Thank you, business update, key worker status, pay review, colleague welfare
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Published 22 Mar 2020 in Things that matter to you
Colleague Comms – Sunday 22 March
1. Teamwork & Colleague Feedback
2. Business update
- Adapting to an ever-changing situation
3. Actions required
- Key worker status
- Pay review April 2020
- Colleague welfare
Thank you to all colleagues
Over the last few days many of us have been working to help other colleagues out in loads of different ways. That may mean working different shifts, doing different jobs or working at different sites.
We’ve had some great feedback from some of you and thought it’d be great to share it.
Business update.
We continue to be very busy and continue to see additional demand across all our food stores in particular. We are considering at our daily steering group meetings how each of our operational groups can adapt to continue serve our communities well. Many of these suggestions have come from you, as well as from our members. Those changes that have now been implemented include the dedicated hours for senior citizens, implementing social distancing measures within food stores, and delivering virtual ceremonies within our Funeral business. These, and many other changes, are making a real difference.
In addition following the FastTrack recruitment efforts, it is great to see that we now have new colleagues in food stores to help our teams in these challenging times. We’ve now further extended this approach to both our Healthcare and Funeral teams.
3. Actions required
Key worker status.
Further to the Government’s announcement that schools and educational settings are closing in light of the Covid-19 outbreak. The Government has asked that, where possible, they remain open for children whose parents are employed in key worker roles.
As such, The Midcounties Co-operative is a community-owned co-operative society, which operates several businesses. Those parts of our business which are dependent upon colleagues within the Government’s critical workers list are: Food retail, Post Office, Healthcare, Childcare, Funeral care, and Utilities.
Therefore, any colleague who is currently working in one of those businesses, this includes any Travel colleague who has been redeployed, or work in our support services which are integral to the continued operations of those businesses, fall under the Governments guidance on Key worker status.
Letters, specifically identifying you as a key worker are being sent to site managers to hand to you. We are working to get these to you as soon as possible and will be available before Monday.
If you do have a child in a nursery, school or college and you want them to continue to attend, you should show the letter to the appropriate person at the school once received.
Pay review April 2020
Following the Pay Review announcement published on 4 March, which can be read here this has now been agreed.
However, as communicated earlier at this time the removal of premium pay has been suspended. This has been actioned in recognition of the valuable contribution that our colleagues are making at this challenging time.
Colleague welfare.
We published a few days ago on Colleague Connect hints and tips to ensure that you are staying healthy. These are here and I would ask that everyone reads them please. We want to ensure we are doing everything we can to help you at this time, and there’s some good advice if that article. 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 last week, it is appreciated 😊
John Street
Coronavirus Co-ordinator