Department store chain John Lewis has rolled out a new ‘one-stop shop’ benefits package for its 64,000 staff, after an employee survey revealed its previous offering was “bewildering and confusing”.
The new package – dubbed PartnerChoice – will cover 10 areas, including travel, health, childcare, insurance and computers, allowing staff to cherry pick their benefits.
Adam Brooke, manager of benefits products at John Lewis Partner-ship, said the company wanted to ensure its new offering was easy to understand after negative feedback in its last staff survey.
“One of the biggest issues identified was on communication – the offering was seen as confusing and bewildering, because there was so much there,” he told Personnel Today. “The first thing we did was scrape stuff away and tidy it up. As an example, previously, we would add health offerings as they came in, but we have now signed an exclusive deal with one supplier.”
The new package, which will be available on the company intranet and as a hard-copy brochure, forms part of John Lewis’ commitment to diversity, according to Brooke. “We are working towards a diverse workforce, and there is no such thing as a ‘typical employee’,” he said. “Our benefits have to reflect this.”
John Lewis will measure the success of PartnerChoice through regular staff surveys, with a view to reviewing and updating it every six months, said Brooke.
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Some of the PartnerChoice benefits will also be made available to up to 11,000 retired John Lewis employees.
Brooke also said that plans in the pipeline for the next few months include a salary exchange scheme, childcare vouchers and the implementation of a Home Computing Initiative.
