Supporting Nisa partners and store workers

Nisa is assisting its independent retailers with their access to wellbeing support by partnering with GroceryAid to increase awareness of the range of resources on offer.

As part of an initiative to ensure Nisa partners are better informed about the charity and the tools available to them, all Nisa symbol stores are now being provided GroceryAid point of sale material to display in back offices and spaces dedicated to shop staff.

Nisa’s field team representatives have been handing out the posters and leaflets to existing
partners who run symbol stores and encouraging them to place them in areas visible to
colleagues.

In addition, the GroceryAid material has been added to Nisa’s induction packs, meaning all
new to Nisa retailers are made aware of the support available to them via GroceryAid as a
matter of course when they start trading with the group.

Matthew Howie, Nisa retail development manager covering southern Scotland, is the
GroceryAid lead for Nisa and a member of the Grocery Aid Scotland committee.
He said: “Adding this support for partners is a real step change for us and it demonstrates
the value we place on Nisa partners and their wellbeing.

“As independent retailers many partners don’t have obvious support for their wellbeing, but
GroceryAid exists to provide that and it’s really important that as a symbol group, we share
with them the tools that are available and at their disposal.”

As part of his role, Matthew shares the support information and contacts with the rest of the
Nisa field team who pass this on to the retailers they work with.

As well as providing guidance and advice materials to directly to partners, they can also read
about GroceryAid in the monthly partner facing Consortium magazine and digital signposting
is being made available via the Nisa order capture system, to ensure retailers can easily
navigate to the charity site and access the support.

Matthew said: “GroceryAid is a really underutilised tool that we want our partners to be
aware of. We work in a diverse industry where you will have many different people with
different outlooks on life. Some people will bottle it up, some will be open and ask for advice.
So, it’s about building that relationship with our partners so they feel they can reach out and
speak about it.”