BOSSES at Nestl have been branded "insensitive" after handing employees a questionnaire about their working environment - on the same day 150 job losses were revealed.

The anonymous ten-minute survey papers on subjects including work attitude and commitment were given to hundreds of employees at the York factory last week.

On the same day Nestl chiefs announced shopfloor posts on the Kit Kat, Aero and assortment lines at the Wigginton Road plant faced wide-ranging cuts.

One disillusioned employee, who said he was glad to be retiring shortly, told the Evening Press that the move was "symptomatic of Nestl's approach to staff relations". He said: "In the years since Nestl's takeover staff relations and morale have deteriorated in equal measure, one being a symptom of the other.

"Management have recently said that the level of sickness and absenteeism is unacceptable.

"If they were aware of, or cared about, the feeling of production workers they would know why it has reached record levels without having to resort to expensive questionnaires which they will ignore if the answers do not suit them."

But David Meechan, of Nestl, said the company was always interested in the views of its employees and intended to conduct similar surveys annually.

He said: "As part of this process we asked an external research consultancy to conduct a survey of all our staff about a wide variety of issues that affect them at work, such as leadership and their work-life balance.

"Staff at the Nestl Rowntree factory in York took part in a pilot survey 12 months ago and we wanted to seek their opinions again one year on.

"We are sorry to hear that some of our employees are unhappy with the survey, but we are willing to talk to them to ensure this is resolved and it's always important that they are able to give this kind of feedback either directly or through the survey."

Updated: 14:30 Thursday, November 13, 2003