It’s not often that a supermarket makes national headlines for not letting someone work for free. Usually the outrage goes the other way – “greedy corporations exploiting unpaid workers” and so on.
But today’s article in The Telegraph about Waitrose and Tom Boyd, a 27-year-old man with severe autism, has managed to completely flip that script. And in doing so, it revealed something pretty revealing about the way big companies like to cloak themselves in the language of “inclusion” while quietly stripping the humanity from it.
By all accounts, Tom was an exemplary volunteer. He spent nine hours a week stacking shelves at the Cheadle Hulme branch for four years. He showed up on time, was loved by the staff, and most importantly, he belonged. His mother, Frances, says he dedicated more than six hundred hours of his life to this store. This is not a “trial shift” or “internship”. This is a commitment that lasts longer than most marriages. And then when she dared to ask if he could be paid, Waitrose said no and dropped the whole thing.
If you’ve ever dealt with the human resources department of a large company, you can almost hear the gears whirring. Alarm bells, legal risks, protection, health and safety. Someone in Bracknell has probably received a “Risk Alert” email saying “URGENT: Volunteer exceeds hour limit, potential classification as employee.” So they did what companies always do when faced with something messy, human, and potentially emotional: They pulled the plug.
I think this is what people mean when they talk about “the system.” It’s not a faceless scheme – it’s a spreadsheet somewhere with a column that says, “Non-employees doing employee work = bad optics.” It’s the knee-jerk desire to clean up anything that doesn’t fit the model. And in doing so, they managed to break the heart of a man who, according to his mother, only ever wanted to contribute – to belong.
Waitrose insists it is investigating. They give the usual standard line: “We work hard to be an inclusive employer… we work with charities… we make appropriate adjustments…” All very good. But if you need a PR statement to convince people of your kindness, you’ve already lost.
A question of value
The uncomfortable truth is that Tom Boyd did exactly what the supermarket assistant’s job description says: keep the shelves full, products in the right place and the aisles tidy. The difference is that he wasn’t paid £12.40 an hour. He didn’t even ask for it – his family said they would accept two hours of paid work a week. Just something. Recognition. The feeling that his contribution was important.
But Waitrose couldn’t find room for this in the model. Apparently you can sell Essential Waitrose beans for £1.20 but can’t accommodate an autistic man who has been giving you free labor for years.
The irony is painful. At a time when every corporate press release talks about diversity, equity and inclusion, here is a man who has lived the spirit of inclusion far more authentically than any politics ever could. He didn’t need neurodiversity awareness training. he needed a job. And instead of seeing an opportunity to put his lofty slogans into practice, the company treated him like a potential liability.
Waitrose isn’t particularly bad here. This is modern Britain everywhere: risk-averse, image-obsessed, allergic to emotions. At some point, kindness became a business. It was turned into a metric, a compliance box. “Inclusion” is a PowerPoint slide. “Compassion” is a campaign hashtag. And when a real person like Tom shows up – real, awkward, imperfect – they don’t know what to do with him.
So you hide behind “process”. You cite “politics.” And they convince themselves that they are doing the right thing because it says so in the Equality Act. The result? A man who once found meaning in stacking tomato cans now sits confused at home as the store he loved continues to sell organic quinoa and ethical olive oil under the banner of living well.
It didn’t have to be like this. Imagine the alternative headline: “Waitrose creates first supported employment position for men with autism.” Imagine the PR gold. The viral posts. The radiance of goodwill. A small, practical act of inclusion, instead of the cold bureaucratic act we were given.
I was previously associated with the UK’s first new-build school for children and young adults on the autism spectrum, so I speak from experience when I say that there were a dozen different ways Waitrose could have dealt with this, and the way they did it just can’t hold a candle to their so-called ones John Lewis Partnership“Partner benefits,” which include, but are not limited to, paid parental leave and support for working families.
They could have given Tom a badge. A payslip. A Christmas card signed by the team. They could have said, “Tom, you’re one of us.” Instead, they told his mother that the store was being “cleaned up” so he wouldn’t be upset when they sent him away. The cruelty of this euphemism – “purified” – is almost Dickensian. It’s the kind of lie you tell a child about a dead pet.
This story touches on something deeper than corporate politics. It’s about the meaning of the work itself. For many of us, a job isn’t just about money. It’s about structure, community, identity. For someone like Tom, that’s magnified a hundredfold. To show yourself, to be useful, to be part of something – that is dignity. And we have built a world in which this kind of quiet dignity has no place on the balance sheet.
Frances Boyd’s grief is palpable, not because her son was denied pay, but because he was denied belonging. She knows that his “limited language” does not mean a limited feeling. She knows how important it was to him to have colleagues, a uniform, a role. And she knows that behind the green aprons and organic lemons is a company that has forgotten what kindness looks like when it’s not on a marketing brochure.
I don’t think Waitrose had any evil in mind. That’s the saddest part. They thought they were doing the “right” thing. The compliant thing. But doing the right thing doesn’t always mean doing the right thing. Sometimes decency requires bending a rule, writing a small check and taking a risk.
They told The Telegraph: “We are sorry to hear about Tom’s story and while we cannot comment on individual cases, we are investigating as a priority.”
Tom Boyd’s story is a reminder that business is not about policies, but about people. It’s about the small actions that don’t make it into the quarterly report, but define the soul of a company. Waitrose, despite its premium gloss and “inclusive employer” copywriting, has shown us what happens when compassion meets compliance – and compliance wins.
If this is what “doing the right thing” looks like in 2025, we may all have to ask ourselves whether the moral coffers are falling short.
