John Lewis Partnership will go live later this month with a new HR and payroll system to better manage its shared-ownership business model.
The retailer shares ownership of 27 John Lewis department stores and 174 Waitrose supermarkets with its 63,000 employees, giving them benefits including a share in annual profits.
But the company’s policy of offering benefits such as performance-related pay scales, use of holiday venues and childcare vouchers were not well supported by its older HR systems, according to HR director Andy Street.
“We had a whole load of legacy, bespoke and independent HR systems that didn’t talk to each other,” he told Computing magazine. “This resulted in an HR system of inconsistent standards and fragmented information that was expensive to operate.”
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John Lewis Partnership has now installed an HR system from supplier Oracle that will help provide better control of individual personnel histories needed to administer special employee benefits. The system will go live in three weeks’ time.
“Before, HR would do personnel administration for managers. This will empower managers to handle HR tasks themselves,” said Street. “We will be able to get a better view of what the partnership needs to do to fill the talent pipeline and improve our labour scheduling.”
