Prescriptive guidance for our Customers on how to maintain business continuity while implementing preventive measures.
Purpose of this document
The purpose of this document is to provide clear, concise and actionable guidance for safe operations while applying preventive and auto-protection measures against COVID-19.
What is Covid-19?
COVID-19 is a disease caused by a new strain of coronavirus. ‘CO’ stands for corona, ‘VI’ for virus, and ‘D’ for disease. Formerly, this disease was referred to as ‘2019 novel coronavirus’ or ‘2019-nCoV.’ The COVID-19 virus is a new virus linked to the same family of viruses as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and some types of common cold. Read more on the World Health Organization website for more info: https://bit.ly/2TMRTbW
Basic Prevention Steps
Conduct online any meetings that usually take place on premises. Reinforce frequent handwashing and sanitation and procure needed supplies. Prepare and maintain handwashing stations with soap and water, and if possible, place alcohol-based hand rub (hand sanitizers) in each meeting room, at entrances and exits, and near lunchrooms and toilets. Clean and disinfect office buildings, meeting rooms and especially water and sanitation facilities at least once a day, particularly surfaces that are touched by many people (railings, lunch tables, equipment, door and window handles, materials handled by multiple individuals, etc.) Implement social distancing practices that may include:
- Acting calmly and with purpose
- Staggering the beginning and end of the workday
- Cancelling assemblies and other events that create crowded conditions
- When possible, promote work from home and restrict as much as possible the number of staff
on premises - Teach and model creating space and avoiding unnecessary touching
Maintain the chain of command operational
Clearly define the chain of command and the process of fail-over and transmission of responsibility when and if anyone gets sick. Promote work from home and preventive actions like social isolation practices to protect your workforce and decision-makers. Provide guidance and best practices on how to work from home and staying disciplined and psychologically sane. This video from Harvard Business Review is a good starting point: https://bit.ly/2vkx53x
Just because you move your workforce off premises, this doesn’t have to translate into your Organization running into a stall and becoming paralyzed. As long as you guarantee that your IT infrastructure allows your workforce to connect remotely to email and your SMART GOVERNANCE implementation, using VPN or other secure technical approaches (like exposing the application through HTTPS to the Public Cloud – make sure to use SSL certificates with 2048 bit length or more), collaboration and hierarchical approval processes can continue to occur in SMART GOVERNANCE.
Conduct your corporate governance meetings remotely
The same is true for your Leadership Team, Committee Members, your Board of Directors and the Corporate Secretary team. If these individuals have access remotely to email, video conferencing tools like Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business or Cisco WebEx (to name a few) and your SMART GOVERNANCE implementation, they can participate from off premises on governance meetings, and with this you’re guaranteeing that your leadership body is safe, healthy and ready.
Work with your partners
Last but not least, work with your Application, Infrastructure and Service Partners in order to secure that, as their companies also roll-out their contingency plans and apply auto-protection measures, the capabilities and infrastructure are in place to allow their technical teams to continue to provide the same level of service and support remotely in order to protect your Organization’s business continuity.
Let’s beat this thing and move on with our lives.
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