Call us for a free quote on 150808
At the end of December 2019, the World Health Organization was alerted to several cases of pneumonia in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China. This novel Coronavirus, COVID-19 belongs to a family of viruses, which includes the common cold, as well as SARS and MERS viruses.
By the end of January, it was reported that more than 7,000 people had been sickened by the Coronavirus and by begininnig of April 2020, this had grown to over 900,000 reported cases in 180 countries/territories around the world, with the outbreak being declared a pandemic on 12th March.
The risk of novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) transmission is now considered a global concern. Governments around the world are implementing guidelines that are increasingly restricting the movement of people and encouraging physical distancing, that although challenging, are necessary to stem the transmission of the virus and protect public health.
As a responsible organisation that is committed to protecting people, we will be closely monitoring the situation and providing informative updates to our customers via our websites and direct communications.
We want you to be reassured that our colleagues will not pose added risk to our customers and their employees, as a result of the actions and training that we are undertaking to ensure continued delivery of a safe and high level of service, whilst also adhering to regional Governmental instructions and being sensitive to customer health and safety requirements. For more information, please see below.
We will also be providing information on an ongoing basis, regarding what you can do to reduce the potential risks of virus transmission in your location. Scientists around the world continue to discover more about the transmissibility, severity and restriction of the COVID-19, but until we know more, we would encourage you to adopt and promote effective hygiene behaviours that are proven to be effective against the spread of viruses.
The health and safety of our colleagues and customers is of paramount importance to us, and we will not offer our services unless we can be sure it is safe to do so. We are aiming to keep disruption to a minimum; however the following restrictions have been put in place for safety purposes:
In order to ensure we provide a sensible and proportionate response, we have established a dedicated central team to monitor the global situation and maintain a global response plan. The initial phase of this plan consists of providing instructions and guidelines for country leadership teams, and ensuring all colleagues around the world receive thorough awareness briefings. All information is being assessed on an ongoing basis to ensure that our people are always protected and are also able to inform our customers on new developments as they happen.
In every country, our management teams, health and safety, and HR managers are continuously monitoring local government guidance and recommendations from WHO and CDC.
In a country with active outbreaks we are carrying out risk assessments and implementing risk control measures to ensure colleague exposure to infection risks is reduced, helping to protect them and also customers with whom they come into contact. These controls may include:
In countries with zero or a small number of isolated cases, we will continue to carry out routine work activities, following standard safe working practices, to include:
For colleagues who travel between global regions, we have put in place a temporary avoidance instruction for countries wit high density exposure to COVID-19 outbreaks. This situation will be monitored for changes and we apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
We are implementing physical distancing in many office locations, to restrict contact with potentially infected individuals, to ensure that our core back-office functions continue to be able to serve our customers without putting other colleagues at risk.
If a colleague develops a fever, or symptoms of respiratory illness, within 14 days after travel, or if they have had close contact with someone showing symptoms, they have been instructed to remain at home and seek advice from their healthcare provider.
Further information will be provided through regular updates to this page, so please check back or bookmark this page. Alternatively, you can keep up-to-date with country-specific guidance and the current recommendations from dedicated websites: