Tesco staff issued with 'ban' as supermarket looks to crack down on habit

Tesco has introduced a new rule for its staff to curb a practice that has been annoying customers. The supermarket giant, which competes with Lidl, Aldi, Morrisons, Sainsbury's, Asda and others, has banned staff from wearing headphones on the shop floor following customer complaints about this irritating habit.

Tesco has made this change to its dress code in an effort to make the policy more visible to its employees. Previously, these guidelines were included in its health and safety handbook, but some staff reported only becoming aware of the policy after a recent update to the uniform rules.

They claimed that managers have started enforcing it in the past few weeks. The guidelines are believed to be in place to ensure staff can respond more quickly to customers if they are approached on the shop floor, as well as for safety reasons.

The policy does not apply to any hearing or sensory devices, or company headsets. This change is thought to be aimed at ensuring staff are more responsive to customer enquiries.

On a Reddit forum for staff, workers described the music as "repetitive" and "mentally draining", prompting Asda to issue some feedback. In response to the criticism, an Asda spokesperson said: "We appreciate that colleagues have different tastes in music and we always welcome feedback when making decisions about how our stores operate, including the music played on Asda Radio," reports Birmingham Live.

Ken Murphy, chief executive, previously came under fire for the supermarket's self-service checkouts, was compelled to justify their use last year after facing criticism that they were inaccessible to individuals without credit cards, elderly customers, and certain disabled shoppers. Mr Murphy explained: "What we realised is that for the majority of the time, we can use self-checkouts to liberate people to do things in shops, to make sure that there are products on the shelves, to help people find products if they need it, and to make sure that the shopping trip is a good shopping trip."