Kevin Obern, managing director of OfficeMax, at work inside the stationery retailer's Auckland distribution centre in Highbrook. Photo / Supplied
Kevin Obern, managing director of OfficeMax, at work inside the stationery retailer's Auckland distribution centre in Highbrook. Photo / Supplied
The Omicron outbreak has resulted in 35 per cent of stationery retailer OfficeMax's workforce off sick with Covid-19, forcing the company to change tack to keep operations moving.
Managing director Kevin Obern and other key members of the management team, including chief financial officer Ben Norrie, have been working inthe online retailer's Highbrook distribution centre in Auckland helping to pack parcels.
Obern told the Herald the past six weeks had brought the retailer under pressure like never before as ongoing labour shortages and managing stock delays wreaked havoc.
More than one third of OfficeMax's workforce have been impacted by illness either directly or indirectly, and as a result have been off work self-isolating.
More than 45,000 parcels leave its two distribution centres each week, and as a way to keep the business fulfilling orders, it has had to fly up forklift drivers from Palmerston North and call on friends and family of staff to pick up shifts to fulfil orders.
Corporate workers spanning Whangarei to Dunedin have also chipped in to help with picking and packing in its distribution centres, and more than 60 office staff have gone through training and are now working in packing shifts since late February.
Inside OfficeMax's Auckland-based distribution centre in Highbrook. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Across its entire business 15 per cent of its workforce of 540 have been out of action with Covid, and more than 35 per cent of its distribution staff. In recent weeks to combat staff shortages, the Christchurch distribution centre was fulfilling lower North Island orders.
Obern said the past six weeks had been more challenging than at any other time during the pandemic, but work was now returning to normal for the retailer's workforce.
"It was a real test of our disaster recovery plan.
"More than half of the executive team have been working in the distribution centre on a pretty regular basis, add office and sales staff who put their hands up to work doing picking and packing, just to try and eat into the backlog that we had and we've been really thankful for those guys doing that."
The business typically recruits temporary staff contracted to work with mainstream retailers over the peak Christmas period in time for the back-to-school rush, however, this year those businesses held onto staff and it had faced difficulty sourcing additional staff, due to no migrants and the employment rate being low.
Office Max had been giving staff free lunches, but would throw a party of sorts to say thank you for the efforts when the Covid-19 restrictions permitted.
OfficeMax managing director Kevin Obern. Photo / Supplied
Obern said the effort of its staff over the past two months had meant the business had been able to future proof itself.
"It has been full of learning, full of opportunity and full of a sense of culture and people wanting to be part of a solution. It has added to the cohesion in the business.
"This, has [also] encouraged us to undertake a more formal post-Omicron review and I think out of that there will be a bunch of improvements we can implement as part of a change programme that we can implement if we ever have to go through anything like this again."
OfficeMax closed its network of 15 retail stores in 2020 and laid off almost 60 staff. The retailer says it has opened four times the number of accounts per month than it did pre-Covid, and the decision to focus only on e-commerce had been "the right move".
