John Lewis Partnership’s operations director has said the business is creating “better quality jobs”, despite the retailer’s plans to reduce its headcount by 11,000 in the next five years.
Naomi Simcock said the retailer’s investment into driving efficiencies across certain areas of the business had allowed it to create more purposeful roles.
Speaking at the Smart Retail Tech Expo this week, she said: “I was in one of our supply chain depots where we’re rolling out robots at the moment, and the picking robots are super cool, but they’re removing jobs.
“I went to talk to the team whose jobs won’t exist, and they said the job they were doing was awful and they didn’t enjoy it, and now they have a [different] job over here.”
Simcock added that while other roles will be available to workers currently working on repetitive tasks in depots, the John Lewis Partnership, which also owns Waitrose, was making “some people redundant.”
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As well as robotics in the supply chain, John Lewis has introduced new technologies to help boost the employee and customer experience.
Simcock said headsets being worn by staff in some Waitrose stores was helping to increase customer metrics, reduce shrinkage and help employees “feel safer”.
The Partnership is using AI for forecasting and experimenting with other technologies such as “virtual manuals and digital wallets”.
“You’ve got to find those technologies that give you multiple wins and focus on the outcome of the problem you’re trying to solve,” she said.
“It’s about testing and learning and coming out of that if it doesn’t work. That mindset is really important.”
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