r/unitedkingdom • u/Overthrow_Capitalism • May 27 '23
Boots boss more than doubles pay to £3.8m as chain triples profits
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/may/26/boots-boss-pay-profits-stores198
May 27 '23
[deleted]
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u/The_Sleer_ May 27 '23
As someone who has worked at boots recently, yes they very much overwork and understaff
16
u/Flowerhands Nottinghamshire May 27 '23
Ex-boots head office worker and the company is stingy as hell, pays under market rate for pretty much every role and loves to exploit interns/apprentices. So many better private sector companies to work for, unless you're senior management+, naturally.
18
u/nick2k23 May 27 '23
Gregg's does this
13
u/Alarmed_Inflation196 May 28 '23
Greggs always seem to have enough staff, they're just inefficient. Often they will just stand at the coffee machine waiting for it to finish, when there's a queue of 10 people, instead of e.g. taking your payment.
-2
u/The5th-Butcher May 27 '23
Nope they don't
1
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u/HumpbackWhalesRLit Essex May 27 '23
My local boots had to close for most of the week recently because they’re so understaffed.
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u/Lilshrek009 May 27 '23
Sainsburys are doing the Same shit, at least in the one I work in.
6
u/Powderandpencils May 28 '23
Yeah I had the same when I used to work for Sainsbury's. It got worse over covid.
8
u/Bloody-smashing Scotland May 27 '23
Yup. Got rid of counter assistants in pharmacies. Now the pharmacist and dispensers cover the tills, the pharmacy counter plus do all the stuff needed in the dispensary.
7
u/nascentt UK May 27 '23
Yes. In fact I'd go as far to say there is no staff. The branches I've been to in London are all self checkouts. Good luck finding staff if you have questions.
5
u/uses_facts_badly May 28 '23
Bit late to the conversation but yes absolutely. Boots sold off many of their manufacturing sites some years ago to fareva namely boots contract manufacturing, whilst maintaining the supply chain to the incumbent. At the same time they laid off alot of r&d, instead transferring many of the requirements to their suppliers both domestically and abroad. They are known in the industry for being slow to pay, have low contract performance. Speaking with their staff I know they realize this but the staff are under trained, under resourced to actually be effective. They have high turnover of staff which is symptomatic. Their offering revolves around traditional pharma which has certain barriers to entry hence profitable, and retail within which they seek binding agreements to lock in smaller up and coming brands for exclusivity which every brand I've had contact with struggle to make work for many of the reasons stated above, in fmcg it is very difficult to achieve sustainable scale when locked into exclusivity.
The whole industry is grappling with the times changing and these stories of profits growing do not equate to value being added. It's not wheat being separated from chaff... It's chaff being separated from rot. See Wilko for comparison.
-1
u/wayne2000 May 27 '23
Boots UK limited turned over £6.5bn and made a profit of £15m (after making a £111m loss in the previous year). that's 0.2% not 2%, 0.2% profit margin.
Are you really complaining?
131
u/McCloudUK May 27 '23
I'm at work today (not at boots) but it's public facing and I've had 3 complaints about Boots today already. Opening late, staff overworked and one pharmacist available at a HUGE store.
Sounds like another profits over people corporation.
26
u/MoodyBernoulli May 27 '23
Every time I go into our local boots I take a look at the queue and decide it’s not worth queuing for 15 minutes for whatever it is that I need.
10
May 27 '23
The investors in these businesses only care about the short term. The long-term reputation of the company is of zero interest to them.
7
u/davesy69 May 27 '23
The American way.
8
u/trekken1977 May 27 '23
Not at all. Have you met Americans? No patience at all, incredibly competitive, and a strong customer service focus.
Another business would recognise the gap in fast service and open up shop right across the way.
4
u/A-Grey-World May 28 '23
Another business would recognise the gap in fast service and open up shop right across the way.
Are there any retail stores in the US that aren't megacorps? I get the impression it's all Wallmarts.
1
u/trekken1977 May 30 '23
I guess it depends on what you mean by megacorps. Probably a similar mix as here though. Boots, Superdrug, Lloyds vs CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid, etc
5
u/oshatokujah May 27 '23
Devil’s advocate, pharmacists are expensive. Just because the store is massive doesn’t mean the pharmacy business is.
I work in a store where we dispense 1100 items a week, the store is massive and set over two floors and the retail side takes £250k+ a week. The pharmacy side does about £4k of that.
I’ve worked in a store that was attached to a GP surgery that was about the size of my living room that did 5500 items a week and the retail side maybe took £500 a week.
