Marczyk Fine Foods, and adjoining wine shops, enforce the following:
We required masks to be worn by all in our buildings even before the city or state mandated same. Early on, when masks could be found nowhere, we reached out immediately to our customers to see if anyone could make them for us. Not only could they, but masks arrived by the hundreds, from as far away as our Amish farmers in Ohio! We passed them out for free to the crew and customers. We continue to provide free masks to all our employees.
We take distancing seriously and have since mid-March. Social distancing is discussed and enforced through daily huddles and coaching and during each shift. (This is one way we limit exposure risk.)
We installed floor stickers for distance reminders and signs all over the stores, in the front and back of the house. We even cut back our staff behind the counters so they could maintain proper distancing, even though it slowed down customer service.
We were among the very first to install plexi-barriers for our cashiers (the only place in our store that we could not create distance in other ways).
We created an entire position to regulate metering at the door (only allowing 15 customers in the store at a time) to help keep our customers and our employees safe.
We adjusted store hours (from 8–8 to 10–6 to limit exposure — also 1st 1/2 hour of the day for immunocompromised individuals).
We completely rescheduled staffing to avoid “congestion times” like stocking while open to the public; we have moved the bulk of these activities to off-hours so the team can stay properly distanced from customers and each other.
We deep-clean daily, front and back of house.
We sanitize every cart or basket after use.
We conduct daily symptom assessment for every employee prior to every shift.
—Anyone with symptoms does not come in and gets put in the COVID protocol: out for 14 days, or a negative COVID test, then 72 hours without symptoms.
—Anyone can call in with symptoms and be taken off the schedule, including those who need a mental health day.
—Since March we have had over 50 incidents of a team member kept out of work (paid) for possible contact, or any symptom. To this point, we have paid out almost 1,600 hours of sick-time. (Bounce that against 3 confirmed-positives.)Every single morning, Monday-Saturday, we have a mandatory triage call for upper management to discuss the business, our employee safety and all things COVID related. That’s six days a week.
Marczyk's has even expanded our benefits to employees:
We added 3 paid sick days to every employee’s benefit package on March 6th (yes, way back on March 6th) and amended our Paid Time Off policy to allow it to be used for any reason, including sick time or quarantine. This is on top of the federally mandated 80 hours. When the state set regulations requiring 4 sick days, we upped this benefit, too.
We reduced the benefit eligibility waiting period from 60 days to 30 days so new hires could have access to our benefit plans.
We paid 100% of employee health premiums for 3 months (in addition to paying 100% of dental and vision for the foreseeable future).
In early March, we increased the pay for all employees an additional $1/hr for 3 months (plus we added $50/week for all salaried staff). Since then we’ve complied with new city wage increases and we pay fair and competitive wages).
To give our employees a safe place to buy their own food, we temporarily increased the employee discount from 20% off to 40% off for nearly 10 months, March–December. In the Nextdoor thread you will see a complaint that we “took away” the 40% discount. Not 100% true: the employee discount will change to a more sustainable 25% discount effective 01/01/21.
We provide free masks to all employees. We created a COVID pocket guide to equip employees with our protocols.
We offer free COVID-19 testing with our insurance for our hourly employees; for those who opt out of our insurance, COVID testing is fully reimbursed and paid in their next paycheck.
We have paid out over 1,600 hours of sick pay for employees on quarantine protocol so they can stay safe at home (and paid).
Starting in January 2021, we will restructure the 401k plan — yes, we have a 401K plan for hourly employees — shortening eligibility from 12 months to 6 months and removing the vesting schedule (all company-matched funds are the employees’ right away). We match 50% of employee contributions up to 10% deferral and the plan pays all expenses.
The result? We’ve had only 3 confirmed positives over 10 months across two locations and among 86 employees, while being open 7 days a week. That’s all.