Why can't Waitrose run our public services?

Now here is a blog about a real Employer Brand


On Christmas Eve, I succeeded in getting a rubbish skip removed; the driver, noticing a Waitrose wine case, said ‘Ah, you’re a Waitrose man’. I mentioned free delivery and competitive prices. `Fair enough’ he said, adding that three members of his family worked for them at Saxmundham; ‘they’re all happy – Waitrose is a good employer.’ When I said I was going there that afternoon, he said `say hello’ to his son Ben in the wine dept.

That visit gave me five positive experiences stemming from helpful advice given in a warm, spontaneous, natural spirit by people who really seemed to be enjoying their jobs. True, it was Christmas Eve, but that’s no guarantee of a benign, constructive response. I remember once doing a student job delivering drink, working with a driver who described the season as ‘nothing more than a f….g booze up ’.

So: why were they all so positive?

- they were working for a successful business – well, so are lots of big retailers but there was something else about working there;
- perhaps because, they are part owners of the business, Waitrose being part of the John Lewis Partnership?
- perhaps because there’s a greater sense of fairness with everyone getting the same percentage bonus on their basic salary? Plus rewards at the top, though handsome, are not at the stratospheric levels in other organisations;
- perhaps, being decently managed, they pass on that sense of decency and work as team players? With Waitrose employees bringing out the best in their customers and vice versa;
- With people like this most of us would think twice before raising a bad tempered voice – you don’t easily lose it with people doing their best. In any case the management's careful planning and implementation probably means there is little to cause rows. This is a disciplined place.

If I had to select the key Waitrose attributes they would be a) the basic human qualities of the people they recruit b) the sense I get that how Waitrose management behave is how they the partners want to behave c) the clarity and expectations of the actual employment experience and the confidence in the strategy on which it is based

As I drove home I wondered why more organisations don’t prompt me to feel this way. If Waitrose ran the railways, local government, education and health would not their employees and their customers be a lot happier? In addition I can think of several commercial businesses where the bedrock of the actual experience does not stand out for all it touches in the way it does here. If you need to spin your way to an Employer Brand you’ll never make it.

Simon Barrow 5th Jan 2011