Ministry of Defence
The retail giant joins over 300 other high street names, including Barclays, BT and Liverpool FC, to publicly pledge its support to serving personnel, veterans, reservists and their families.
The Corporate Covenant is a positive way for business to show their support, offering exclusive discounts and deals and more supportive employment terms and conditions.
Speaking at the signing of the Corporate Covenant, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said:
It is great to see one of the UKs major employers recognise the immense benefits that reservists and former service personnel can bring to the private sector and I am delighted that they will be our first supermarket that has signed up to the Corporate Covenant.
Tesco now join over 300 companies that have committed to strengthening their support for our Armed Forces communities, bringing about real change for those that have bravely served their country and their families.
Tesco is the largest employer to date to have signed up. They have pledged to:
- promote reserve service among Tesco employees
- support veterans into employment with Tesco
- support spouses and partners of serving personnel to get jobs at Tesco stores in areas with large Armed Forces communities
- give extra special consideration to holiday requests from spouses before, during and after their partners deployment
Robin Terrell, UK Managing Director for Tesco said:
We have a long association with the Armed Forces dating right back to our founder, Jack Cohen. Our servicemen and women make sacrifices every single day, and as the UKs biggest retailer we want to do everything we can to help them out.
We have huge numbers of serving and former service personnel working for us, and they bring an enormous number of benefits to our business. We are honoured to be the first supermarket to sign the Armed Forces Corporate Covenant, and we will always look to do more for our heroes who regularly put their lives on the line to defend our country.