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Our people

Providing worthwhile and satisfying employment in a successful business.


In our Constitution, we state our aim to employ and retain people of ability and integrity, who are committed to working together and to supporting our business principles. The relationships we have with our Partners are based on mutual respect and courtesy; we aim to recognise and reward their individual contributions.


Commitments

By working in Partnership, we:

take responsibility for our business success by delivering the right experience for all our customers and generating profits for us all to share

build relationships Powered by our Principles – honesty, respect and encouragement. We expect these behaviours of each other and demonstrate them at all times

create real influence over our working lives by taking opportunities to develop ourselves, balance work and life priorities, and support others.


The employee ownership model

The John Lewis Partnership is the UK’s largest employee-owned business, with all 69,000 permanent staff (Partners) sharing the responsibility and the rewards of running our business. This vision of co-ownership instigated by our founder John Spedan Lewis, has the happiness of our people as its ultimate purpose, and we have always acted on the principle that there should be more to a job than just work and pay.

Strengthening our Partnership

Our Partner element makes us unique and we need to continue to ensure our approach is clear. Over the last year, we have undertaken research to better understand our Partners’ motivations, so that we can continue to offer them compelling and engaging employment. This research revealed the key elements which influence the Partner experience, and which matter most to them as: leadership; recruiting to our values; fairness; flexible hours; continuous development; wellbeing and healthcare; Partnership benefits; and CSR.

This insight has informed the three commitments of our Partner Strategy (see left) and allowed us to clarify a number of goals and programmes covering all aspects of the Partner experience. For example, to support our leadership goal (‘all leaders can deliver commercial success and our Partner commitments, consistently demonstrating the Partnership leadership behaviours’), we have rolled out newly developed leadership behaviours that reflect our values.

We have set out a clear internal framework to govern who should be defined as a Partner. Where people fall outside of this scope – for example our supply arrangement with Boots (see Branching out, page 4) – we review the standards those employers provide to ensure they are aligned with, and supportive of, our own principles and values.

Shaping up for the future

Our unique structure is based on building a sustainable business, in which we all have shared rights and responsibilities, management is directly accountable for their actions, and our relationships are built on honesty, respect and encouragement.

To ensure the Partnership remains successful, we need to continuously look at how we can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our business. This is particularly true as we face the toughest trading situation for many decades. Management must take decisions in the best interests of the Partnership’s future success, even where this may mean posts are declared redundant or terms of employment are changed. In such circumstances, we have a commitment to make every effort to provide Partners with continued employment in the Partnership. Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40