Sainsbury’s to centralise HR administration

Sainsbury’s is to establish a human resources shared services (HRSS) function to improve services supplied to employees following a £12m investment.

Its HRSS centre,which will be based in Manchester, will provide centralised administration support to Sainsbury’s 147,000 employees in stores across the UK.

The aim of the service is to free up management time in stores and allow managers to focus more on customer service, leadership and training. Currently, Sainsbury’s operates all retail HR functions from its individual stores.

Imelda Walsh, HR director, said: “This is a very exciting initiative, and goes a long way to realising our aim of making Sainsbury’s a great place to work. HRSS will increase efficiency, simplify processes and eliminate duplication.”

The service will open this autumn and will be fully operational by the spring of 2009. It could create up to 250 new jobs in Manchester over the next two years.