IN an effort to encourage employees to get fully vaccinated against COVID-19 ahead of this year's bumper harvest, CBH Group has implemented an $100 incentive scheme
Last month, CBH asked employees to complete a survey so it could better understand employee sentiment about the COVID-19 vaccine, vaccination rates and potential reasons for not being vaccinated.
About 57 per cent of employees completed the survey, with more than 79pc of those indicating that they are either fully vaccinated, have had their first vaccination or are booked in to receive their first vaccination.
CBH acting chief executive officer Ben Macnamara said while it was a great result, CBH wanted to speed up vaccination rates to ensure the safety of its team and growers, while also minimising the potential affect to the supply chain.
"We provide an essential service to WA growers, particularly during harvest, so there is no denying that a COVID-19 outbreak of the Delta strain in Western Australia would have serious implications for our people, growers, our business and our supply chain," Mr Macnamara said.
"This is why we have been strongly encouraging the CBH team to get their COVID-19 vaccinations.
"To help further accelerate the vaccination rates and prevent any possible disruption to the supply chain this harvest, we are offering employees a $100 incentive to get fully vaccinated by December 15, 2021.
Mr Macnamara said having a vaccinated workforce will not only safeguard its workforce against the virus but will also protect growers and hopefully encourage people in communities to get vaccinated if they haven't already.
"It will take a combined effort to overcome the challenges of COVID-19 and we're proud to champion this initiative to protect our team's health and enable our community to get back to normal, quicker," he said.
"In addition to this, the lead team and I felt that it was incredibly important to demonstrate this by getting fully vaccinated ourselves."
The incentive program aims to reduce the obstacles and barriers for employees to go and get vaccinated and will be available to all of CBH's full and part-time direct employees, casual employees, including harvest casuals and long-term contractors working in the CBH offices and paid through a third-party labour hire organisation.
In addition to the vaccination incentive, CBH is continuing to plan and prepare for future COVID-19 scenarios to ensure that it has the right measures in place for harvest.
That includes encouraging growers to use the CDF app for deliveries on site to make the grain delivery process as contact free as possible by eliminating activities or reducing steps that require growers or transporters to leave their truck and enter a sample shed or weighbridge.
