Every employee is a partner, and every partner shares in the profit. It has operated this way since 1929.
In 1929, John Spedan Lewis transferred ownership of the department store business his father had founded to a trust held on behalf of all employees. The John Lewis Partnership became one of the largest employee-owned businesses in the world.1 Every employee, from warehouse staff to senior managers, holds the title of Partner and receives an annual share of the profits.
Spedan Lewis had observed his father’s business for years and concluded that the gap between the pay of the owners and the pay of the workers was both unjust and inefficient. He experimented with profit-sharing at the smaller Peter Jones store in London before extending the model to the entire enterprise.2 The Partnership’s constitution, first formalized in 1929 and revised in 1950, established that the business exists for the happiness of its members.
The Partnership operates John Lewis department stores and Waitrose supermarkets across the United Kingdom. Partners elect representatives to a Partnership Council that holds the chairman accountable, and a weekly internal publication, the Gazette, allows any Partner to raise questions anonymously that management must answer in print.3
In 2022, the annual bonus, a percentage of salary distributed equally to all Partners, was suspended for the first time since 1953.4 The model is not immune to market conditions. What it demonstrates is that a major retailer can operate for nearly a century under collective ownership, with transparent governance and shared returns, and remain a household name.