Examining the Effectiveness of Employee Retention Practices at JLP

This report delves into the employee retention practices implemented at John Lewis Partnership (JLP). It begins with an introduction to talent management and its significance in fostering a motivated workforce aligned with business goals. The report provides a background of JLP, highlighting its retail operations and workforce. The core of the report is a literature review exploring various retention practices, such as early-stage retention strategies, candidate identification, on-the-job education, and benefits. It then examines the impact of these practices on JLP's performance, including reduced turnover, decreased development time, positive customer experiences, cost savings, and improved productivity. The report also recommends strategies for JLP to retain employees longer, such as fostering a stress-free work environment, conducting exit interviews, and creating a positive culture. Finally, the report concludes by emphasizing the importance of employee retention for long-term organizational success and health.

Managing a successful
business project
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Table of Contents
Chapter1 INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................3
Background of a company......................................................................................................3
Aim and Objectives................................................................................................................3
Rationale of the project..........................................................................................................4
Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................5
Various retention practices within an organisation................................................................5
Impact of retention practices on the performance of John Lewis Partnership.......................6
Recommending ways through which John Lewis Partnership can retain employees for longer
time period..............................................................................................................................7
Chapter 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY....................................................................................9
Chapter 4 RESULTS......................................................................................................................12
Chapter 5 Conclusions and Recommendations..............................................................................18
Chapter 6 REFLECTION..............................................................................................................19
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................21
Appendix........................................................................................................................................23
Interview for manager..........................................................................................................23
Interview for employees.......................................................................................................23
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Chapter1 INTRODUCTION
Talent management is defined as the process by which organisations search, recruit,
select, motivate and develop employees. The main reason of forming talent management is
creating workforce who is always motivated to work towards the achievement of business goals
and aims. Talent management focuses on meeting every need of employees with the attainment
of objectives and targets (Khalid and Nawab, 2018). Talent managed is formed to improve the
performances of organisations or businesses by acquiring qualified candidates, it makes
companies to remain competitive in the market by developing existing employees and recruiting
new employees with advanced skills and talent, it supports tools, technologies and techniques
that are used by employees who are selected by them, these employees use technologies in such
a way so that an organisation gets maximum benefits and advantages (MICHAEL, PRINCE and
CHACKO, 2016). The current project would discuss about the concept of talent management
and it various practices used for retaining employees employees in John Lewis. With this it also
discusses about the impact of talent management practices on employee retention.
Background of a company
John Lewis Partnership is a company which operates departmental stores of John Lewis
and partners, supermarkets of Wait rose and Partners, services related to banks and financial
institutions and other activities related to retail. The company is a retail industry founded in
London, 1929 by John Spedan Lewis. Trust has owned John Lewis Partnership on behalf of its
workforce called as partners. In Sunday Times it is mentioned that John Lewis Partnership has
secured third largest place in non traded company of UK in 2016. The company focuses on
providing goods and services to the upper and middle class level of population. It deals in
products like furniture, computing, photography, fashion accessories, clothing and many more. It
has employees over 83000.
Aim and Objectives
Aim of the project
“To examine the effectiveness of employee retention practices at JLP.” A study on John Lewis
Partnership
Objectives of the project
 To understand the various retention practices within an organisation.
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 To understand the impact of retention practices on the performance of John Lewis
Partnership.
 To recommend ways through which John Lewis Partnership can retain employees for
longer time period.
Rationale of the project
The main purpose of doing this project is to understand the impact of talent management
practices on employee retention. This project would clearly explain the importance of talent
management practices to keep employees within an organisation. The project would help in
achieving two kind of perspectives: personal perspective and professional perspective.
According to the personal, this accommodates in understanding operations which are useful and
important in growth of candidates. The another benefit with this project is it would help in
understanding the practices of talent management in retention of employees. According to the
professional perspective, the biggest benefit is learning application of talent management
practices in organisations with operating tasks effectively and efficiently. In future it would help
me in creating good profession.
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Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
Literature review is a chapter which assists researcher to gather data from secondary
sources like magazines, books and journal articles. The data which is collected from sources of
secondary are not first hand data, these data are used to conduct and gain in-depth knowledge.
