Be Safe: Dufry´s Glob­al in-Store Coro­n­avirus Pro­to­col

One of the key el­e­ments go­ing for­ward and dur­ing the re­cov­ery phase, will be health and safe­ty for all our em­ploy­ees and cus­tomers alike. In par­tic­u­lar for cus­tomers, the im­pres­sion and the cer­tain­ty of shop­ping in a safe en­vi­ron­ment is key for them, to en­joy an at­trac­tive and re­laxed shop­ping ex­pe­ri­ence. To ef­fec­tive­ly pro­mote a healthy work­place and shop­ping en­vi­ron­ment we ab­solute­ly need to work to­geth­er and join ef­forts.

As a com­pa­ny, we all share the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to our cus­tomers, who rely on us to main­tain a clean en­vi­ron­ment – now in par­tic­u­lar! Due to the na­ture of our busi­ness, we meet peo­ple from the four cor­ners of the world, hence, safe­ty and pro­tec­tive mea­sures are vi­tal­ly im­por­tant.

In this con­text, Dufry has put to­geth­er the Dufry Group Coro­n­avirus in-store Pro­to­col, which pro­vides guide­lines and rec­om­men­da­tions to pro­tect the health & safe­ty of our em­ploy­ees and their fam­i­lies as well as cus­tomers, busi­ness part­ners and oth­er stake­hold­ers with whom we are in close con­tact. The pro­to­col is ac­ces­si­ble through this URL and we high­ly rec­om­mend read­ing it, as well as shar­ing it with oth­er col­leagues.

Why a protocol?

Be­yond the duty of care and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that Dufry has over all em­ploy­ees, be they in shops, of­fices or ware­hous­es, there was a spe­cial need to de­vel­op some min­i­mum rec­om­men­da­tions that ap­plied to all em­ploy­ees, re­gard­less of their ge­o­graph­i­cal lo­ca­tion.

This pro­to­col is based in the rec­om­men­da­tions is­sued by in­ter­na­tion­al health bod­ies, such as the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) and in­dus­try best prac­tices. How­ev­er, and in this case more than ever, one size does not fit all, and this pro­to­col should al­ways be aligned and en­hanced with rec­om­men­da­tions and guide­lines is­sued by the lo­cal au­thor­i­ties, which may re­quire dif­fer­ent ap­proach­es.

The pro­to­col com­ple­ments oth­er mea­sures adopt­ed, in­clud­ing the re­vi­sion of all our house­keep­ing and clean­ing pro­ce­dures to en­sure our work­places are reg­u­lar­ly san­i­tized, the lim­i­ta­tion of cus­tomers in store, the pro­vi­sion of al­co­hol and clean­ing points across the store or ad­just­ments need­ed at tills and point of sale for ex­am­ple, just to men­tion a few.

For whom

Al­though the rec­om­men­da­tions in­clud­ed in the pro­to­col are valid for every­one, it in­cludes spe­cif­ic rec­om­men­da­tions for our sales staff and for brand am­bas­sadors serv­ing in our stores. With over 2,400 shops in 65 coun­tries, that need­ed to be the first area to be ad­dressed. Sim­i­lar pro­to­cols are be­ing de­signed for of­fices and ware­hous­es in align­ment with the rec­om­men­da­tions of the lo­cal health bod­ies to en­sure we pro­vide safe work­spaces to all our em­ploy­ees.

Care. Showcase. Efficiency

At this point, it is clear that op­er­a­tion of our shops will change. The so-called so­cial dis­tanc­ing will be a chal­lenge for our cus­tomers and our staff alike. Build­ing trust with our cus­tomers will be key and our cus­tomers need to per­ceive we care for them. Care, Show­case and Ef­fi­cien­cy, the three guid­ing prin­ci­ples of ONE­DUFRY that in­spired how our ac­tiv­i­ties need to be car­ried out, are now more rel­e­vant than ever when it comes to adopt­ing this pro­to­col. The ob­ser­vance of the guide­lines and rec­om­men­da­tions made has the dou­ble ef­fect of pro­tect­ing not only our­selves, but also and demon­strat­ing to our cus­tomers that they can trust us and de­pend on us, whilst we con­tin­ue to provid­e­qual­i­ty ser­vice and shops.

Sharing is caring

This pro­to­col is be­ing cascad­ed to all our front­line col­leagues. Main rec­om­men­da­tions are to be re­in­forced dur­ing the sev­er­al staff meet­ings that take place in all op­er­a­tions. At the same time, com­mu­ni­ca­tions in the form of posters and stick­ers and us­ing the in-store screens, will be placed in our stores to en­cour­age and re­mind em­ploy­ees – and cus­tomers – to take all the ex­tra pre­cau­tions as ad­vised.. The in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed is de­signed to be easy to read and in­cludes clear graph­ics and di­a­grams.