We are strongly committed to making a difference in the lives of everyone that work with us and their families. To this end, we invest in internal social responsibility programmes and initiatives focusing on health, education and family well-being.
Our people and their families’ health is a top concern for the Group. As a Benchmark Employer, investing in ways to improve their quality of life is a strategic priority.
In Portugal, the Mais Vida programme supports employees with cancer and their families by providing second opinions and multidisciplinary support. In Poland, Biedronka supports employees with serious, life-threatening illnesses and disabilities by financing treatment and rehabilitation.
Through the Famílias Especiais (Special Families) programme in Portugal and the Mali Bohaterowie (Little Heroes) programme in Poland, we also support the families of employees with children suffering from rare diseases or special needs by providing access to treatment and medical equipment.
We promote several initiatives for the care of our employees’ children, such as day care centres, scholarships, back-to-school campaigns and holiday camps. Some of which have been in place for over a decade.
The holiday camps answer to the concerns of employees who, in those periods, found it difficult to ensure care and occupational activities for their children. Yearly children and young people are challenged in the holiday camps promoted in Portugal and Poland, where they participate in activities relating to healthy eating habits, sustainability and social inclusion.
The Online Study Hall programme aims to help improve the school, social and emotional skills of children and young people until the third cycle of education in Portugal. This initiative sets several challenges throughout the year, where topics such as sustainability, physical exercise, healthy eating habits and positive education.
“Being a woman, a mother and a professional is a challenge, but the Group’s parental support measures are crucial for managing family life and balancing personal and professional life, especially for those like me who work in IT and have peak work periods. During the summer, my children attend the Jerónimo Martins holiday camps, and this opportunity offered by the company to families not only keeps them busy, but also relieves their grandparents, who are already overworked during the year. The Group is very committed to the needs of its employees and promotes family support in various ways.”
We are aware that sometimes everyone faces more challenging moments in their lives and for which the community does not always provide responses as effective as needed. We take on the responsibility of responding to the needs of our families through structured and forward-looking approaches.
Created in Portugal in 2011, the Social Emergency Fund (FES) ensures a response to urgent situations of food shortages, domestic violence, the need for legal support and/or financial, healthcare, among other situations. The social workers working at the FES design specific plans together with each employee and their family while encouraging their autonomy and reorganisation.
The programme makes it possible to allocate funds to respond to requests of a social nature, which are assessed by a committee responsible for managing the Social Fund. Employees are helped to overcome financial difficulties and emergencies through grants and loans with special conditions.
We have implemented several measures to support the employees of our operations in Colombia. The Fiado programme allows employees to buy products on credit at Ara stores with the amount deducted from their salary at the end of the month, while Payflow allows employees to receive advances of part of their salary, depending on the days of the month they have already worked, to meet their expenses in stages.
The “Fondo de Empleados: ATulado” (Employee Fund: On Your Side) supports access to loans with lower interest rates than those charged by banks or in informal markets.
