Stay away from John Lewis Oxford Street - Selling Assistant John Lewis & Partners Employee Review

When I accepted my position I was looking forward to working at the renowned 'John Lewis Partnership' but I could not have been more wrong. I had to leave because I was miserable there and it was hugely affecting my quality of life. I would not wish it on anyone. The key cons: - Staff are miserable and overworked. Even when new Partners come in they can feel it in the department, some even saying that they wake up on the verge of tears at the thought of going into work, only 2 weeks after starting their job. The issues of morale were raised with the head of branch at the Annual General Meeting and yet none of our advice was taken on board. Also on several occasions staff within my department were in tears over emotional abuse from section managers. - Selling assistants are treated terribly, for example managers being told that there is no funding for air conditioning or even a plug-in fan when both staff and customers are fainting from the heat in a building with no open windows. - At a departmental level, managers are unqualified and incompetent. Higher management - including the head of the branch - do not do anything when you ask them, in person, to provide support to the departmental managers. - Hugely sexist environment. For example in my department any extra responsibilities (Connex, Lockers assignment, Rota/Bridge) were ALL given to male members of staff. In some cases they are approached and offered the position even though there are other staff members, some female who have twice as much experience. - Even though they boast great career progression, it takes years for selling partners to progress to management levels. This is likely influenced by the business's nature to be discriminatory and biased to those who do not fit the 'John Lewis' image. - For a 'Partnership' it is much the same as any other business in that partners are never consulted before changes are made across the business. This is understandable for most changes as Partners cannot vote on everything, but even in the case of major redundancies across the entire business, Partners were not even aware until after the decision was made.