COVID-19

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As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect the world, we want to re-affirm our commitment to the safety and well-being of our people, and to the uninterrupted delivery of work to our customers.

We have been monitoring the situation very closely since the start of the outbreak and continuously  review measures to minimise disruption to delivery activities, whilst ensuring the strictest controls  around our collective safety at work. We continue to proactively engage our customers and regional authorities to control our response and recovery from this global pandemic.

The safety and wellbeing of our people and those we work with has always been our priority. Following the latest government guidance in various regions, we’ve implemented measures to ensure our offices, as well as project sites that are under our control, are COVID-19 Secure. 

Here are a few of the steps we are taking in response:

1) Working from home:  While the majority of our people are able to work effectively from home and will continue to do so, the latest government guidance has given us the flexibility to allow a small number of people, only as absolutely necessary, to return to work more permanently in order to support essential client project delivery. We have been closely monitoring the progress of our projects and are happy to report that work continues unabated, with deadlines and deliverables being met. Our people have shown tremendous resilience and our clients are approaching our partnerships with agility and a spirit of collaboration.

2) Digital infrastructure: To ensure that our people can remain responsive and continue to deliver exceptional quality work without interruption, we were very fortunate to have had a robust and comprehensive digital infrastructure already deployed. This reinforced  our ability to work remotely and easily scale-up as needs required. As a global firm, we collaborate across many time zones, spanning continents and oceans on a daily basis, and are accustomed to working with decentralized teams.

3) Business travel: For the safety of our personnel, we have suspended all non-essential business-related travel. The exceptions to this are required site visits, which are subject to enhanced scrutiny and security measures, and completed in compliance with public health directives and in a manner that protects the health and safety of our staff.

4) Social distancing: Where we do have staff in offices or at client sites, we are minimising face-to-face meetings and limiting participation (per local guidance) in well ventilated areas, with  mandatory social distancing and masks. Moreover, we continue to utilize various video conferencing facilities and other digital collaboration tools wherever possible.

5) Events: While we will continue to convene discussions and collaborate with various business partners, we have moved all client and company events to online digital media.

6) Control Measures: In each office location, we’ve undertaken a detailed office risk assessment. Before anyone is permitted to enter any of our workplaces, they must first complete a workplace induction (tailored to each location) and a personal risk assessment which must receive business approval. Our control measures are tailored to suit each workplace to ensure that we identify, eliminate and manage the risk of our offices becoming a mode of transmission. Our measures vary depending on whether the workplace is being accessed on a routine or temporary basis, and include:

• Introducing enhanced cleaning regimes
• Providing gel stations comprising sanitiser, wipes and tissues
• Installing floor markings, barriers and directional signage
• Installing posters to encourage personal hygiene and surface cleaning of touch points
• Stopping our normal agile working practices and allocating fixed desks
• Reducing the number of visitors to our workspaces
• Minimising the need for people to travel on public transport so that this can be maintained for Key Workers.

In addition to these processes and operational procedures, we’re also focused on the mental wellbeing of our employees, ensuring they feel confident to work safely and empowered to raise any concerns which may affect their mental or physical health.

Our risk assessment processes have been carefully managed and audited by our Director of Health & Safety and every one of our offices has been subject to a Health & Safety audit by a safety professional.

This is a rapidly changing situation. We will remain vigilant and adapt our responses as necessary to protect the health and well being of our staff and to support our clients and collaborators around the world.

In the world of sustainable development, it is often said that business as usual is no longer viable. Little did we know, even a few months ago, that the world would be battling a global pandemic. The scale of disruption is unprecedented; almost nothing in our lifetimes has affected entire societies around the world so drastically. Few companies were prepared for the speed of the onset or the potential economic fall-out.

At the moment, it’s hard to predict how the situation will unfold, how many lives are at stake, livelihoods endangered, how much time it will take to bounce back to “normal” (if we ever get back to it) or how deep the resulting economic recession may get.

It is good to see that most governments are now first and foremost focused on slowing down the spreading of the disease and shoring up medical support systems to aid those who fall seriously ill.

For business, it is an equally pivotal moment to deploy all its care, critical know-how, reach and resources. Businesses everywhere are looking after their employees and creating contingency plans to map the risks in their operations. Within our own organization we see people in and outside our network demonstrating their responsibility towards society. 

During these difficult times, it is crucial to support each other, work together and do what we do best: respond fast. It is equally essential to continue our work on sustainable development. Ultimately, our responsive objectives leverage our daily COVID-19 adapted behaviors to:

• Return to "Normal" Scenarios - with a focus on employee health and safety and business recovery
• Understand the Long-Term Impacts - with a focus on COVID-19 vulnerabilities revealed by the crisis & lessons learned for future resilience and stakeholder capitalism