Miroslav Kroupa, Head of Brand Management and ŠKODA AUTO’s internal anti-COVID team, says: “Protecting the health of our employees has been the number-one priority since the outbreak of the pandemic. Now that the company has begun supporting the roll out of the vaccine, we have a very effective tool to protect our staff while curtailing the spread of the virus. The extensive package of measures and precautions in place and the subsequent vaccination campaign have helped to significantly reduce the risk of infection and keep it at minimal levels throughout the company.”
ŠKODA AUTO and the KOVO trade union are encouraging employees to get vaccinated either via the government vaccination scheme or through the company’s internal system and also supporting the speedy vaccination of the whole Czech population. The sooner people are protected by the vaccine, the quicker life can return to normal. This is one of the reasons the management at ŠKODA AUTO has decided to lead by example, and by doing so, they stressed the importance of accelerating the vaccination process.
ŠKODA AUTO started preparing its employee vaccination campaign several weeks ago by launching an online system enabling employees based in the Czech Republic to pre-register for vaccination. This way, the company could estimate the number of people interested in being vaccinated. More than 14,000 employees used the pre-registration system to make vaccination appointments in either the government’s or the company’s system.
To ensure that employees are vaccinated against COVID-19 as quickly and effectively as possible, ŠKODA AUTO has set up off-site vaccination points run by its in-house vaccination centre and a mobile vaccination team in Mladá Boleslav, thus increasing the local hospital’s vaccination capacity. The vaccine is being rolled out in line with the latest government-enacted regulations and rules. Once the vaccines are made commercially available, ŠKODA plans to purchase a sufficient quantity to further enhance the protection of its employees.
To support the efforts of the Klaudián Hospital in Mladá Boleslav, vaccines are also being administered at the ŠKODA Polyclinic to relieve pressure on the hospital’s capacity while increasing the vaccination coverage for the population. This way, the company’s healthcare resources are helping to accelerate the process of protecting the Czech population against coronavirus.
In addition, ŠKODA AUTO and the KOVO trade union are involved in the vaccine distribution process while helping to vaccinate at-risk groups. For this purpose, the company has provided vehicles from its Uniqway and HoppyGo car-sharing fleets.
ŠKODA AUTO has invested over one billion crowns in anti-coronavirus measures since the outbreak of the pandemic. During the first wave, the company collaborated with the KOVO trade union to implement extensive employee protection programmes known as the ‘Safe Production’ and ‘Safe Office’ concepts, distributed free protective face masks and provided regular COVID-19 tests to all employees.