In its latest Covid-19 Update sent to Everyday Rewards customers on 30 July, Woolworths CEO Brad Banducci said: “It is now clear that accelerating the rate of vaccination in Australia is key to protecting our communities and loved ones and the easing of restrictions. It is also essential to ensuring our teams are able to continue to provide food to Australian communities – something they do with pride every day.
“This is why we are advocating for all our teams to be vaccinated as soon as possible – as and when supply allows – and remain committed to playing our part in supporting vaccination efforts across the broader community wherever we can.”
Woolworths has been working with the State and Federal Governments, as well as other food retailers to understand how the retailer can speed up the vaccine rollout for its team members working in food distribution centres and stores. These are the current actions the retailer is taking:
- Establishing pop-up vaccination clinics at key food-related distribution centres in south west Sydney with assistance from the Federal Government, to provide teams working onsite access to vaccines.
- Store teams in the five most-affected LGAs in south west Sydney are now able to secure early appointments with help from the NSW Government at the nearby Homebush Vaccination Centre.
- Providing up to eight hours of paid leave for full-time and part-time team members to receive their vaccination.
“These are important steps in helping protect our team so they can continue to provide food for all Australians. As always, I would like to express my deep gratitude to all our frontline teams and ask that you join me in treating them with respect,” Mr Banducci said.
“I’d also like to thank you for your role in keeping us all safe when you shop in our stores. Whether via checking in with a QR code, social distancing or completing your shop as efficiently as you can. We have many ways to support this, so please click here to find out more.
“We will continue to update you on what we are doing to support our teams being vaccinated and other critical Covid-related actions as things evolve,” Mr Banducci concluded.