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John Lewis Partnership plc Annual Report and Accounts 2015
Partnership Services performance
EFFICIENT AND EFFECTIVE SUPPORT SERVICES ARE AN INCREASINGLY IMPORTANT INGREDIENT TO OUR TRADING SUCCESS.
Patrick Lewis Managing Director, Partnership Services
About Partnership Services
In Partnership Services, our goal is to free up Partners’ time and save the Partnership money so that our business can focus on providing excellent customer service and driving sales. Partnership Services is responsible for providing support in IT, Personnel, Finance and Procurement.
Operational priorities
At the beginning of 2014/15, following a very challenging Christmas peak period, Partnership Services set out to fix the basics in its IT and Personnel operations so as to improve the user experience. The priority was to establish excellent operational and professional personnel systems, and align relationships with stakeholders.
A significant step forward was the launch of our Resourcing service in May 2014. This saw the amalgamation of three divisional teams in one central location as well as attempting to streamline numerous processes. Since then, we have successfully recruited more than 22,000 Partners to the business as well as continuously striving to improve the process.
As a result of their hard work the Resourcing team were recognised for the work they do when awarded The Times Top 100 Graduate Employer and Targetjobs most Popular Graduate Employer of choice for Retail and Sales. New administration and policy services in Personnel launched last year have also consistently improved service levels throughout the year. The Partnership Health Service (PHS) celebrated its first anniversary with Health Partners reporting an improved productivity of 20%. For example, PHS helped 3,400 Partners with physiotherapy cases, giving an estimated saving of nearly 41,000 absence days. We have also focussed on improving the resilience and capacity of our IT systems, particularly during peak trading. Partnership Services IT implemented 500 changes, on top of a significant number of Divisional-led improvements. This reduced the number of major incidents caused by our infrastructure, from 40 at the end of 2013, to one at the end of 2014.
Awards and recognition
In 2014, Finance continued to improve its efficiency, and Procurement delivered £37m of benefits to the Partnership. The John Lewis Partnership became the first retailer to be awarded the Quality in Credit Management, thanks to our Accounts Receivable team. In addition the Payroll and Expenses team were also recognised by being awarded an accreditation for their exemplary procedures, policies and compliance by the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals (CIPP).
Positive Partner feedback
The successful peak trading period reinforced the great progress Partnership Services made in providing reliable and valuable services to our customers in Waitrose, John Lewis and Group. Both Paul Coby, John Lewis IT Director and Cheryl Millington, Waitrose IT Director praised the support provided by our IT team to ensure systems ran smoothly over the peak period.
We have continued to focus on the importance of Partners in the divisions, and have seen steady improvements in our Partner pulse score, where Partners are asked if the division is a great place to work, from 51% to 59%. This is when Partners are asked if the division is a great place to work.
Outlook
We will continue to build on the expertise of our Partners through great Leadership, Line Managers and Partners. We will focus on providing excellent customer service and lower costs to the trading divisions, ensuring we are exceeding their expectations in everything we do for them.
Patrick Lewis Managing Director, Partnership Services
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