Hema alludes to a move to label staff as ‘essential’ in an emergency | Financial

The cabinet announced on Tuesday that employees with an essential profession do not have to quarantine after a corona case in the immediate vicinity, provided these employees do not have corona complaints themselves. The government did not provide a well-defined list of occupations, which means that in fact any employer can designate certain tasks as essential. To do this, they must agree with the works council (or) which business processes are essential.

Hema is mainly considering labeling employees of distribution centers, such as drivers or technicians, as essential. But there have been no discussions with the OR about this yet. In the worst case scenario, the department store chain could even label the work of store employees as essential, a spokeswoman says. At the same time, she emphasizes that this is “not desirable”.

“Shopping safe is always a priority. Suppose we really run into problems with the occupation, then we will discuss it with the works council. But it is far from that and there are many other solutions first,” said the spokeswoman. Hema mentions the exchange of personnel between stores and adjusted opening hours as examples of interventions that are more obvious.

Sick leave

Retail chains are faced with higher absenteeism due to the rapid spread of the omikron variant of the virus, especially now that they can open longer. Wibra reports a doubling of absenteeism due to illness in the last two weeks. Also at Mirage Retail, parent company of Blokker and Intertoys, among others, absenteeism is clearly higher than normal. But for the time being, HR director Michel Koppen does not want more flexible quarantine rules for certain employees.

“We also have problems with the occupation in the stores. You can then stretch that line and say that everyone is essential, but that’s not how I interpreted it. I think it concerns the professions that were critical from the start of the pandemic, such as a train driver, nurse or teacher,” says Koppen. “It’s rowing with the oars you have.”

Action does not want to label tasks within the company as essential, because the company does not want an exceptional position. According to a spokesperson, MediaMarkt will not do that for the time being, also because the electronics chain does not yet have a detailed policy for this.

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