Pros
15% discount in Waitrose and 25% in John Lewis - 12% on electricals. Putting our well earned money back into the Partnership pot. Good offers on Partner Choice website in restaurants and events. 50% off a concert ticket up to the value of £80. Own designated small locker with a key. Each partner is advised to sign up to Google + to keep informed of any changes in store via regular posts written by management. A decent sized dining room with discounted items in the vending machines and cut priced reduced items from the bakery section especially on tasty pastries at the end of the day. If items were damaged these were reduced for partners to buy. The online portal Partnerlink was handy to log in to outside work to view payslips, double check holiday entitlements and to complete multi media training.
Cons
Ever since the introduction of ‘Modern Waitrose’ and one branch rota I felt the tension and stress increase in store. Waitrose is losing money and action had to be taken. We were informed in a formal group meeting with a PowerPoint presentation conducted by a department manager. Although we did not know the full implications involved when it actually happened. I only worked one full day a week on Saturdays and I felt the pressure. Partners felt more stretched to cover more bases without seeing a real increase in pay. Before the one branch rota was introduced a few months ago, sections had their own rota we could refer to with ease. We could clearly see what hours partners were working, who was on lunch, or on break, who is on holiday and who has phoned in sick. Annoyingly management would often steal cross trained partners from checkouts to help work on another section without informing us, which was often the case. Without the rota this caused chaos as we had to play guess work or ask a dozen of questions. There were many new young faces and often we did not know their surname to make a call out for them when it got busy. We were told not to conduct too many call outs as it created ‘noise’!! The master copy of the one branch rota was difficult to reprint as we did not know it was saved on the system. The text was rather small to read in the full page chart. It took a while to make sense of it all and as there was only one branch rota on a clipboard it was difficult to locate in store. Management should have made more effort to print off a clearer copy for us to read. Many customers expect sufficient number of checkouts to be open and as my role as Checkout Supervisor my job was to reduce the queues. Often than not management would get annoyed at us for stealing shop floor partners who were checkout trained to open a checkout. Quite often shop floor cashiers would make errors at the checklist for example mis identifying fruit and vegetables on the screen and therefore overcharging the customer. Our aim is to provide excellent customer service it got to a point we were not delivering our promise due to the fact Checkouts were continually short staffed. We were not working as a one branch team. Many partners are unhappy with the changes implemented. Waitrose stopped Annual Review of Performance (ARP) with their line manager although I have been told it will be returning soon. If you are doing well you are not praised and you will soon know when you have done something wrong management will fall on you like a tonne of bricks. I had made the decision to leave as there was no variety in my role. Many tasks were repetitive. Management had shown no real interest in my personal development. I am very capable in learning new skills. A few members of management became unapproachable as you could see the amount of stress they are under. Image is a huge factor at Waitrose, management love young partners as they are seen to be more adaptable and enthusiastic than older partners. The young partners want the experience on their CV however are often tricked into given more responsibility but really you are paid a lower wage for more work load which is a huge advantage for Waitrose.