Q: How did your organisation assist staff during the extended curfew?

All our staff are IT enabled with company email accounts and we also set up a WhatsApp group for team members.

As a result, we maintained clear and regular communication across the staff cadre during the curfew. From the onset, we reassured all our teams that their jobs and remuneration would be secure.

Furthermore, through multiple channels including webinars we continued to brief and educate staff and their families on the emerging COVID guidelines.

Senior managers and HR personnel kept in touch with staff to ensure that they and their families were safe. We used a WhatsApp group to facilitate staff engagement – again with families included – through many fun and engaging activities; for example, cookery, photography, singing and Vesak lantern competitions.

In addition, small time service provider staff were handed ex-gratia payments to compensate for their loss of income.

Q: In a nutshell, how has your organisation played a part in mitigating the impact of the COVID-19 crisis?

We initially briefed the Lion team about the necessary precautions towards the end of January.

Since then, we’ve been constantly briefing our staff about the necessary precautions and have made available to them the relevant safety gear (e.g. masks, hand sanitizers, gloves and so on).

During the lockdown period, we conducted many staff engagement programmes, which included spouses and children, in order to lift morale while people were observing the curfew.

Once the curfew was lifted and we reported back to work, Lion Brewery strictly followed the guidelines issued by the health authorities. This included pedal operated hand wash stations, sanitizers, foot baths, segregation of work groups, work and meal arrangements to facilitate physical distancing, temperature checks, regular disinfection of hand rails and table tops among other such initiatives.

All employees have been provided with door-to-door transport. Provision of safety gear and regular briefings are extended to all outsourced staff as well. In the first three following the reopening, we extended work from home (WFH) facilities as well to office staff.

Q: Has your organisation participated in any community assistance endeavours – and if so, could you outline them?

We worked with our trade partners to help them overcome COVID-19 related challenges. Prior to reopening, spaces were marked outside off-premise outlets to ensure physical distancing by shoppers.

All trade partners were briefed on health guidelines and best practices using multiple communication technologies including webinars. For this, we called on expert external resources during the webinars.

Our trade partners were also advised on financial and commercial best practices to follow in the post-COVID era via a webinar that included expert external resources.

As for general COVID-19 related CSR initiatives, we are unable to disclose them due to prevailing legislation governing the alco-bev industry.