Thank you, Colleague Protection, HR Policies & #TeamMC

Thank you, Colleague Protection, HR Policies & #TeamMC

Summary:

1. Thank you to all colleagues

2. Actions required

• Colleague protection

• HR policies

• #TeamMC

 

1. Thank you to all colleagues

We continue to get some really great feedback on the work that everyone is doing to help our members, our customers and, of course, each other. We’ve received thanks yesterday from a Co-op Academy for the help they got from colleagues at The Phone Co-op, managing to get 40 mobile phones to them at very short notice to ensure youngsters with special needs can continue to keep in touch with teachers during the school closure.
I always want to say a huge thank you to all involved with converting the Budgen’s Broadway store to a Co-op over the last 24 hours – great effort at the best of times, but particularly impressive given everything else going on at the moment!

2. Actions required

- Colleague Protection

The safety and protection of all our colleagues continues to be the number one concern of the Executive Steering group and actions we are taking to do this are reviewed on a daily basis.  All our trading Groups have taken appropriate measures to help colleagues and customers, including arrangements for

• Increased cleaning (with additional materials allocated)

• Further allocations of sanitiser

• Ensuring arrangements made for increased colleague hand washing

• Ensuring measures taken to implement social distancing at pay points

• Restrictions in food to limit the number of customers in-store at any one time

• Delivery driver protocol 

Obviously, these measures will be different depending upon which group you work in.

Can I ask that each and every one of us knows what the measures are for the Group or site they are currently working in, recognising that many of us are working in a different group at present to our normal one.

We’re also continually reviewing what else we can do to help protect everyone, and we’ll continue to focus on this and to make sure you are aware of the latest actions taken.

HR Policy Updates

We want to ensure that we continue to provide you with support, and to act on your feedback. To help that, we’ve introduced one new HR Policy and amended an existing one, with immediate effect.

If you are deemed “extremely vulnerable”, you should not come into work.

The Government have announced that they will be writing this week to around 1.5 million people in the UK who they class as “Extremely vulnerable” and who therefore should stay at home for 12 weeks. Any colleague in that group will need to provide a copy of the letter received to HR. The easiest way to do that is either to take a picture on your phone or, if you have the facility at home, to scan it to the HR advice line here hr.advice@midcounties.coop

For colleagues in that category, once you have exhausted your sick pay, we will continue to pay you full pay until the end of your 12 week isolation period. We will then review our ongoing approach with individuals at the end of the 12-week term.

If a member of your household receives that letter and you consider you need to be off work during this period to help, then please contact the HR advice line on 01926 516 469, and we will consider on an individual basis, depending upon particular circumstances.   

 

Additional Sick Pay

We have amended the sick pay policy with immediate effect, to ensure we can support those who have had to self-isolate for 14 days.

If you have less than 1 years’ service, but over 1 month’s service, you will temporarily be eligible for 1 week’s sick pay if you are required to self-isolate.

If you have between 1 and 2 years’ service, you will temporarily be eligible for an additional 1 weeks sick pay, which will top up your entitlement to 2 weeks for use in cases of self-isolation.

This policy has been agreed as a temporary measure in light of the present situation, but is subject to review. Any colleague who has used up their sick pay for the year or who has concerns should review the FAQ’s here first, and then contact the HR advice line if still necessary.

#TeamMC

We want to celebrate the great team Midcounties spirit that we have and encourage mutual support. One of the ways we want to celebrate that is to ask you to post a picture of yourself and/or their team on their trading group’s internal Facebook pages with their thumbs up. We’d like you to accompany it with one sentence outlining why you’ve given yourselves, your team or a team member a ‘thumbs up’ today along with the hashtag #TeamMC. This could be some great feedback you’ve had for going above and beyond or something you’ve done to help the community that you’re proud of or just the welcome news that all of your team is fit and healthy. If you don’t have access to Facebook you can email us at thumbsup@midcounties.coop. Our President, Helen Wiseman, will be launching this later today and we’ll start sharing these from tomorrow.

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