Elior makes job cuts following restructure

One in six head office employees at contract caterer Elior have been made redundant following a major restructure. 

The company, which has more than 6,000 employees across the UK, has completed a redundancy consultation process, which eventually made 66 of 140 at-risk administrative workers redundant.

Elior's HR director Paul Reynolds said he was determined to make the cuts as quickly as possible, rather than dragging them out for months in several phases.

"We saw this as being one cut, and one cut only. That was the best way," he told Caterer sister title Personnel Today. 

"When I first joined the business, there were pockets that wanted to restructure, for example in marketing and sales, so I advised them not to [restructure] yet so we could do it unilaterally, all in one hit. That way, staff felt the pain, but then moved on."

Reynolds could only guarantee there would be no more job cuts in the next year "if we meet our cost targets".

Elior changed its support structure to make savings and better align itself to the marketplace, according to Reynolds. 

He said making sure employees were aware of these "real" reasons was crucial to the redundancy process going as smoothly as possible. 

"We didn't try to hide the reason for redundancies - and I made sure we had HR people going to all offices that were affected, so staff could have conversations with them," Reynolds added.

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By Daniel Thomas

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