Business Update from John Birchall
Includes a link for the BBC's i-Player
Staff at John Lewis will share a £151m bonus after the retail group saw annual pre-tax profits rise 9.7% to £306.6m. This will amount to nearly 8% of their annual salary.
The group, which also owns Waitrose, the supermarket chain is a partnership and each employee is a partner. There are no external shareholders.
John Lewis said gross sales rose 6.5% to £7.4bn as it continued to take market share from rivals and so it may be that employees who see their hard work and diligence rewarded not merely with empty words do put in that extra effort. The company was found by Mr John Lewis, who disliked the idea of just a few senior people receiving huge sums of money whilst those whose efforts had resulted in the profits being made saw little, if any of the sums earned.
The next few months will be difficult for all in retail but at least those at John Lewis will have seen a personal reward for their part in ‘bucking the trend’.
Perhaps more employers should offer shares in the business, or pay bonuses to all that are related to sales and profits.
This might make a good discussion topic for a Business Studies class.
At present the BBC are showing a series of programmes on the John Lewis Group.
The first of these can be viewed on I-Player HERE