The end of last week saw an update from the Chancellor regarding many of the policies that have been put in place in response to COVID-19, including the Job Retention Scheme. As you’ll all be aware this scheme has been a lifeline to many organisations, including our own, so we were pleased to see more flexibility being added (from July employers will be able to, where appropriate, start to invite teams back on a part time basis to the benefit of both organisations and employees) and the ongoing commitment to keep the scheme in place until October.
In order to meet the criteria for the changes in the coming months we have needed to swap around some of the members of the team who have been unfurloughed during April and May. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank all those who have been working hard behind the scenes to keep the Museum and our livestock safe and running in a strange but necessary way, who have been producing content for our audience, existing and new, to respond to and who have been the frontline to many queries we received be that from visitors or staff.
And we’d also like to thank those of you who are furloughed for your continued support and positive ideas and comments in response to the communications we’ve been sharing with you and when you’ve been engaging with the Museum. The most recent way has been with the well-being visits to the Museum which started this week: this idea (which came from a member of staff) has been really well received so please do make use of this if you’d like to – see details here if you missed it.
On Friday we sent our visitor survey to our database and also posted the links on social media and our website asking our visitors/supporters about their views on how we can best welcome them back to the Museum when we reopen – we are currently hopeful for an August reopening, subject to further Government guidance at the end of June. The response has been amazing – over 3000 individuals have taken the time to reply and share their views. We’ve also been heartened by the very positive comments on social media to the initiative. We haven’t forgotten about the staff survey we previously discussed so keep your eyes out for this in coming weeks.
Take care and keep safe.
Leave a Reply