ASDA message Anthony

self-isolating? anyone shopping on your behalf can use your colleague discount card

29 March 2020

After what has been another fast moving week as we continue to react to the challenges of the coronavirus outbreak, I wanted to thank you all once again for you and your teams’ incredible support and hard work. At the moment, we are reacting to new situations every day, but you have risen to this challenge brilliantly. Reflecting on the week and going into the weekend, there are a few things I wanted to share with you.

Firstly, we know what a worrying time this is for our colleagues and it’s important that they know we are absolutely committed to protecting both their health and the health of our customers. I keep saying this but please time take to reassure them that we are doing everything we can to keep them safe. Listen to individual concerns and respond to these pragmatically where you can, whether that’s allowing more time for colleagues to wash their hands or increasing the frequency of tannoys, it will show them that we are listening,

We have sent supplies of hand sanitiser and gloves to the vast majority of stores and there are now only a handful of shops who haven’t received a delivery. Going forward, this will be much easier to track as we’ll use ToYou. In the meantime, if you haven’t managed to find your allocation please make it a priority to locate it. If you can’t, feed this back through your SD. Screens for our checkouts are also now rolling out and feedback has been great. The plan is to complete this rollout over the next 10 days and I hope this will provide some added reassurance for our colleagues on checkouts.

My next point is on grocery home shopping. We are expecting to have more information very shortly from the government about how we can support our elderly and vulnerable customers who are self-isolating. The central team have been staying very close to government on this, so we can make sure we are doing all we can. At the same time, as we continue to see unprecedented demand for delivery and click and collect spots, we are also working hard to increase our overall home shopping capacity so we can support as many people as possible.

Finally, looking forward as we head towards April and settle into our new way of operating, we will need to understand the impact on our daily sales pattern, what this could mean for trading hours and how we get ready for Easter trade. I don’t have to tell you that this will, of course, look very different this year.

Thank you for all you are doing, stay safe and here are some other updates from today….

Social distancing

Thank you to everyone who has worked so quickly to deliver and comply to the social distancing measures we put into stores this week. These measures are keeping our colleagues and customers as safe as possible. We must make sure that we continue to comply with all the social distancing guidance exactly as communicated in the Coronavirus Update and in Newsflash.  Please continue to speak to your colleagues in store, explaining that these measures will help maintain their health and well-being. As we work to open more booking slots and train more Drivers, it is essential that we are all ready to support our Grocery Home Shop teams and focus on serving online deliveries to our vulnerable customers

Sunday exclusive NHS worker hour

Last night we communicated that we would be opening our stores in England and Wales at 9am-10am, regardless of your usual store opening time, to exclusively serve NHS workers. There has been some further legal guidance and the above direction has changed. You must now open your store one hour before your usual Sunday opening time, exclusively for NHS workers, for browsing only. You must not serve anyone through your checkouts until your usual opening time. You are no longer required to plan additional checkout cover for this hour. We have created a printable A4 poster and attached it to the Coronavirus Update for you to help communicate this to your customers.

Additional security cover

If you are already receiving additional security cover, we have arranged for this cover to be extended until next Friday (3rd).  Always have one Asda colleague preferably a Section Leader supporting on the Front Door process.

British summertime begins

On Saturday 28th March, the clocks will go forward by one hour. Ensure your colleagues swipe correctly for all shifts on Saturday 28th March and Sunday 29th March. Colleagues can still swipe on either clock like any normal night. The Workbrain clocks will automatically go forward one hour at 1:00am to 2:00 am on Sunday 29th March morning. City will ensure the main store and car park lighting is adjusted accordingly but all car park and store lighting will be adjusted automatically.

Easter egg reduction

We have taken price action to reduce 10 lines on Saturday 28th March on selected chocolate Easter eggs and we will be relaxing the buy 3 limit. There is a store printable barker and a full list of affected lines attached to the Coronavirus Update.

Colleague discount card

If you fall into the group of individuals who have been identified as being ‘extremely vulnerable’ or live with someone in this group, or you're a vulnerable colleague or currently self-isolating then we'd like to reassure you that anyone shopping on your behalf can use your colleague discount card. Just make sure they're only buying what you need and that they're fully up-to-speed on the social distancing steps they need to take while shopping. 

 

GMB North West & Irish Region