Compass staff cuts affect 'relatively small number'

The changes have followed the appointment of Ian Sarson as group managing director of Compass Group UK & Ireland in April to succeed Ian El-Mokadem. Among the high profile victims of the cutbacks are UK Marketing Director John Pain and UK Corporate Affairs & Corporate Responsibility Director Allan Edwards. "Compass has 50,000 permanent employees across the UK and Ireland. These recent changes have affected a relatively small number of our employees and have been made so that we can develop and grow the business and ensure Compass continues to deliver world class catering and support services throughout the UK and Ireland. "The alignment of our central teams with each of the business sectors will provide us with the necessary agility to leverage our scale and to develop more flexible, innovative service offerings, tailored to each client." Sarson himself was reported recently as saying the biggest change he has initiated involves combining parts of the Compass marketing, purchasing and supply chain operations to arrive at a new commercial function. He conceded that this meant some people would be "leaving the business", but said this involved primarily those working on setting up the new commercial systems and their role was now over. When Cost Sector spoke to Pain he said understood why the changes had been made and had fond memories of his time with the company. Instead, he was looking forward to the opportunity to develop his particular business interests, including exploring opportunities to develop Western fast food concepts in Asia. In April Pain collected the Cost Sector Catering Corporate Responsibility Award on behalf of Compass for initiatives involving Fairtrade products, induction of new staff, workplace healthy eating campaigns and charity fund-raising.