June 10, 2020
Target senior staff and the Board of Trustees would like to formally thank and acknowledge the tremendous efforts of our frontline staff and managers. They have worked tirelessly to find ingenious solutions to helping people with serious practical and mental health issues in very challenging circumstances. Hearing the many stories from managers and key-workers over the last two months really brings home that we have a workforce of truly amazing people.
A designated taskforce have collaborated with staff and managers across the organisation to develop comprehensive risk assessments and new operational policies and procedures. These are based upon the latest government guidelines around COVID-19 and cover all aspects of working safely to minimise the potential for staff exposure to and spread of the virus.
Whilst a small proportion of staff are unable to return to work due to pre-existing health conditions; the remaining workforce have unanimously agreed to follow the new guidelines and are making cautious steps towards increasing service delivery.
Where employees can effectively complete their roles from home, they will continue to do so.
Our aim is to strike a careful balance between essential support provision for our customers, whilst ensuring the safety of our staff and minimising the potential spread of the virus.
We continue to stress that staff must not come into work or remain at work if they have symptoms of COVID-19 and neither should they visit customers who have symptoms.
Where possible we continue to provide telephone support. However, many of our customers have complex needs that require face to face support and practical interventions. Our support staff are prioritising more frequent visits for those with the highest levels of need and risk.
We are steadily working through our backlog of routine repairs, as per the requirement for all social tenants.
However, please note that all of our offices remain closed to customers, partner agents and members of the public. Please continue to use telephone or email as the primary means of making contact.
We continue to stress that the 2m distance rule must remain in place wherever this is possible.
All of our offices have hand sanitiser at entry/exit points, distancing rules and clear signage regarding hygiene and hand washing. Attendance at each office is organised on a strict rota basis to ensure that those attending can easily maintain distancing requirements. All contact points and surfaces are disinfected following every use.
All support and maintenance staff are issued with PPE and hand sanitiser for the delivery of community support, in the event that customers breach the 2m distance rule or fail to disclose that they have symptoms.
We have introduced a number of measures to maintain staff communication and morale during this time of decreased contact with colleagues. Nearly half of our employees have experienced some level of decline in their mental wellbeing during the lockdown. However, recent survey results indicate that the majority of staff fell that Target is doing a good job of providing sufficient support, information and guidance.
