What's in it for me?

Find out how the diversity team of the John Lewis Partnership developed and used a commercially focussed diversity business case to convince stakeholders of the need for change in an organisation already perceived to be successful by:

• Auditing the current diversity status via internal focus groups, surveys, benchmarking, policy checking and workforce analysis
• Reviewing changes to the external job market and potential customer's markets
• Developing a business case with aspects focussing on 'Partners, customers, suppliers and the community'
• Implementing a series of initial activities including updating and implementing new policies, communication, training, progress monitoring and reporting

Case study summary

The John Lewis Partnership is one of the UK's best known high street retailers which trades under the brand names of Waitrose (supermarkets), John Lewis (department stores) and Greenbee (a direct services company). It is the UK's largest employee owned business with branches typically based in towns and city centres.

The case study describes how the diversity team set about understanding whether there was a need for change and then developed a business case and actions that were both commercially focussed and supported the strong cultural values of the Partnership. The key issue that faced the project team was convincing stakeholders in an organisation already perceived to be ethical, fair and commercially successful of the need for change. The Partnership's diversity team:

• Audited the current diversity status of the organisation using focus groups with Partners from six key sample branches, surveying nearly one thousand Partners, benchmarking the current activity on diversity, reviewing and updating the relevant Human Resource policies and analysing the make up of the current workforce
• Analysed changes to the external job and potential customer markets by studying workforce trends nationally and locally 
• Developed a commercially-focussed business case with elements relating to 'Partners, customers, suppliers and the community' 
• Implemented a series of initial activities including updating and implementing new policies, communicating with managers and staff, training, progress monitoring and reporting