Dear Clients, Consultants, Contractors and Friends.
The reality of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is the effect on all of us, both personally and business wise and the inevitable challenging times ahead. Our priority is the safety of our employees, stakeholders and client community and we continue to follow evolving Government, Public Health England and WHO guidance.
We continue to be fully operational in a virtual environment as all our offices are now closed. All our staff are now working remotely from home. This has been a natural extension of our established agile working policy that has been in operation for a number of years. Our Business Continuity Plans and impact analysis are being reviewed twice weekly with the senior leadership team to mitigate current risks where possible. This is focused around:
- People management and staff wellbeing via our Employee Assistance Programme;
- Location analysis;
- Technology and data access;
- Suppliers and Partner requirements; and
- Stakeholders.
Key Actions we are undertaking to mitigate the current challenges created by COVID-19 include:
- Regular updates and guidance to our employees utilising the information supplied by WHO to ensure workplace safety for us and our clients.
- Coordinated HR support and guidance in the implementation of interim special leave policies and monitoring of absenteeism.
- Seeking confirmations from our supply chain on implementation of measures aligned to WHO, Governmental and Public Heath England advice as well as identification of essential business functions.
- Increasing frequency of our detailed active management system that is reviewed weekly to ensure that project priorities are implemented and that actions are communicated to the project teams and delivered in a timely manner whilst they work at home.
- IT and technology system monitoring to ensure effective homeworking, for all staff.
- Ensuring project teams have sufficient knowledge and capacity that should an issue arise, project continuity can be maintained with minimal impact, if any.
- We continue to closely monitor travel guidance related to COVID-19 and have advised all employees on avoiding all travel. We are monitoring holiday approvals and any plans employees have both in a professional and personal capacity where they have a potential need for essential travel to be made in the coming months.
- Virtual informal social/non project staff gatherings, together with virtual CPD’s and tips and tricks on home working.
Aware of the need to continue to support our clients and deliver the highest quality service insofar as we are able, please rest assured we are focusing all our efforts to deliver the service you have come to expect.
We are immensely proud and indebted to our employees who have risen to the enormous and unprecedented challenges COVID-19 presents and remain dedicated to full business continuity.
Please do contact us directly if you have any concerns or queries, we will of course constantly monitor the situation and advise you immediately of any changes to our plans.
Tony Morris
Managing Director