Joint Statement with USDAW on Coronavirus

We understand that many of our colleagues will be concerned about the developing situation of Coronavirus, which is now a global pandemic. You will have seen from previous communications that the Society is working tirelessly to put plans in place to help protect the safety and wellbeing of all colleagues while at work.

Our planning includes working closely with USDAW in our shared objective of protecting colleagues’ safety and wellbeing, as well as the long-term health of the Society and employment. Unfortunately, it is anticipated that the financial impact of Coronavirus on the wider economy will be significant. Although the Society is a large and robust business, we are already seeing a financial downturn in some areas due to weakening consumer confidence.  This is being felt in our Travel business, in particular, and could soon be a growing problem in Childcare if we are forced to temporarily close nurseries by the Government.

You may have heard on the news that some large businesses are taking drastic action now to reduce costs, including reducing pay and making redundancies. We have been working with USDAW to identify ways that we can hopefully avoid those steps. We see this as a temporary challenge and are determined to protect jobs in the long-term. We do not want to lose the skills of you, our exceptional colleagues, and plans are aimed at retaining you.

One of our strengths as a Society is our diversity of business groups. Whilst work may be reduced in some areas of our business it is growing in other Trading Groups such as Food, Healthcare and Funeralcare.  If Coronavirus spreads as it is anticipated to we can foresee a situation where many of our business that can continue to trade will be short on colleagues to provide the services we offer to our communities due to sickness absence.  Working with USDAW we are seeking to leverage opportunities to redeploy resource for the benefit of our colleagues and the communities we support.

Some of the things we have discussed with USDAW include deploying colleagues across different business groups where work is required, being smart with how we use annual leave, and inviting colleagues to consider unpaid leave or career breaks where it suits them. In some exceptional circumstances we may need to explore reducing hours and pay by mutual agreement in order to avoid redundancies.

It is really important that in these exceptional times, we work together to meet the challenges head on, support one another and provide an excellent service to our members and communities.  We commit to keeping you informed, working with you to find solutions by agreement and listening to ideas you have to help us through this period of uncertainty.

We will be issuing a Q&A document detailing how temporary redeployment will be managed tomorrow.

Clare Moore

Chief HR Officer