Read the latest guidelines for working with Coople during the COVID-19 pandemic. When in doubt, these guidances should help you to assess your situation and act accordingly in case of risk.

Updated as of 20th January, 2022

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Dear Coopler,

Your health and safety remain our top priority. Winter is here and we are mostly indoors, where the risk of COVID-19 transmission is much higher. Due to the rising number of cases, it is especially important that we all do our part by complying with the current rules of conduct.

On the 19th January 2022, the Federal Council decided that the measures against the spread of the coronavirus adopted on 17 December 2021 would be partially extended until the end of February (home office, contact quarantine) or provisionally even until the end of March 2022. In addition, the duration of isolation and quarantine was already reduced to five days on the 12th January 2022.

We are continuing to monitor the situation closely with our clients and the authorities and will use this blog post to provide you with the latest information at all times.

Current guidelines:

• Unless you have been informed otherwise, your Coople jobs will take place and you can start them as usual.
• Please note that some jobs require the 3 or 2G(+) rule. Please only apply if you can meet the 3 or 2G(+) rule at the time of the job.
• To ensure your health and safety, we speak separately to all our outreach operations to ensure that you are able to follow the social distancing rules and are provided with appropriate protective clothing (e.g. gloves or mask). The need for this varies case by case and will therefore be discussed by us in each situation individually.
• If you develop flu-like symptoms, especially a new, continuous dry cough, fatigue, fever, loss or change to your sense of taste and smell, please call your doctor immediately, do not go to work and call us on +41 44 554 50 00 after cancelling your shift in the Coople Jobs App. Our strike policy will not apply in this case.
• If you are not comfortable with attending a shift due to health concerns, you can cancel your shift and our strike policy will not apply. However, you will need to call us to let us know, in addition to cancelling your shift(s) in the Coople Jobs App.

We are continuing to monitor the situation in consultation with the Federal Office of Public Health to adjust our policies as and when needed.

In the meantime, please follow the following federal rules of conduct and hygiene to protect yourself:

• Keep contact with other people to a minimum.
• Wear a mask when meeting others if possible.
• Keep your distance from other people and reduce your contact with others.
• Ventilate your surroundings regularly (every 30 minutes if possible).
• Wash and disinfect hands regularly.
• If you have symptoms, get tested immediately and stay at home.
• Work in a home office if possible.
• Get vaccinated and, if recommended, have a booster vaccination carried out.

Further information and useful explanatory videos can be found at: www.foph-coronavirus.ch

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us on +41 44 554 50 00 or email info.ch@coople.com.

Your Coople Team

As Switzerland’s largest flex worker platform, we are aware that the current situation surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak is hitting hardest the workers who are paramount to the flexibility of our economy.

In this article we want to show you:

• What legal options are available to flex workers, our Coopers
• What we as a company are doing to improve your situation

What options are available to Cooplers in this situation?

Below are the various options available to flex workers in the legal context and information on admission criteria and procedures.

SHORT-TIME WORK COMPENSATION (KAE)

On 20th January 2021, the Federal Council decided to implement the amendments to the Covid-19-Act originally introduced in December 2020. Despite repeated interventions by swissstaffing and the umbrella organisations, the Federal Council refrained from extending short time work to temporary workers.

Swissstaffing has campaigned, for the reintroduction of short time work for temporary workers, at parliamentary and administrative level, as well as in a letter to the Federal Council. However, the Federal Council and the administration have remained firm and have unfortunately not fulfilled their wishes. Coople regrets their desicion extraordinarily.

REGIONAL EMPLOYMENT CENTRES (RAV)

When looking for a job, you are entitled to the services of the regional employment centres (RAV) free of charge. They encourage you to re-enter the labour market quickly. However, you can only claim unemployment insurance (ALV) benefits if you are registered with the RAV and are looking for work. 

The following groups are entitled to advice on finding a job:

• People with a valid work permit for Switzerland
• Persons with a valid settlement or residence permit

Additionally, you are entitled to additional financial support from the ALV if you meet the following criteria:

• Persons who have worked for at least 12 months within the last 2 years and paid ALV contributions (automatically deducted from Coople’s salary)

Important: If you need an employer certificate for this, please write a short message to info.ch@coople.com with the subject “employer certificate”.

You can find your responsible RAV here.

SOCIAL ASSISTANCE

More than 270,000 people in Switzerland receive social assistance. Social assistance is the support system in place when someone can no longer find work, all assets have been used up and none of the social insurance schemes are responsible. Around one third of those of working age receiving social assistance are wholly or partially employed. However, their income is not enough to cover their living costs.

All Swiss residents are entitled to social assistance. The decisive factor is the neediness or the existence of an emergency, not the cause of the emergency.

Social assistance is only of subsidiary importance. In other words, before social assistance can be claimed, one’s own resources (income, assets and own labour, benefits from third parties, insurance benefits and maintenance claims) must be exhausted.

Further important information and answers to the most frequently asked questions can be found directly at the Swiss Conference on Social Welfare (SKOS), though please note that the site is only available in DE, FR and IT. Please contact the SKOS directly with specific questions about your personal situation. 

What is Coople doing to improve my situation?

It is very important to us that you – our Cooplers – understand that we are well aware of how difficult the current situation is for many of you. However, our hands are tied by legislation as well as instructions from the Swiss government and we cannot implement new regulations, such as short-time work, as quickly as we would like to. 

As a flexible recruiter, we are always anxious to connect employees with open jobs in companies in a goal-oriented and fast way. In the current situation we are therefore focusing strongly on the acquisition of new customers and the implementation of partnerships in the highly demanded areas of retail, logistics, delivery services, call centers, security services, health and agriculture, in order to be able to offer you additional jobs as quickly as possible. 

We have already been able to successfully implement this strategy in a very short time – and you can benefit from this:

• Cooperation between Swiss companies and agricultural associations to secure the 2020 harvest → Read the press release here.
  Add the Promoter job profile so that you can soon apply for Coople jobs in the agricultural sector. 
• New acquisition of national supermarket chains
  Thanks to your steadfast motivation, we were able to cover the increased personnel requirements of several large supermarket chains in all regions of Switzerland and thus secure further orders and incoming jobs. Thanks to this cooperation, we have already been able to offer you more than 2’300 new jobs in the areas of checkout, logistics and security. This is also your victory!
• New acquisition of large online retailers
  Once again, thanks to your commitment to us, we acquired several new customers to rely on our Cooplers in the future during peak demand periods. Through this cooperation we have already been able to offer you more than 200 new jobs in the logistics sector. 

How to find flexible work in the next weeks

Read this short blog post and add more job profiles that are currently in high demand. 

We also recommend you to use this time to update your documents, fill out your Coopler profile completely, upload all documents and add a profile picture. It is important that you are ready to start as soon as the situation on the job market returns to normal. It also helps if you regularly open the app and proactively search for jobs. This way you will always be the first to know when there are new jobs, and you will also get more jobs sent to you, as activity is an important factor in our algorithm.

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