Over the past three months, Burberry has introduced several measures to help prevent the spread of the virus and ensure employee safety and wellbeing, including temporarily closing retail stores and implementing strict social distancing protocols. This includes turning over its trench coat factory in Castleford, UK to manufacture personal protection equipment (PPE) for medical and care workers.

The brand has also decided to take the following additional steps to support its priorities over the next few months. These include maintaining the base for all its employees, not relying on government support for jobs in the UK where more than a third of their employees are based; taking a voluntary 20 per cent pay cut from April through June.

The Board of Directors has also agreed to a reduce their basic salary and fees by 20 per cent from April to June with the equivalent cash amount to be donated to the Burberry Foundation COVID-19 Community Fund. The fund, which was established earlier this month for employees to support communities in need globally, is additional to the financial donations Burberry has made to vaccine research and charities alleviating food poverty, with monies going towards procuring and distributing PPE, helping foodbanks and supporting healthcare charities around the world.

The brand’s trench coat factory in Castleford is now manufacturing non-surgical gowns and supplying them to the UK National Health Service. It also sources surgical masks through supply chain and supplying them to the NHS and charities such as Marie Curie, which provides nursing care for families living with terminal illness in the UK.