John Lewis and Waitrose staff celebrate windfall
More than 400 employees of a John Lewis depot and Waitrose supermarket in Northampton will find an extra bulge in their pay packet this month after being handed bonuses of 15 per cent.
Staff working for the John Lewis distribution centre in Brackmills and Waitrose in Kingsthorpe will be handed the money after parent company John Lewis Partnership recorded a rise in operating profit of 20 per cent which generated a bonus pot of 151 million.
Traditionally, the figure is revealed at Brackmills by a chosen member of staff who opens a sealed envelope with the news then relayed over the tannoy system to cheers.
Phil Read, a warehouse assistant in the stock area at the Brackmills distribution centre, was one of 436 employees taking home the equivalent of eight weeks' pay.
He said: "The partnership system means you always hear people talking about how a change in the company might affect our bonus but that makes for good customer service.
"Some of us will treat ourselves with a nice holiday or be able to get married with the money so it's really important to us.
"I'm going to spend mine on golf - I might buy myself a new putter and driver and go on a couple of golfing weekends. I'm very pleased"
The bonus announcement was better than expected by retail analysts and up from 13 per cent the year before.
The company said that it had up to 400,000 more people shopping every week at Waitrose than last year. Operating profit at John Lewis' department stores rose 15 per cent to 165.9m.
Teresa McTeague, general manager of John Lewis' Northampton Distribution Centres, said: "Northampton has had an absolutely fantastic year, almost doubling our output on the previous year and still managing to deliver excellent key performance indicators to boot.
"We achieved all this through a well-motivated team of partners who rose to the challenge in every way."
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Friday 10 February 2012
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