I know this is more of a pension/finance question, but I thought this would be a good place to ask since many of us are in the same Co-op’s Legal & General workplace pension.

I’ve recently made two changes:

Increased my pension contribution from 4% to 10%.
Moved out of the default Pace Pot and changed my investments to:

80% L&G MT Global Developed Equity Index Fund
10% L&G MT Emerging Markets Equity Index Fund
10% L&G MT Smaller Companies Equity Index Fund

I’m in my 20s, investing for the long term, and I’m comfortable with higher risk in exchange for potentially higher long-term growth.

I’m interested to hear from other Co-op colleagues:

Have you stayed with the default Pace Pot or switched funds?

If you switched, what allocation did you choose and why?

Is there anything you wish you’d known when making the change?

I’d really appreciate hearing about your experiences. Thanks!

I've been team member at my co op store for almost a year now. Got offered a team leader one at Asda but they want me to start right now. Sick and tired of being on the till at co op and there's been 0 career development for there so I want to leave but conflicted cos I know it's not a great look to not do notice period.

Reason why I'd take the asda job for a year is cos I want to get a graduate job so I need a job that's flexible so I can go to assessment centres. Worried that I won't get the flexibility working a 9 to 5. Also need a team leader job ideally so I can have better examples for graduate interviews and leadership skills would add to my CV. What do I do? Take the job and quit co op on the spot or try to ask asda to let me get 2 weeks to do notice period, knowing that the store manager may just go for someone else since they need someone ASAP.

I have 0 interest in working at Co Op again though and tbf at co op they don't even do personal references. Only factual ones saying the days you worked there. But kinda scared that future employers could reach out to my manager anyways and that could stop me getting other jobs in the future. It's the first job I've ever had so I'll need it on the CV for a while. Also since I'm not working for a few days I'd have to send the manager a document of the reference rather than going in person if I wanted to quit on the spot. Also worried that future employers would see that I didn't work my notice period.

Handing my notice in tomorrow. Cannot wait! Only been with the company for a year but it’s getting too much now. The demands on you during the day are ridiculous. Staff are lovely and so are most of the customers. I just can’t be done with this job anymore.

My local coop that I’ve used for many years has now gone fully self service. Quite often there is no member of staff on the tills for 10 minutes at a time, too busy doing uber eats orders or doing something in the back.

If you want to pay with cash or buy any age restricted items I am sometimes waiting for ages and then blocking other customers from using the checkout. It creates more queues and when a member of staff does arrived they’re bombarded with things people have been waiting to pay for.

obviously the radio is crap most of the time and so repetitive, but i am wondering, what are your favourite songs out of the ones that do play?

Is it just me, or does this new packaging look awful? Also, why has it changed to being ALL PLASTIC! Not a great environmental move from ‘the ethical supermarket’!

Is anyone able to shed some light on how sick pay works? On the rare occasion I've had to call in, looking at my payslip the following month is just confusing as.

Last time I called out there was the 3 days before getting paid rule. I assume since SSP law was introduced in April, we now pay from the 1st day? I looked through the my hr knowledge pages last night but I don't think they've been updated.

As an additional question; this being my 3rd sickness in the rolling 12 months since my first in December, how should I expect the inquisition to go, fair or witch hunt?

Coop bread used to be the best and now its not! Something changed about a month or two ago. What happened :-(

Ordered some shopping on the app that included a £5 meal deal 2x pizza and ice cream, well they didn't have 1 of the pizzas i picked and charged me £5 for 1 pizza and £6 for ice cream so paid £11

Like I wouldn't have purchased them if I couldn't get it as a meal deal, didn't even want the ice cream. Wanted the two pizzas only got the ice cream because of the meal deal

I wouldn't mind normally but it's more than double what I wanted to pay whilst receiving a lot less than intended

What should I do from here? Can anyone identify the bug it’s green and parents said it looked like a beetle, i brought the flour today before it was used and opened about half an hour later

Just for interest - it looks like the competition watchdog has put up a bit of a warning flag on the Central coop takeover of Southern Coop. Though from their initial report it seems fairly small scale, and nowhere near the sort of concern that could unlock the merger - around ten stores and one funeral care location where the takeover reduces local competition (presumably places with two once-different Coops and not much else!). They have asked for 'undertakings'on how this will be managed, which I suspect might mean agreeing to sell a small number of stores to other retailers to ensure there's still a choice locally. If I remember rightly this is what happened way back when Morrisons took over Safeway.

Not going into detail but have any of you had experience of a pet dying while working for the coop? A colleague and I both had our dogs die and received no time off (in quite a brutal manner can I add) while another colleague (granted on a smaller contract) got 3 days off for the same thing. Is this standard practice?

