Debenhams jobs at risk as it restructures central teams

The department store chain, which reported plunging profits and slipping sales at its interims last week, plans to overhaul its buying and merchandising, ecommerce and international functions in the “early summer”, sources told Retail Week. 

Debenhams has already made several heads of department across its womenswear, menswear and childrenswear functions redundant as boss Sergio Bucher steps up his transformation plan. 

The retailer refused to comment on how many staff would be impacted by the latest changes but said in a statement: “Earlier this year we detailed our intentions to structure the organisation around three business units: beauty and beauty services, fashion and home and food and events.

“As set out in our interim results last week, we have already started work on reducing complexity across the business, including simplifying our processes in store and reducing the number of grades in our UK support centres, and this work will continue over the coming months.”

It comes months after it axed 320 store management roles in a bid to deliver £10m cost savings.

Debenhams is in the midst of a turnaround effort under chief executive Bucher, who is trying to reverse its flagging fortunes.

Debenhams’ fashion and home departments – bread and butter for department stores – have been underperforming. New clothing and home boss Steven Cook is in charge of accelerating the turnaround in this area and will axe several of its in-house ‘Designer at Debenhams’ ranges this year.

Details of Debenhams’ plans emerged just one day after department store rival Fenwick revealed a “significant” restructure of its own.