John Lewis Staff Pay Out

The department store group will spend up to £40m to rectify the error which occurred because its pay calculations did not comply correctly with employment laws. Staff were inadvertently unpaid for hours worked on Sundays and Bank Holidays.

Personnel head Tracey Killen commented; “As soon as we established that we were not implementing the Working Time Regulations correctly, we worked quickly to make the repayments to our partners in a way that is both fair and responsible.”

The amount each staff member will receive will vary depending on pay grade and shift pattern and will range from £100 to £1,000 per staff member. The partnership will also add £7m to future pension liabilities.

John Lewis is not the only retailer to have been caught out by the regulations and there is a general consensus that the time has come to amend and simplify the regulations for the benefit of employers and employees.

John Lewis partnership have maintained that the £40m compensation will not be deducted from the current year’s bonus pool; the annual bonus pool is shared out among staff, who are also partners of the company. In the UK John Lewis partnership operates 39 John Lewis stores and 295 Waitrose supermarkets with approximately 84,700 staff.