Daily COVID-19 digest

Reminder pulse survey closes tomorrow: Your ongoing feedback is important. As our response to COVID-19 evolves, we want you to feel supported and know that we are listening. To see how your experience is changing, we launched another check-in survey this week. Please take a moment to fill it out (one minute) — the survey is also available on Connect and will remain open until tomorrow, Friday, May 22 at 12 p.m. ET. To view past survey results and responses from our leadership team, visit our pulse survey page on Connect. You can access this through the homepage by going to “About you” and clicking on “Employee support”.

Reminder — PPE inventory tracker: We know that personal protective equipment (PPE) is top of mind for many employees — especially those of you on the frontlines. Every Thursday, we will be updating our PPE inventory tracker to help you understand how our supply levels are doing and the actions we are taking to address new considerations or challenges. In this week’s overview, our supply chain and procurement team provide some insight into our levels of cloth masks and wipes, as well as some initial reactions from donors and employees. Make sure to check out new information on our PPE supply levels every Thursday and access guides like “how to wear a mask” by going to blood.ca/employees/ppe.

Taking vacation is important for your mental health: For many, travel and physical distancing restrictions has led to the cancellation of planned holidays and a reluctance to take vacation days. While getaway options may be limited, the added stress of the pandemic and juggling work and personal commitments means taking a break for your overall wellbeing (even if it is just a day here and there) is more important than ever. As the weather begins to improve and we see restrictions ease, we encourage you to reach out to your manager to discuss your vacation. This way, we can strike a balance of people enjoying some much-deserved time away while ensuring we have enough staff to continue our operations. We know some of you have asked about whether new measures will be in place around vacation utilization. Our leadership team is discussing this regularly, however our current focus is ensuring employees give themselves the breaks they need.

Question of the day: With the cancelling of stem cell swabbing events across the country, this will likely affect our ability to meet targets. How will this be managed? 

We are currently working with our media and agency partners on research and development of digital tactics to increase awareness and drive online stem cell registrations. This involves the understanding of the stem cell journey from awareness to conversion and leveraging the best tactics to speak to each stage of that journey. These tactics are expected to start in Q2.

Recently, stem and cord blood pages have been updated on blood.ca, plus the launch of new conversion pages for these products to help increase online registrations. Other actions being implemented and updated include revised digital toolkits for Territory Managers and leveraging our CRM capabilities to cross sell the stem cell registry to existing blood donors.

About the daily digest

This daily digest will highlight the latest policy and employee support measures, resources to help you manage our new reality and original content like articles and videos to remind us that what we do matters. Things are moving quickly, so you can expect to hear from us daily. No access to email? No problem — all this information and more can be found on blood.ca/employees from any device, no login required.

Click here to read past editions of the daily digest.

Have questions? Check out blood.ca/employees or email us at communications@blood.ca.