Thank You, Survive to Revive & Bright Future

Thank you

We know that you are doing an incredible job, going above and beyond to help our members, customers and fellow colleagues, whilst adapting to this ever-changing and challenging time. We continue to be grateful for all you’re doing, thank you.

 

Survive to Revive

As the country transitions from lockdown as we know it to a new phase, which sees more people back on the move, businesses reopening and some Children returning to education, it’s just as important now as it was previously to ensure that we remain focused on providing a safe environment for both colleagues and customers.

Therefore, in line with our existing survive plans we continue to focus on ensuring that the six key areas relating to safety are reviewed and updated, making sure that they continue to be both best practice and in line with any changes to Government advice.

The six key areas:

• Our policies

• Training

• Equipment

• Communication to colleagues & customers

• Compliance

• Feedback from customers & colleagues

 

Groups have been taking appropriate actions in all areas, reviewing and introducing new policies where required, putting training plans in place for all colleagues, including returning colleagues covering new procedures, maintaining provision of PPE, refreshing the in-store communications to customers, conducting site audits to review compliance and regularly evaluating customer and colleagues’ feedback, which has been captured through contact centres, surveys and the recently reconvened colleague councils, acting as required.

As a reminder, details of the PPE, Social distancing and cleaning procedures for your group can be found under the Colleague & Customer Protection information in the coronavirus section on Colleagues Connect, which can be accessed here.

In line with our strategy of Survive, Revive and Thrive the Executive and trading groups have been developing plans on how we recover, how best to accelerate business growth and trading activity in the coming weeks and months.  These plans are being shared with the Leadership team this coming Friday and we will update you more on this in due course.  

 

Bright Future Achieves Co-operative Status!

In 2017, we were one of the first 10 businesses to be involved with the Bright Future programme, partnering with City Hearts, which provides paid work placement and job opportunities for those who have been rescued from modern slavery.

Modern Slavery refers to any form of forced human exploitation for labour or service, such as human trafficking and forced labour. Unfortunately, slavery still exists today in over 130 countries. It is estimated that over 24.9 million people across the globe are victims of modern-day slavery. Click here to view our Modern Slavery statement.

Bright Future has now helped hundreds of modern slavery survivors regain control of their lives! The success of the programme has led to it becoming an independent co-operative in its own right.

Co-op Midcounties are one of the founding partners and will be taking a seat on the board.  We are delighted by this great news and look forward to continuing to drive sustainable change

Find out more about Bright Future by clicking here.

 

Thumbs Up #TeamMC 👍

We want you to share a picture of yourself and/or your team with your thumbs up and include a sentence outlining why you’ve given yourself, your team or a team member a ‘thumbs up’ today, along with the hashtag #TeamMC.

E.g. it could be some great customer feedback you’ve had for going above and beyond. Or something you’ve done to help the community that they’re proud of. Or just that the team is Okay.

You can share these either on your group's Facebook groups or by simply sending it to thumbsup@midcounties.coop

We will be posting regular Thumbs Up montages on the homepage of Colleagues Connect, so remember to log on and be reminded of what makes our Society so great, our colleagues. You can also take the chance to give them a pat on the back yourself by commenting on the post.

Check out the latest update here.

 

We want to ensure we are doing everything we can to help you at this time, and if you have any further ideas or comments then please, let us know using the comments section below or via your line manager. Thank you again for all YOUR efforts, it is appreciated.

John Street

Coronavirus Co-ordinator