The era of staffed service is over for two Geelong service stations, with driverless pay-at-the-pump operations taking their place in a major rebrand.

Viva Energy has confirmed two Shell Reddy Express sites in Geelong will go fully unmanned under a major rebrand.

The Reddy Express service stations on Church St in Geelong West, and Settlement Rd in Belmont, will be converted into self-service pay-at-the-pump operations.

Both stations will be closed for two weeks from November 4 during the rebrand.

When they reopen later in November, vending machines and pay-at-the-pump operations will have replaced staff.

A Shell Reddy Express employee, who did not want to be named, said staff heard about the changes on the grapevine before being officially told.

They said Viva then confirmed the plan, but told staff they would have no information on redundancies for two weeks.

“It was just torture,” they said.

“They said they’d try their best to avoid redundancies … but we were left in limbo.”

The employee said Viva had come back to staff a week later, informing them they would be redeployed.

“They did try really hard to accommodate us, but we took hour cuts,” they said.

Employees were told more service stations across the country were earmarked to be converted into self-service centres.

The employee said they were worried their jobs had an expiration date.

“Our main disappointment as a team is for all the regulars that come in,” they said.

“We have a lot of lonely elderly people who come in here.”

In August, Viva Energy chief strategy officer Jennifer Gray informed investors 25 to 30 service station locations had been chosen for the self-service model, following “encouraging” trials.

Ms Gray said at the time the changes would deliver $10m in annual operating cost savings from the 2027 financial year, and address lower-volume locations.

Employees said they were told the shops would be rebranded Liberty service stations, but a Viva spokesman said the service stations would be rebranded as Shell Express.

The Viva spokesman said a new unattended site format had been successfully trialled earlier this year.

“After short closures, these sites will reopen as Shell Express in November,” he said.

“All impacted staff have been redeployed.”

The spokesman said Viva Energy was maintaining fully operational Reddy Express service stations at Highton, Waurn Ponds, South Geelong, Geelong West’s Latrobe Terrace centre, North Geelong, Moolap and Norlane.

Reddy Express, formerly Coles Express, has more than 650 sites across the nation and more than 4500 team members, as part of Viva’s broader 1268-store national footprint.

Since May 2023, Viva Energy has been the parent company of the group.

Extracted in full from:  https://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/news/geelong/just-torture-shell-reddy-express-geelong-west-belmont-to-go-unstaffed/news-story/5392762b9362554c3147a93be70c4841

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