There’s no real correlation to it and if I’m honest, it’s an awful business to staff for because half of the tasks we have to do are things we shouldn’t really be dealing with.
2
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u/KeptLow UK May 29 '23
They got bought out by Walgreens right? No surprise that they're getting turned into profit machine rather than a positive place to work
63
u/TeflonBoy May 27 '23
I’ve been shopping at boots recently because you just can’t trust Amazon stuff. I’ve had so many fake products it’s just not worth it, especially if your putting it on/in your body.
Switched to boots and Argos for delivery stuff.
37
u/debating109 May 27 '23
Agreed, I literally only use amazon for videogames now. Quality control is poor and rampant counterfeiting on electrical goods. It’s not safe to trust them with health and cosmetic items.
6
u/GaryHarrisEsquire May 27 '23
Yep. Got fake Levi jeans from them and now rarely use for anything. Fuck Amazon
19
u/zioNacious May 27 '23
Same plus wilko for those cheap household things that are actually more expensive on Amazon (and more likely to break)
12
u/CapableLetterhead May 27 '23
It's definitely not cheap anymore. I really limit what I buy from amazon now.
8
u/retr0grade77 May 27 '23
It’s not even cheaper on Amazon 9/10. No idea why people use it so liberally.
And, like you say, the quality is horrendous.
46
u/Sacu_Shi_again May 27 '23
Hope the staff on the shopfloor, offices, warehouses..the ones who physically do the work, meet the KPIs and move the goods...get the same percentage rise as the CEO.
If not, fuck Boots.
13
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u/Chingchongbingbong0 May 27 '23 edited May 27 '23
So I worked for boots providing assisted covid swabs at a drive thru site (we physically swab your nose and throat) for the first 8 months or so of the pandemic in England.
A few things to point out.
1 - Boots advertised for unpaid volunteers when they had already been awarded the contract for providing assisted swabs on site. Iirc the money paid out at the start of the contracts was in the millions. Like are you fucking shitting me? You've got a massive sum of cash and you want unpaid volunteers... Christ on a bike.
2 - I had my hours and pay per hour cut within 2 months of being there and was given a Walgreens staff discount card as alternative. Like buddy I've only ever brought my prescriptions from boots and that's not included. I get it Walgreens owns more than boots but I'd rather have the cash.
3 - They were having to employ Sodexo agency staff at nearly double our rate because they couldn't retain the boots staff. Being asked to do double shifts with someone who is earning double the amount you're. This creates a lot of animosity between team members and management.
4 - The sites themselves were administered and managed by SERCO. SERCO=management, Blue Arrow= Traffic and self testing, Boots=assisted swabbing, various security companies for gate securities.
5 - With all the health + safety + cross contamination doo dar obviously there were several stations around the site with all staff having to change masks and clean hands before proceeding to the next area etc. Well the 'manager' employed by serco insisted she was unable to wear a mask and was able to move from a red zone (swabbing area) to amber and to green without alcohol rubbing the hands. Her excuse was she was asthmatic but smoked 40 straights a day?
6 - We had a 'secret shopper' come through our bay when the head of The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) was due to make a visit to our site. The 'service user' immediately asked why the above mentioned person was in the red area with no mask or visor. My reply was we work for boots and have no say in it. She's a manager. Lol she got a bollocking and 2 weeks later went back to the usual routine.
I get I went off topic a bit towards the end but I think you'll appreciate it. I could sit here and type 10 more points to do with Sodexo Serco and Boots but I cba.
Late stage capitalism at its finest.
Edit:
Bonus point:My last shift there all boots staff were handed a 'what can we do to improve / retain staff form'
Verbatim my answer:
"Pay your staff properly and stop shitting on them"
Proudly signed my name on that bitch.
25
u/Ylancoi May 27 '23
It's true about low employee pay, but high CEO pay is aspirational. Employees can look across the carpark at the CEO's shiny Veyron and know that if they work hard, put in the hours, and do their best they will see the results and before long he'll have an even newer, better one.
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u/Yeriant May 27 '23
My Local Boots has become a terrible place to shop. Empty shelves, No Staff and long queues. Young pharmacy staff rushed off their feet. Go to Superdrug or Poundland Now.
13
u/gintokireddit England May 27 '23
Boots pays pretty low from what I've seen. Dunno about now, but around 2017-2018, IT helpdesk staff were on like 15.3k a year (for reference, over-25 minimum wage from April 2018 was 15.3k/year at 37.5hrs/week). 2nd line I think was only 2-3k more, so those people were still coming to work on buses. And that's on a rota that starts as early as 6:30am.
