John Lewis has warned workers they could face disciplinary action following a large number of abusive comments left on its internal online forum.
The retailer said staff leaving “unacceptable comments” on the intranet would be taken to meetings with its people managers.
John Lewis said there was a “significant and understandable strength of feeling about recent announcements but that’s not an excuse for some of the abuse we’ve seen”.
The partnership added many of the comments were “abusive, hurtful and simply unacceptable,” cautioning staff that harassment, bullying or any kind of offensive conduct would be dealt with as a disciplinary matter.
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The comments come as John Lewis considers cutting 11,000 jobs under its turnaround efforts, as management claim “difficult decisions” must be made to safeguard its future.
In January, it was reported that the retail group was halving its two-week redundancy pay per year of service policy, claiming this was “higher than typical market practice and comes at a very high cost”.
Last week, GMB Union warned the business they risked staff striking if they failed to receive answers over planned job cuts.
In a letter to chairwoman Dame Sharon White, the union said it was poised to ballot the retailer’s employees over industrial action if she failed to provide more detail on the redundancies.
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