LAKEWOOD, Colo., March 13, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Over the past few
days, so many of you have been in our stores stocking up on all the
essential things you need to keep your families healthy.
We want you to know that your health is our priority.
We've always taken great pride in our clean and well-run stores,
and we know this is more important than ever right now. We were
recently rated as one of the cleanest grocery stores in America by
Consumer Reports. We are diligently focusing on these standards
even more so until the coronavirus passes. On top of our daily
cleaning procedures, we're adding new processes to make our
routines even more rigorous. This means more time will be spent
cleaning our stores, including cleaning commonly used areas more
often, including check-out-lanes, credit card terminals, conveyor
belts and cleaning shelves when restocking. During every shopping
cart collection we will be cleaning our shopping cart handles and
the child sitting area. Cashiers will be cleaning the handles of
our hand baskets prior to returning them to the hand basket area.
Additionally, we are providing cleaning wipes and/or sprays for
customers to use to clean their shopping carts or baskets. Many of
our stores already have hand sanitizer at the store's entrance;
those that don't will have it within two weeks. Like many others,
we're taking guidance from the CDC, which recommends regular
cleaning as one of the most important preventive measures we can
take.
Commitment to our good4u Crew is one of our Five Founding
Principles. We have never penalized Crew for calling out sick and
we're encouraging sick Crew to stay home. We have always provided
our Crew with paid sick leave via our Paid Time Off policy, whereby
Crew members accumulate PTO banks that can be used to cover time
away from work. Additionally, we will be providing up to 2 weeks of
paid leave to all Crew (both full-time and part-time) if they are
diagnosed with COVID-19 or if they are placed under mandatory
quarantine by public health authorities. If a Crew member is unable
to return to work after that, additional pay replacement may be
provided for up to an additional 12 weeks under our short-term
disability benefit.
We have provided and continue to provide our Crew with up-to-the
moment guidance, information and immune supporting health tips so
they can keep themselves and their families as healthy as possible.
All store Crew at their discretion are being provided with a daily
packet of NOW effervescent vitamin C to help support their immune
system. We are also limiting travel to business-essential travel
only.
Our Crew is working diligently to make sure that the products
you want are available when you need them. As demand for cleaning
products, supplements, pantry stock-up items, toilet paper and more
remains high we are asking that you purchase only what you need and
do not horde products. This will help support the health and
wellbeing of our communities. During times of community-spread
illness, it is critical for our communal health that all people can
find the products they need to support their health and the health
of their families. This is not possible if a few people
purchase more than they need.
Our company was founded to help improve the health and wellbeing
of our communities and help all our families to thrive. We are
working hard to take care of our Crew and to keep our stores clean,
stocked and open so that we can be there for you and your
family.
The Isely Family
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SOURCE Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage, Inc.