The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Amazon Dunfermline staff member Louise Duncan refuels in the new Covid-safe canteen at the depot as the company gears up for Black Friday. Picture by Kim Cessford.
Amid the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic, staff at online retail giant Amazon’s Fife distribution centre are gearing up for potentially the busiest day in its history as Black Friday looms.
With more people than ever expected to go online to do their Christmas shopping this festive period, especially given the varying degrees of lockdown, workers at Amazon’s Dunfermline fulfilment centre, the company’s second largest facility in the UK, will be working around the clock to ensure customers receive their orders when they want them despite these most unprecedented of times.
From the moment any one of the 250 million items that Amazon sells arrives at the centre, a mixture of technology and dedicated individuals will be beavering away across an area the size of 17 football pitches and the equivalent of 1.5 million sq ft, to meet demand.
Boasting more than 1,000 full- time employees, a further 1,000 temporary staff on short-term contracts will also be hired to cope with the surge in seasonal orders.
However, with the pandemic having changed many aspects of our daily lives , not least how businesses function , operations at the Dunfermline site will be conducted under much more stringent social distancing and safety measures to those experienced in 2019.
Site leader Jamie Strain, who took up the role in March just as the pandemic broke, was quick to admit the last nine months have been something of a baptism of fire for him but added he is more than up to the challenge.
“Covid has changed the way we operate but that has been driven by our number one priority which remains the safety and wellbeing of our staff,” he said.
“From day one, Amazon has been ahead of the constantly changing social distancing requirements and we’ve introduced more than 150 changes to ensure staff safety is met.
“From how people enter the site to how staff take their lunch break, move around the vast complex or how items are picked and packaged, nothing has been overlooked and everything is constantly reviewed.
“I’m hugely proud of my staff who have wholeheartedly bought into what we have done.
“They have embraced the changes, be it to work stations, transforming meeting rooms into extra canteen spaces which ensure full social distancing , one-way systems and the introduction of designated staff in all areas to guide and remind fellow workers to follow the safe working methods.”
Most impressive of all the safety measures is the construction of a walk-in coronavirus testing area for staff.
Introduced five weeks ago, employees can voluntarily opt to have a simple Covid test offering peace of mind, with results back from Amazon’ s purpose-built testing lab in Manchester in little more than 24 hours.
“It’s just another way of showing our staff that we care about their welfare, both here and elsewhere,” said Jamie.
“It allows us to identify asymptomatic cases who might not otherwise be tested and the feedback so far has been very positive indeed.
“Anyone having to self-isolate does so confident that we will support them on full pay throughout that time before they return.”
Love it or loathe it, online shopping is more popular than ever and it looks like it will be here to stay.
Spare a thought then for Amazon’s army of staff in Fife who will be working away to ensure you have one less thing to worry about in these most uncertain of times.