Leading employers back vaccine rollout campaign

Employers involved in the drive - including Asda, Slimming World, Metro Bank, Santander, Nationwide Building Society, Severn Trent and Merlin Entertainments - have committed to offering flexibility for staff receiving the vaccine during working hours and to signpost staff to NHS advice on vaccination. Companies have also committed to giving paid time off for employees, in addition to providing sick pay for the minority who experience minor side effects like fever or a headache. 

In order to  galvanise  more  leading businesses and employers , LinkedIn  has also  committed resources  and free advertising  to help target  CEOs and directors to  support their staff and encourage employees to get both vaccine  doses by signposting to the government’s Employers Toolkit.

Amazon remains focused on boosting its voluntary COVID-19 testing capabilities for employees’ PCR tests at its new laboratory in Greater Manchester, which supports employee health and enables the online retailer to identify new variants and convey the data with Public Health England once the lab is approved for sequencing.

John Boumphrey, Amazon’s UK country manager said, "Amazon employees receive paid time off to get vaccinated so they can continue to keep themselves, their colleagues and their communities safe. Additionally, working closely with local health authorities, we have also hosted vaccination clinics at several of our sites across the country.

"Since the onset of the global pandemic, Amazon’s number one priority has been the health and safety of employees, and our internal COVID-19 testing programme is just one of over 150 safety measures introduced to help keep our people safe. More recently we enhanced our testing facilities and launched variant analysis to help support health authorities in fighting the virus."

Adam Firby, HR director at Molson Coors Beverage Company said, "Since the very start of this pandemic we’ve put the health and wellbeing of our employees first. We continue to strongly encourage our people to get both jabs when invited to do so and to support people in the right way.

"We’ve been providing trusted information on vaccines through our internal communications, ensuring people have the flexibility to attend vaccine appointments and continuing to pay everyone 100% of their salary – whether they need a day or so to recover from a first jab or need to isolate because they’ve come into close contact with someone with Covid."