JoJo Maman Bébé has been reopening its stores, using lessons learned on social distancing from ‘test’ stores that are already open.
The boutique pregnancy, baby and child brand employs 990 people in 94 stores across the UK and Ireland. Changes will include reduced teams and opening hours, a click and collect counter and fewer customers in store.
Laura Tenison, Founder of JoJo Maman Bébé said: “We opened stores cautiously, which started with a phased schedule. We carried out a risk assessment in 10 test stores to trial our approach, before rolling the plan out to the entire portfolio.
These 10 boutique stores are already open and trading via ‘ship from store’ and ‘click and collect’. Another 26 opened on 17 June, and the rest over the following weeks. This means all stores, with two members of full-time staff in each store per day and reduced opening hours will be open by mid-July. Each store will carry out its own risk assessment and daily checklist of the health and safety measures put in place before opening to the public.
We employed a phased return and introduced key measures to ensure the safety of our teams and customers. It’s important that we continue to review government guidelines each week, in order to revise our training programmes and health and safety risk assessments.”
These measures include:
- Installing sanitation points (hand and cleaning equipment).
- Providing a one-way system where possible and floor markings to remind people to stay at a safe distance as per Government guidance.
- Installing signs to remind customers of the rules on the door and around the store and ensuring staff are assisting visually impaired and disabled customers.
- Requesting that customers wear supplied gloves or reduce the amount of merchandise they touch.
- Requesting that children don’t touch items in the shops and stay in prams or hold their parents’ hands.
- Holding customer returns in quarantine in accordance with Government guidelines.
- Cleaning all touch points 3 times a day.
- Permitting customers into the store on a ‘one in, one out’ basis, with maximum customer numbers instore dictated by the team and individual situations.
- Preventing customer use of changing rooms or toilets (unless in an emergency).
- Asking customers to leave click and collect items on the counter as team stand back before processing.
- Introducing a locked door procedure to control customer flow.
The government has published COVID-19 secure guidance to support businesses to reopen and for workers to feel confident, safe and empowered to return to work.
If you run a business and would like to know which of the coronavirus support schemes you are eligible for, you can use the business support finder tool. It takes just minutes to complete and will help you easily find support for your business.
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