Various retention practices within an organisation
According to Florentine (2019), employee retention is a concerned issue for organisations
and companies because they have to compete with their competitors to acquire talented and
qualified employees. If employee leaves a firm then they have to pay hard costs like employee
turnover cost and soft costs like reduction in productivity, lowering engagement, costs of training
and so on. Organisations which constantly focus on employee retention on time with great
investment get great pay off in future. Increase in productivity, improvement in performance,
improvement in efficiency of work and many more. For this organisations adopt various
practices for retention of employees, some of them are explained below:
Retention starts from beginning: Retention is a process which starts from the starting stage
of application process of candidates (Kuligowski, 2021). In the screening process only
organisation identifies what type of strategy and culture they want to create and adopt in the
environment of workplace and then search for those candidates who would be comfortable in
working with such type of environment. When employees know about the culture of
organisations at primary stage, it reduces confusion and chaos in future and decreases situations
where employees think to leave companies.
Identification of candidates: Organisations select candidates who have worked in prior jobs
for a longer period of time, contributed in ups and downs of a company. If such employees are
selected in an organisation then it automatically reduces the chances of leaving an organisation in
future (Alola and Alafeshat, 2021). Job hoppers are the people who continuously switch from
one company to another and retaining such kind of employees are difficult, so identifying
background of employees before selecting is adopted by organisation for retention of employees
in future and mitigate the risk of employee leaving the company.
Providing on the job education: As per Florentine (2019), organisations arrange and
organise many development programs time to time for their employees so that they can develop
in their career and get more efficient in their work, jobs and responsibilities. When employees
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get proper education related to their jobs and responsibilities their chances to get promotion
increases and take company towards success. Employee education and development go hand in
hand with promotions and lead company to retain employees for maximum time. Trainings in
corporates uses advance techniques and technologies to improve skills of employees and this
help in retention of employees because employees feel that they are valued and company is
doing investment to increase their skills (Chawla, 2021).
Giving proper benefits time to time: Different perks and benefits play an important role in
making employees engaged, healthy and joyful in an organisation. Benefits like coverage for
healthcare, sick leaves that are paid, providing stock options, financial benefits all these are
given to employee who are performing exceptionally well in the allotted time period. These all
benefits motivate employees to stay in the same organisation and work harder. These leave
policies, good pay, and flexibility in working hours make employees to think they are being
valued in organisation for their contribution and they decide to stay in the same venture for a
longer period of time.
Impact of retention practices on the performance of John Lewis Partnership
According to Ramirez (2020), different retention practices adopted by John Lewis
Partnership assist in doing activities effectively and efficiently because every activity is the
responsibility of employees. Employees are the most importance resource to take out different
activities within a company. So John Lewis Partnership invest time and money in different
retention practices to retain employees with them for maximum time. Retention practices have
positive impact on the performance of John Lewis Partnership because it reduces various costs
like soft costs and hard costs like training and turnover cost. Some other advantages with the
impact of retention practices on performance are explained below:
Decreases hassle of turnover: Turnover of employees are very natural in organisations but
when it increases in a large number then it becomes crucial problem. As per the view presented
Mangal (2021), it creates a situation where John Lewis Partnership has to search new employee
for vacant job which increases the wastage of time but by focusing on retention practices it can
save time for other useful activities like production, marketing and many more and ultimately
increase the performance of organisation.
Reduces development time: According to Ramirez (2020), employees leaving a company
consume a lot of time because finding new qualified employees is not an easy task and giving
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training to employees need a lot of investment and time. To avoid such circumstances John
Lewis Partnership concentrate on retaining employees through adopting retention practices
through which it can cut down the time for hiring and invest in developing existing which help in
increasing and improving performance of a company in a effective and efficient manner.
Spreads positivity to customers: Employee retention practices make employees of John
Lewis Partnership happy. Engaged and happy workforce transfer that happiness to their
customers. They focus on providing good service, resolving problems or issues and always ready
to go extra miles to create better reputation for organisation. Retention practices help in creating
better relationships with customers and improve the performance of company as more and more
customers get attracted towards the organisation because of good quality service.
Saves money: Employee turnover is very costly for every organisation so also for John
Lewis Partnership (Nayak, Jena and Patnaik, 2021). Recruiting and training process takes so
much time and costs are also very high. So through employee retention John Lewis Partnership
saves money by avoiding costs related to acquisition of talent, hours invested on analysis of
interview and resume, productivity loss, revenue loss out of bad experiences of customers.
