have been created in the support service for branches.
On 16 January, Boots announced that it “had had a good Christmas”.
Overall sales were up 5.4 per cent for the three months to 31 December
2003, 4.1 per cent on a like-for-like basis. Sales in health were up
7 per cent and dispensing was said to have seen strong growth.
The announcements were well received in the City where the Boots Co share
price rose by 7 per cent to 705p, making the company the best performer
in the FTSE100 index on 16 January.
Appointments, p83 |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal