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John Lewis’s chair, Jason Tarry, is to be paid more than £1.3m this year – about a fifth more than his predecessor, Sharon White – as he takes a more hands-on role.
The former Tesco executive, who joined the group that owns Waitrose and a fleet of department stores in September last year, earned £415,000 in his first four and a half months in the job, including benefits and pension payments.
That put him on a par with his predecessor, who earned £900,000 in basic pay and £1.1m including pension and other benefits, according to the annual report from the John Lewis Partnership (JLP) which the Guardian has seen.
However, the company said Tarry’s pay had been “adjusted” from 1 April this year so that it was “equalised to the amount paid to the chief executive officer to reflect the recalibration of the role”.
John Lewis’s last chief executive, Nish Kankiwala, who stepped down in March after two years in the role, is understood to have received between £1.3m and £1.35m in total remuneration last year, as the group’s highest paid director. The chief executive role no longer exists at the retailer.
That pay package was worth 53 times the average basic pay of a non-management John Lewis worker.
A JLP spokesperson said: “Following the merger of the CEO and chairman roles, the remuneration committee recommended aligning the chairman’s compensation with that of the CEO. This reflects the chairman’s expanded responsibilities in leading both the executive team and the partnership board.”
The bump in pay for Tarry comes as the company has increased hourly pay for workers who were given a 7.4% pay rise this year, to a minimum rate of £11.55 an hour. That rate of pay puts it behind major rivals such as Marks & Spencer.
The group also reduced the average number of people it employs by about 4,000 to 69,000 people last year, after a 3,500 reduction the year before, and skipped the bonus to workers for the fourth time in five years this March even after underlying annual profit rose from £42m to £126m.
The group is also cutting costs by limiting benefits, such as a discount card, for former workers and selling off its staff golf club.
From 31 August, any leavers with more than 15 years service will only retain their benefits for the same number of years they worked for the group. Until now, leavers must have accrued between 15 and 25 years’ service and met certain other criteria to receive a lifetime discount and access to the group’s staff hotels.
A JLP spokesperson said: “We’re changing our leavers benefits to enable us to more than double the number of our Partners who are eligible. We’re incredibly proud of this package, which rewards loyalty and goes well beyond those offered by competitors.”
The company is in the midst of a turnaround plan after diving to a loss during the Covid pandemic, when it was forced to close all stores during lockdowns.
It has pledged to open more Waitrose stores this year and invest in existing stores after closing 16 department stores and at least 20 Waitrose outlets and cutting thousands of head office jobs since the pandemic.
