JOHN LEWIS CASE

John Lewis Case - HRM

John Lewis Case - HRM

Introduction

John Spedan Lewis signed an irrevocable settlement to entrust the business established by his father during the year 1864. This settlement transferred the ownership of the company to the employees leading to the formation of the John Lewis Partnership in 1929. A constitutional framework was developed to enable the workers to live in harmony in the co-owned business by sharing their knowledge, profits and power entrusted to them. The departmental store has now grown into a multimillionaire empire comprising of more than 30 departmental stores as well as 259 Waitrose supermarkets spreads all across the United Kingdom. The company provided jobs to more than 87,000 employees while making £9.5 billion in revenues during the year 2013. John Lewis has earned a large number of awards for its excellence in the retail industry. It won the award for the favourite shop in the United Kingdom for last consecutive four years till 2011 conducted by Verdict Research. Similarly, the company claimed the Ecommerce Awards for Excellence for the year 2011 for its successful integration of the various sales channels. Moreover, the Snow Valley Golden Chariot award for the year 2011 was awarded to John Lewis due to its efficient processes resulting in excellent quality service, flexibility and low costs (JohnLewis 2013).

This paper is aimed by performing an analysis of the organizational structure prevalent in John Lewis that enables the effective and efficient running of its processes. The organizational structure is analyzed in light of four theoretical approaches to highlight its differences to the approaches adopted by John Lewis.

Discussion

The central philosophy of the winning strategy for John Lewis is the constitution that was developed John Spedan. Each and every employee of the organization becomes a co-owner and is expected by the management to get involved into sharing and creating of knowledge assets in the company. This new knowledge is deemed to prepare the company for the future challenges that are looking the company in the eye. John Lewis is perhaps the only retailer in the United Kingdom that follows a non-contributory scheme for generating final salary for the employees. The company allows the employees working at its five holiday centres to enjoy vacations on subsidized rates. The company also offers welfare loans and grants for employs that are going through some sort of financial hardship. Every store has an employee who is delegated the role of planning social events for employees who are no longer related with the organization.

Key Drivers of John Lewis Organizational Culture

Capitalism and Justice

JSL had a vision for John Lewis and wanted to base it on business model that allowed employees to have a share in the company they were investing with their skill and time. JSL wanted to introduce a humanistic approach to retailing rather than the politically motivated (RIGBY 2000, pp.24). The ideas that were presented by JSL were usually received well by the members of the right as well as the left ...