In response to the pressures of working through the Coronavirus crisis, Tesco has made two mental wellbeing tools - Headspace and SilverCloud - available for free to all its 300,000 UK colleagues for the next 12 months.

Headspace gives easy techniques to help users focus more, sleep better and stress less, while SilverCloud is an online self-help tool that gives access to a range of wellbeing advice in association with Nuffield Health - including on sleep, anxiety, grief and dealing with uncertainty.

To keep the business running, Tesco has recruited around 50,000 new temporary colleagues in the last few weeks.

Chief executive Dave Lewis used an update to explain that as the government is extending the COVID-19 testing process to critical frontline workers, the supermarket will begin to trial it in one region this week.

"Testing will be entirely voluntary, and only for critical workers currently experiencing symptoms, or for those with symptoms who are living with critical workers," he added.

Safety measures have already been introduced in stores, including protective screens at every checkout, social distancing signage, one-way flow systems, limits on the number of customers in-store, regular deep cleaning, hand sanitiser and cleaning stations.

"As essential workers dealing with the general public, some of our colleagues also want to use masks and gloves," noted Lewis. "We’re providing these for colleagues, if they choose to use them, although this is still optional and the Public Health England advice is that they should not be mandatory."

Tesco's update also stated that last weekend, it opened our first two pop-up stores in NHS Nightingale sites in Birmingham and London. The stores took just a week to build and will serve NHS workers with the essentials they need, 24 hours a day.

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