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the benefitsWaitroseINTRODUCING THE BUSINESS PARTNERING MODEL TO WAITROSE PERSONNEL One of the UK's most ambitious retailers, Waitrose, the food retailing arm of the John Lewis Partnership, was embarking on a programme of rapid expansion and diversification. In order to make this change sustainable the Personnel Director, supported by the Board, decided that it needed to undertake a major change in how its Personnel Directorate interacted with the rest of the business. The essence of this change was to introduce the concept of Business Partnering, with Personnel Partners working in a much more strategic way with their colleagues within Retail. This required both ensuring the right staff were in place and then supporting the team in the development of fresh skills. Catalyst developed a series of nine Personnel Competencies reflecting the range of skills expected of a Business Partner and used these as the basis of a programme of Assessment Centres for all existing Personnel staff. These Centres took place over one day and utilised a fictional company and case study created especially for Waitrose by Catalyst. Attendees were assessed against each of the nine competencies and findings were then shared with each individual and the Personnel Director, with the former receiving a two hour one to one developmental feedback session. This process when then used to help identify those able and willing to become strategic Business Partners, and was extended to include external candidates, both within the John Lewis Partnership and beyond. Once the cadre of Business Partners was agreed a programme of support and development was developed, designed and led by Catalyst. This took place over a year and involved a series of skills based workshops supported by one to one coaching and peer group learning sets. Throughout, Catalyst took care to reflect the unique cultural traditions of the John Lewis Partnership, in which each member of staff is an equal partner in the business. Specifically, this meant operating in an atmosphere of trust and transparency, whilst at the same time recognising the very real challenges the business was facing which were unprecedented in its history. |
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