Important news on Colleague Discounts & Global Innovation Coop Summit
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Published 26 May 2023 in Phil's blog
Important news on colleague discounts
As promised last week in my monthly colleague Q&A session , I am pleased to confirm that the enhanced colleague discount programme will be extended from the end of June 2023 to the end of the financial year on 27th January 2024 to help all colleagues with the ongoing cost of living challenges. We know that the enhanced discounts have provided valuable support to you and your families.
You will continue to enjoy a 20% discount on your food shopping, save up to £500 on Your co-op travel holidays, save up to 60% off Childcare and continue to save on broadband services. Details of these and all other colleague benefits can be found here.
In addition, we are working hard to introduce new technology that will enable us to deliver more enriched member deals from September onwards. Not only will this technology make it easier for us to provide more offers in a more intuitive and streamlined way it will also eliminate unintended overlapping benefits while ensuring that you continue to receive the single best deals on your food shopping.
I hope you share in our excitement about this positive development and that it makes a meaningful difference.
Food Retail Roadshows
I had the pleasure of joining the Senior Retail team on Wednesday and Thursday this week at three Roadshows to brief food store managers on progress and plans. The sessions on Thursday were held at the Swindon Steam Museum which is an historic venue showcasing the history of steam trains and was well worth a visit.
I was asked to give an update on the broader Society and how our businesses are doing and meeting the challenges ahead. It was also pleasing to congratulate the food managers and central teams on a great start to the year in driving sales and topping the national Co-op league tables for like-for-like growth. I asked Managers to focus even more on ensuring our colleagues ask customers for their membership cards and to ensure a greater participation from colleagues in completing the Pulse Survey which was highlighting a more positive level of satisfaction amongst the retail teams. Managers were able to ask me questions and these sessions were really great with lots of different questions posed.
Global Innovation Coop Summit colleague competition– take part
This week we launched our Global Innovation Coop Summit competition, providing an opportunity for one lucky colleague to win a place and represent our Society at the Summit taking place in Montreal, Canada from the 27th – 29th September 2023.
Providing a fantastic chance to network with different cooperative enterprises from across the globe, you may recall, at last year’s Global Innovations Coop Summit in Paris, I attended alongside a few of our young co-operators. However, this year the competition is open to all colleagues.
The theme at the summit is ‘Act Now to lead a circular and digital future, the Co-operators way’, and we have Pete Westall, Chief Values Officer, and Michaela Cryar, Head of Younity, both attending and speaking at the summit on behalf of the Society. Aiming to inspire, promote, and foster the development of cooperative enterprises around the globe, we are challenging colleagues to answer our question around UK Co-ops and how they can help us build a fairer, more sustainable and ethical future.
I really encourage colleagues to consider entering the competition this year and share ideas to help our Society continue to make the lives of our members and colleagues less complicated and more rewarding in their day to day.
The competition closes at midnight - Thursday 29th June, so to enter and find out more click here.
Celebrating long service - Carol Jones 35 year LSA award at Copthorne Food
Last week I had the chance to catch up with Copthorne Food colleague, Carol Jones who celebrated her 35-year service with Midcounties. It was a pleasure to attend and hear your stories from across the years.
A big well done and congratulations on your hard work and dedication in reaching this significant milestone Carol.
Presenting Carol Jones at Copthorne Food with her 35-year service award
Fairer Living Festival & AGM highlights and colleague competition winner
Finally, after an incredible Fairer Living Festival & AGM we selected a colleague winner as part of our competition prize draw a few weeks ago. A big well done to Georgia Baker, Finance Business Partner in Finance services, enjoy your vouchers!
Plus, if you missed the day, have a look at some of the fantastic highlights including our Year in Review and panel session videos here.
Congratulations to Georgia Baker, Finance Business Partner on winning in our Fairer Living Festival & AGM colleague competition!
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