Need to know
For #TeamEEAST Last updated: 18 May 2024 at 11:55
Video transcript:
Hello colleagues,
Sadly we have lost two more of our dearly beloved colleagues to COVID in the last week. Neil Ruch, who was from our Thurrock station. I know all his colleagues are so saddened by his loss. He had worked with us for a number of years.
Also we have lost Barry Petts who worked with us from 2000 as a volunteer driver. Barry was actually in isolation and sadly died last week. I want to offer our condolences and our sympathies to the families and friends but also to you colleagues, as I know you are feeling it and it is really tough.
In terms of where we are now, we know that the Prime Minister came out yesterday again and gave us some more guidance around what would be opening in the coming weeks. That gives us an opportunity here to review our processes and how we’ve been working, in particular folks working from home or working differently so we will be reviewing that and I will come back to you with more detail. For the moment it is stay put and I just want to give you that confidence that we are not going to be forcing anyone to do anything unrealistic, against their will or their fears, or whatever, but we need just to do it in a measured way. That is terribly important. What we know is that COVID is going to go on for some time and your safety is paramount – that is what’s key – so I will come back to you on that.
Next week we have the CFR conference. It is going to be a virtual conference. We’ve put a lot of work into it because we want to respect all our colleagues who have been helping us out tremendously. It was the date we put in the diary for the conference was next week. I wanted to meet that because last year when we had the conference we said there were a lot of key things that needed to be addressed and a lot of things have happened since so it is quite exciting to be able to come back and share those and to say ‘look we heard you, we listened. There are the things that are done. These are the things to do’. I know recently we did a survey with CFR colleagues and basically there was a lot of information there also for us to work on. So I’m really looking forward to that. It will be taped and available for people to view.
There have been a few incidents over the last couple of weeks and Datixs raised on abuse. In particular verbal abuse and I want you to know that absolutely you do not have to tolerate that. We are completely behind you. It is atrocious and something that we as an organisation feel very strongly about. As the public begin to move around and we know parties and drink and various things can lead to some poor behaviours but I want you to know it is not to be tolerated and certainly we will take appropriate action, where necessary.
I will be back in touch with you in the next couple of days. In the meantime, stay safe, social distancing, and continue to do what you do because you are doing a fantastic job.
Thank you.
Dorothy Hosein, Chief Executive
Published 26th May 2020