Money saved by avoiding such practices are used in other productive matters like procurement of
advance technology, expansion and many more.
Improves all over productivity: With the assistance of different retention practices John
Lewis Partnership decrease issues like vacant positions, understaffing, overtime and frequent
mistakes. Retention practices improve and increase communication among employees,
departments, leaders and managers. New employees take 6 months to 2 years for reaching their
maximum level of productivity so retention practices help organisation to save a lot of
productivity through employees who stay.
Recommending ways through which John Lewis Partnership can retain employees for longer
time period
According to Halvorson (2018), employee retention is important for success and health of
organisation in a long term. Retaining talented employees improve customer satisfaction,
increase sales of product, improve satisfaction level among employees, lead effective and
efficient planning. Employers of John Lewis Partnership know the importance of retaining best
employee. Some of the ways or strategies are given below to retain employees for longer period
of time:
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Work environment free from stress: Employees are the individuals who have always
desire to enjoy their work. Employers and managers should make place of work joyful and
cheerful. When employees are offered with no stress environment their chances to remain in
organisation increase (Le Ha and Thao, 2021). To create stress free environment John Lewis
Partnership should provide yoga sessions, gym in corporate building, rooms for reading, specific
zone for sports and many more.
Organising interviews at the time of exit: As per Halvorson (2018), such interviews would
be proved beneficial for John Lewis Partnership because it would help in analysing the reason
for turnover and dissatisfaction of employees. One of the studies of UK showed that employees
who go through exit interviews leave the company with positive views. These positive views and
opinions would protect image of the brand in the market and also assist in retaining rest
employees.
Not threatening job and income of employee: John Lewis Partnership should adopt a policy in
which threatening an individual with demotion and termination by employer should be restricted.
Because if employees are threatened then it becomes sure that employee would leave
organisation in near future (Immaneni, Sailaja and Naga, 2021).
Creating a positive culture: John Lewis Partnership should focus on creating set of values
as a culture like attitude, teamwork, honesty. Organisation that creates good culture would have
advantages like retaining and attracting qualified and talented employees.
Monetary rewards: John Lewis Partnership should offer financial rewards to employees
who meet the benchmarks within a given period of time. Employees should be given monthly
and annually bonuses and rise in their annual salary. This would mitigate the chances to leave
organisation and their morale would be boosted up with the income (Khan and et. al., 2021).
Proper recognition: John Lewis should make employees to learn that their work is
important for a company. Employees would feel valued that in the eyes of employer their work is
necessary to achieve objectives of an organisation (Parmenter and Barnes, 2021).
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Chapter 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research methodology is significant part of the research because it helps in achievement
of each objective in successfully manner. There are different types of methodologies that
researcher require to use for attaining research objectives, qualitative research, inductive
approach, interpretivisim philosophy, interview etc. are used by researcher (Roberts, Pavlakis
and Richards, 2021). It is important for researcher to conduct research in a proper manner.
Research methodology plays a vital role in gathering, analysing and interpreting data related to
the topic of project. Investigator collects data from different sources like primary and secondary.
 Research Approach: Research approach is a process which is considered by investigator
to research activities in a systematic way. It involves two type of approaches: inductive
and deductive. Inductive is a type of approach which is taken for exploring phenomenon,
identifying patterns and themes and creating a framework. Deductive approach is used
for evaluating hypotheses of a theory which is already existing.
Justification: For meeting the objectives of current research, researcher would take help of
inductive approach because it assists the nature of objectives for research (Chivanga, 2016).
This research is useful in collecting of secondary and quantitative data from secondary
sources used for literature review. Another benefit with choosing inductive is it helps in
testing information in a qualitative manner. This approach would also help in future because
it would analyse data qualitatively.
 Research Philosophy: Research philosophy is concerned with development, nature and
source of information. It is a belief about different methods in which information about a
particular topic is used, gathered and analysed. There are two types of research
philosophies present which are positivism and interpretivism.
Justification: According to the current research project, interpretivism approach is a chosen
approach because it accommodates in analysing data in a very easy manner (Larshin and
Lishchenko, 2018). Another benefit with this philosophy is it assists in measuring data in a
qualitative style. Whereas positivism is not considered because it would measure data in
quantitative manner.