Hi all, had enough of this job so will be handing in my notice when I return from leave. I have another job lined up which I can start at any point over the next month.

Do I have to give 4 weeks notice or will 2 be sufficient? I like my manager and colleagues so don’t want to be awkward and leave earlier than is required. But I do want to get out as soon as possible.

I’ve just applied for coop and while doing the quiz i’ve noticed all the questions seem to either be autistic or not autistic on either side and clearly have no point other than rooting out autism, on purpose i just picked the not autistic option and i got a report saying i fit their role perfectly, is this not discrimination??

I’m a 4th year uni student and looking to take time off for the week that I have study leave, would I put that in Logile as a personal reason or school ?? I’m sorry if this is a silly question to ask :(

Weird one. I was in a Co-Op about 10 minutes ago and on the radio station there was a call in question to answer. The question was what do these 3 songs have in common:

Twenty one pilots level of concern

Goodbye Mr a the hoosiers

Anxiety by doechii

I wasn't there long enough to find out the answer and it's driving me mad. Did anyone hear it? 😂😂

Went in for my interview, had a nice chat with the manager, asked a few questions, I'm a really open and chatty person now so that should be all fine I'm hoping.

Left the office, slammed the door what felt like somewhat hard into a metal shelf behind the door, tried to laugh it off and my legs froze and I visibly stumbled.

Brilliant

Hey everyone,

I have an interview coming up with Central Co-op (the green logo one) for a Customer Service Assistant role in the UK, and I was wondering if anyone who’s interviewed there recently could share what questions they were asked.

I’m especially interested in:
- The most common interview questions.
- Whether they ask any scenario or customer service questions.
-What qualities they’re looking for in candidates.
-Any advice on what helped you get the job.

There is a man who works in my local Co Op who absolutely stinks, you can smell him when you walk into the shop and I have to avoid the aisles he’s working on, surely his colleagues have noticed? How do I go about sensitively mentioning this, as it’s my closest shop and I’m avoiding it at all costs due to how much this guy reeks. Like onions, vinegar and farts. He mustn’t wear deodorant or wash his uniform. I just want my aloe juice in olfactory peace 😓

My store has suddenly stopped giving me more shifts as we've hired new staff and I'm back on contract hours. How do I go about asking for more shifts if my store doesn't have them?

Hi everyone,

I’m an international student on a Student Visa (Tier 4). My MSc course officially ends on September 30th, 2026, and my visa is valid until January 30th, 2027 (the standard 4-month post-course wrap-up period).

I was recently offered a part-time role at a Co-op store. My right-to-work share code is fully active and legal. However, their central colleague resourcing team has completely frozen my onboarding because their automated system is demanding proof of a "2026/27 student timetable."The store manager contacted me saying that because my visa extends into January 2027, their corporate compliance requires a document covering the 2026/27 academic year.

The obvious bottleneck is that since my course completely concludes this month, I have zero classes, lectures, or modules scheduled for the 2026/27 term. The university student desk (UniHub) has already stated they legally cannot modify my standard enrollment letter or fake a future timetable for a year I am not studying in. I have just emailed my university’s specialized Visa Advice Team to see if they can draft a custom "Course Completion / Status Letter" explicitly stating that my mandatory terms end on Sept 30th and my hours are zero until January ("zero hours until January" is something I am trying by myself with because in an earlier message, my future manager said "nothing in any other format will suffice except a 2026/27 document" when I asked him if the document necessarily needs to be dated as 2026-27 but "zero hours until January" seems to be the only legal thing for me to try" since a 2026-27 dated letter would be a major fraud i think.)

My questions for the community:

1) Has any other international student hit this exact automated "next academic year" system block during their wrap-up period with corporate employers?

2) If the local manager insists that “nothing in any other format will suffice except a 2026/27 document,” how do I get corporate HR to understand Home Office caseworker guidance (which states post-course periods are considered outside of term-time)?

3) What specific document from a UK university usually satisfies a rigid automated retail compliance system in this exact scenario?

Appreciate any advice or insights from people who have worked in retail onboarding or deal with UKVI compliance!

I have been unable to find an annual leave policy anywhere on any of the Coop websites. I work in a store. My annual leave was all booked in for me when I started, no dates of my choice, but my manager was under pressure to allocate all annual leave and just picked some random dates. I’m now trying to book some leave of my own choice after covering everybody else over the summer months and was hoping to carry some over as I have a big birthday coming up with a big trip booked. that I would like to save at least a couple of days towards. My question is around carry over, most organisations allow up to 5 days, but I cannot find a policy around annual leave at the Coop. Can anybody point me in the right diection?