All 6,500 Kier employees will have their base salary reduced by between 7.5% and 25% for three months beginning on 1st April 2020.
Kier was already going through a major cost reduction programme but has now stepped this up to get through the pandemic. It is also bringing forward the closure of its head office at Tempsford Hall to 30th April 2020.
“We recognise that the situation is changing rapidly and will continue to review our plans to mitigate the effects of the pandemic,” the company said.
Last week Kier suspended site operations for 24 hours to ensure that the new Covid-19 Site Operating Procedures were being implemented. “If sites or workplaces are not able to operate to this standard, we will either implement modifications to their layout or working practices or close them,” it said today.
Work on Kier Living’s house-building sites is being paused, in line with many other house-builders, but overall 80% of group sites and workplaces continue to operate this week.
Kier justifies not sending its site worker home because 73% of its core Construction and Infrastructure Services activities relate to work for government departments or quasi-governmental entities.
It said: “The group maintains the UK's highways, delivers vital maintenance to peoples' homes, provides facilities management services to the NHS, builds schools and hospitals, delivers critical national infrastructure and provides key maintenance and repair services to the water, gas, power, telecoms and rail sectors. Many of these services have government support and we retain key worker status for a number of our employees who are carrying out these activities.”
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