 Research Choice: Research choice refers to the type of information on which researcher
wants to base their research to achieve pre-defined objectives of research in a successful
manner. It is necessary for research to select research choice for project because it helps
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in evaluating and analysing data effectively (Nørgaard and Sørensen, 2016). The two
different types of choices are: quantitative and qualitative.
Justification: According to the need of present project researcher is require to select qualitative
choice because it would assist in gathering relevant data connected to project topic. Qualitative
data is also useful because it helps in presenting data effectively in a given period of time.
Qualitative data is also collected from books, journals etc. sources for literature review (Baronov,
2021). This is a significant research choice within an investigation for achieving research aim
and each objective in successful manner.
Research Strategy: Interview has been selected as research strategy by researcher for
collecting and verifying data according to the topic of project (Piligrimienė, 2021). With the
strategies researcher aims to achieve objectives qualitatively.
Justification: By looking at the need of this research, researcher would choose survey
(Budianto, 2020). Interview is selected research instrument under survey because it will help in
getting information directly from individuals; they are free to give their opinions and views
related to the topic. With the assistance of interview, researcher asks open-ended questions from
different respondents.
 Time horizon: Time horizon refers to the time limit required by researcher to complete
and finish activities related to research in a efficient and effective way. It has two types of
horizon which is known as cross-sectional and longitudinal. These types of time horizon
help researcher to complete their investigation within a time. By analysing the need of
current research, investigator would take help of cross-sectional because it helps in
dividing time to each task and activity (Meyers, Jacobsen and Henderson, 2018). It is
vital in finishing investigation in effective manner and before time.
Data Collection: It is a type of strategy which is selected by investigator for assembling and
identifying relevant data according to the research topic. Investigator has to select best strategy
because outcomes of research are dependent on it. There are two types of data collection called
as primary and secondary data (Kozdrach, 2021). For the need of current project researcher
would take help of both primary and secondary data. For collecting primary data researcher
would select interview in which 1 manager and 4 employees as respondents from John Lewis
Partnership. In order to collect secondary data researcher would choose books and articles
through which information can be analysed deeply.
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Sampling: Sampling is a method through which investigator selects a small sample from the
available large population. It is impossible to analyse this whole large population, so it advisable
to select small proportion from this large group of population. Sampling has two kinds knows
and probability and non probability sampling. In terms of present research, non probability
sampling method is used by researcher because it helps in receiving opinions of respondents
directly in a real time. 1 manager and 4 employees would be chosen as participants for collecting
data to attain objectives of research. Managers and employees are chosen because they have
direct link to John Lewis Partnership and know about every activity going on in a company
(O'Brien and Pipkin, 2017). Members and employees are selected as respondents from John
Lewis because they have relevant and accurate knowledge regarding the organisation. Because
they are directly working with the organisation and they have maximum information regarding
the specific organisation. Main reason behind the selection of manger and employees for the
qualitative research is they accurate knowledge and understanding about the effectiveness of
employee retention practices of John Lewis Partnership (Jeffares, 2021). They are familiar with
the employee retention practices used by JLP for retaining employees at workplace for longer
time period.
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Chapter 4 RESULTS
This chapter is vital part of project because it provides assistance to researcher to take out
valid results. It accommodates in analysing primary and secondary data.
Analysis of information what manager has said:
The chosen manager of John Lewis Partnership said that employee retention is necessary
in organisations because it helps in continuing the operations and activities without any
disturbances. Manager believes that employees take organisation towards development and
success because their contribution is very significant. For this John Lewis considers different
type of retention practices that are used to retain employees within the organisation like
providing trainings, giving recognition, appreciating with rewards. These practices help in
holding employees in the organisation for the longer period of time. These retention practices
help employees to remain and work within John Lewis Partnership because they motivate and
improve the morale level of employees by fulfilling their expectations and requirements. All
these practices of retaining employees help in improving performance of organisation by
retaining qualified employees, reducing turnover of employees, reducing costs of recruitment
and so on. Manager believes that employees of John Lewis Partnership get benefited with the
practices of retention because they are provided with monetary benefits which make then
financially strong and while staying in the company they develop in their career by attending
different sessions of trainings. There are suggestions that are suggested to the higher authority of
John Lewis Partnership regarding employee retention that more number of monetary benefits
should be provided to employees because these monetary benefits hold more power of attracting
large number of employees.
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