I'm sure the warehouses etc don't pay amazingly, but then that's most warehouse work in general, especially in the modern era, since things like 1.5-3x pay for antisocial hours or weekends have mostly gone away.
5
u/No-Poem May 28 '23
Girlfriend works as an assistant store manager and is on only 25p/hr above minimum wage. Really takes the piss. I have tried to encourage her to change jobs but I think she really enjoys the job.
11
u/user900800700 May 27 '23
And yet they still removed the fucking salmon pasta from the meal deal. Cunts
11
u/djpolofish May 27 '23
Starvation wages, above inflation price rises and cuts to the workforce... well done here's £3.8 million
8
May 27 '23
[deleted]
0
u/entropy_bucket May 28 '23
Also, how sustainable is the success? Just having a good year should not be enough. For all we know, he's replaced all the pills with the sugar cubes and is making bank. They should pay out over a decade of success.
5
u/srrymydog8yrtwinkie May 27 '23
The state of my local Boots stores reflect this headline. They are sterile, plastic, borderline dirty and unwelcoming. You can tell that every breath of freshness has been squeezed out of them to make corporate wealthier. It's so bizarre and depressing.
3
u/hairybastid May 27 '23
I've stopped going to Boots for my prescriptions. They've halved the staff and doubled the clientele. Massive queue, disgruntled customers, and staff worn out from being overworked. I use Pharmacy2U, get everything delivered to my door every month. Fuck Boots and their profiteering.
4
u/Bloody-smashing Scotland May 27 '23
We got a 4.5% as pharmacist last year (depending) basically if you were at the bottom of the pay scale as a pharmacist you got 4.5% others got less.
Given the inflation rate and the shit pharmacists dealt with during covid the pay rise they offered us absolutely wasn’t good enough.
Now with this in the news I wonder what our pay rise will be this year.
Don’t even get my started on the dispensers and other staff in boots. I ask them every day why they still do the job when they get even shitter pay rises and could get more working in Aldi.
3
u/TheBrassDancer Canterbury May 27 '23
I imagine they must make a lot of their money from prescription charges. Because who is going in there to buy a sandwich, for example, or any of their vastly overpriced products which can be found cheaper elsewhere?
4
u/radiant_0wl May 27 '23
Boots meal deal is highly rated. Not as good as five years ago but for those with an advantage card it's an affordable quality option.
Although for anything else I hardly use Boots.
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May 27 '23
All businesses - especially game developers, Netflix and Nvidia - should be run for the explicit reason of providing ill-informed Redditors with everything they want, for as little as possible. Any deviation from the hive minds opinion on the correct price will be considered 'price-gouging'
2
u/ChromedSoul May 27 '23
How is this even possible? Every Boots I've been in is in an awful state, limited staff and not a great choice of products, and waiting up to an hour for prescriptions. How is this even possible in this day and age when I see so many homeless people on the streets of London. This is criminal!
1
u/somethingdecent69 May 27 '23
I would have no problem with this as long as the lowest paid worker is on a true living wage (£30k+ per year?) & the rest of the country wasn't in a cost of living crisis!
1
u/Vdubnub88 May 27 '23
Like every other business. Blaming inflation to hike prices for increased profits.
1
u/HUAONE May 27 '23
I had a very nice experience at the boots optometrists a few months ago. That is all.
0
u/ffsnametaken May 27 '23
Probably saved a lot of money by cancelling the reward points people saved up when they couldn't go into the store over the pandemic
1
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u/JohnR2299 May 27 '23
Ben and Jerry's that shit, no one should earn more than 5x the lowest paid employee in the company
1
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u/Kittykatkvnt May 27 '23
You know what? The way I read that title I thought that the boss had more than doubled the pay of staff hahahaha
How fucking stupid do I feel right now?!
1
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u/TheStargunner May 27 '23
I’m all for overthrowing capitalism but being rewarded double pay when profits triple under your leadership isn’t the strongest narrative in the world.
At the end of the day human labour isn’t going to be an equal effort and equal outcome and equal motivation game. Even if we give everyone equal opportunities and a place in society you will have places for some form of leadership and I’d hope they were going to drive a good outcome.
1
u/BugsyMalone_ May 28 '23
Im baffled why people shop in Boots. Last few times of been there a lot of the prices are laughably overpriced. Maybe older people? No idea.
-1
u/PersistentWorld May 27 '23
Who the fuck is shopping at Boots? It's an absolute dinosaur of a shop.
259
u/adept-grumblefish28 May 27 '23
Drive an organisation to massive success, get financially rewarded. Seems fair enough to me.