Coronavirus Business Statement
This statement has been created to mitigate the risk that Coronavirus poses to our staff and business. It will be reviewed on a regular basis and communicated with all staff and key supply chain members.
We have considered three key areas that will be most affected by the Coronavirus. These areas are the welfare of our people, suppliers, and business continuity. The measures we are implementing are as follows:
People - Health and Wellbeing
- Enhanced Tool Box Talks with increased frequency to all site-based staff
- Review of high-risk projects/maintenance in areas such as student accommodation and healthcare settings.
- Keeping teams of employees together to reduce the risk of cross-infection should someone in their team become infected with Coronavirus. We would like to limit the transfer of employees from one site to another as far as reasonably practicable. For those employees who work on the reactive maintenance, the team they work in will be who they will stay with.
- Employees are not recommended to wear facemasks (also known as surgical masks or respirators) to protect against the virus. Facemasks are only recommended to be worn by symptomatic individuals (advised by a healthcare worker) to reduce the risk of transmitting the infection to other people.
PHE recommends that the best way to reduce any risk of infection is good hygiene and avoiding direct or close contact (closer than 2 metres) with any potentially infected person.
In the event that a member of staff is infected with Coronavirus, they should be immediately requested to self-isolate for 7 days minimum before being tested/confirmed with the virus or 14 days after the last symptoms have cleared.
An assessment should be made of the team they are working with and they could be requested to isolate.
Should you have any questions about your individual circumstances, please contact Human Resources.
Suppliers and Materials
We are requesting that orders for materials are placed now in the event of shortages or long delays in procuring items from international suppliers.
Please double-check that deliveries are not affected to your site or restrictions are imposed on visitors to your site.
Business Continuity - Next steps
As yet, we are unaware of any measures that will affect site activities other than potential infections.
We are to share our planning and implemented measures with subcontractors in the same manner as our SHEQ protocol.
Placing orders now with suppliers to avoid delay on deliveries, maintain close communications with suppliers for any changes.
All non-essential/business critical meetings are to be postponed and rescheduled on Skype/Microsoft Teams or Telephone. This includes office-based staff visits to site.
Visitors to the office are to be suspended until further notice. Should a visit to the office be business-critical, this will be considered on an individual basis.
We will be clearly displaying health notices and sending out memos on a regular basis, in line with changing events.
If staff are in self-isolation, you will be asked to remain contactable and work from home as far as possible.
Should the business be forced to shut by the government, home working strategies should be implemented where possible.
If regional lockdown occurs and projects being undertaken outside of our geographical area are at risk, we will review the redeployment of operatives and implement homeworking for management.
Our stance on staff with children who are affected by potential school closures will be in line with dependants leave.
Please stay in your site or office team and do not transfer to other projects without notifying senior management.
As always, please be vigilant with your personal hygiene. Wash your hands after travelling, before preparing food, and after using the bathroom.
We appreciate that these measures may seem restrictive but if we work together, we can help to protect our colleagues, families, and livelihoods against Coronavirus.
Board of Directors
Heb Group
17/03/2020