Playing an essential role in keeping the UK moving during the pandemic
£2.3m
awarded to customer-facing colleagues working through the initial lockdown, as part of a Frontline Colleague Support Scheme.
£1.5m
investment to create the Halfords Here to Help fund, supporting colleagues and their families who have been financially impacted by the pandemic.
480,000
free checks and discounts to key workers including NHS workers, teachers and Armed Forces personnel during the year.
The pandemic has highlighted the important role we play in society in helping the UK population to get from A to B in a safe, economical, convenient and environmentally-friendly way. Our market-leading Cycling and Motoring businesses afforded us the critical role to keep the UK moving during the pandemic, from free checks for key workers, to maintaining vehicles in our Autocentres, and to our mobile vans bringing services to people's doorsteps.
Taking care of our colleagues
The safety of our colleagues was our immediate priority throughout the beginning of the pandemic and has remained a top priority ever since. From acquiring sufficient PPE, to supporting our colleagues financially through our 'Here to Help' and 'Frontline Colleague Support' funds, to creating a Wellbeing Hub where colleagues can go to get support and advice, we have worked hard to ensure all colleagues are able to cope during these difficult times.
Supporting our customers
Our role in keeping the UK moving was essential for many key workers – maintaining bikes and vehicles to ensure they were able to perform their jobs throughout the pandemic. We created safe environments so that we could remain open to those in need and provided free checks and discounts to key workers throughout lockdown.
Working with suppliers to
manage our supply chain
We worked closely with our suppliers on end-to-end supply chain challenges driven by global supply and demand volatility to ensure we could minimise disruption to our business. We reacted quickly to minimise delays, extending our planning and ordering horizons, redesigning product ranges to overcome shortfalls, and using our strong relationships to ensure both we and our suppliers were in the best place possible.
Ensuring the long-term
success of our company:
Financial Resources
We acted quickly and decisively at the start of the pandemic to preserve cash, in what was an incredibly uncertain environment. We increased the robustness of our processes and controls, implementing weekly scenario analysis and forecasting, and a daily Cash Committee to approve spending commitments. Later in the year, we refinanced our existing debt facilities with a new three-year commitment, expiring in 2023.
Ensuring the long-term
success of our company:
Risk Management
As an essential retailer, being able to continue to provide services to customers throughout the pandemic was a key focus. Protecting our customers and colleagues is important to us, therefore we were guided by a risk-led approach during this period. The Board and Executive Team follow a Risk Management framework that ensures the evaluation of emerging risk and the Group's principal risks as well as operational considerations.
Helping to make a difference to our communities
At the Manchester Road Autocentre, Chris was happy to help when he received a request to provide some PPE for local care workers. He supplied them with a roll of seat covers so that they could continue to visit their patients while remaining safe.
A nurse with a flat tyre called the Washington Autocentre for help. Paul invited her to bring her car down immediately so they could do a complete tyre check. The check revealed that the punctured tyre needed replacing, while two others were low on pressure. The relieved nurse chose to get all four tyres replaced so that she'd be safe on the road.
At the Hermiston Gait store in Edinburgh, David and the team supported an order for a children's autism charity. The team turned the order of 50 bikes with accessories around in just under a week, alongside delivering record bike volumes.
The Autocentre got an urgent call from a company who needed to deliver medications to pharmacies for patients, but 13 tyres on their vans had been slashed and the vehicles stranded. Mark drove straight to the site in Edinburgh and changed all 13 tyres so that the vans could make their essential deliveries.
After a 12-hour shift, a nurse in Aberdeen found her car wouldn't start. Panicking, she called the Aberdeen Autocentre to see if they could help. Kieran had just finished his shift but didn't hesitate to go to her aid, travelling 15 miles to fit a new battery. The nurse was extremely grateful that she was able to get home for some well-deserved rest.
McConechy's in Gateshead received a visit from a police rapid response vehicle, which urgently needed four new tyres. Kieran took the vehicle in straight away and managed to get it back out on the road in a record 35 minutes!