John Lewis has said it will pay full sick pay to its staff, regardless of Covid vaccination status.
The department store giant informed workers they will receive sick pay whether they've had the Covid vaccine or not.
People who have not had a jab must self-isolate for 10 days even if they do not test positive, under current government rules.
John Lewis group operations director, Andrew Murphy, took to LinkedIn to make the announcement.
In a post, he wrote: "We’re conscious that some businesses have changed their sick pay policy with regard to unvaccinated employees in some Covid related absence scenarios. At the John Lewis Partnership we’re not going to make any change of this type.
"We’re hugely supportive of the UK vaccination programme (we give ‘free’ time off to all Partners to get their vaccination and we've provided our Bracknell sports hall to the NHS as a vaccination centre since the very start of the jab roll-out, providing 160,000 jabs).
"We just don’t believe it’s right to create a link between a Partner’s vaccination status and the pay they receive. Leadership teams from every business have had to work incredibly hard to navigate the Covid years. There has been no map, guidebook or training programme to help anyone find the best way through.
"Very often, there's just a choice between a range of unappealing options. We cast no judgement on the decisions of any other organisation, in fact we've enjoyed how united businesses - retailers especially - have been in the face of these huge corporate and societal challenges.
"However, when life increasingly seems to present opportunities to create division - and with hopes rising that the pandemic phase of Covid may be coming to an end - we're confident that this is the right approach for us."
It comes as IKEA, Next and Ocado introduced sickness policies that differentiate between vaccinated and unvaccinated workers.
Ben Willmott, head of public policy at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), said: "You would have to manage it on a case-by-case basis because of legal risks"
