Pandemic Protocol
- First and foremost, we have advised our team to stay home if they are feeling unwell and to seek medical advice via Healthline or their GP;
- At Acronym we have a robust set of Business Continuity Plans to ensure we can continue to operate in the event of an issue or crisis. We are confident that with our robust plans we can fulfil our commitments to our customers in relation to continuity of service;
- All business-related international travel has ceased, with local domestic travel only if remote support isn't an option;
- Prior to the Government’s border control changes, which require all people entering New Zealand to self-isolate for 14 days, Acronym was requiring this of any employees returning from a high-risk countries, including if a family member had, as defined by the Ministry of Health;
- We have cancelled internal events and have stopped our people attending any public work-related events of any size;
- Our people come into direct contact with our customers including engineer, technical, sales and service teams that visit your premises from time-to-time. We understand that many of these visits are critical for you, especially when we need to make physical repairs to ICT equipment. We are now asking our people only to visit customers in person for business-critical work. Any other work can be managed remotely and we are using voice and video technology to reduce face-to-face meetings and visitors to our offices.
- All our team already take their laptops home and can work remotely if required. All of our internal IT tools required to service existing business-as-usual services can be accessed from any location geographically;
- Keeping social distance is known to be an effective precaution to slow down the spread of the virus, so in addition to our precautions around meetings and gatherings (noted above) we have asked our people to change how they greet each other and avoid any personal contact i.e no hand shakes. If meeting in person is essential, we’re asking our team to keep a 2m distance and they may wear a mask if it is their personal preference or if you request.
- We have a robust communications plan in place to keep our people, customers and suppliers regularly updated about any changes to travel, meetings, events and working restrictions, as well as reminding them of best practices around hygiene and self-care;
- We have increased cleaning in high use areas and are distributing cleaning and sanitising products in our office.
- We have developed and will be using a contract tracing App for any of our team / client interactions.
Acronym's principles of contact with clients
- We will conduct where practical all operations remotely
- Activities that we would normally come on site and address we may either:
- Attend as normal if the engineer is comfortable doing so following current Government Health and Safety guidelines
- Request one of your staff make some adjustments under instruction
- Attend to this after hours or at a time when there are limited staff on site
- For meetings, if any of the meeting attendees is uncomfortable meeting face-to-face then they can attend online. Acronym has the technologies to support this, please ask in advance if we are required to set up a remote meeting.
- Should an onsite presence be required we may ask prior to coming to site a few questions around Covid19 contact of your staff as is currently appropriate i.e. overseas travel or closeness to someone infected or in quarantine
What we ask of you
We anticipate that you too will have similar company protocols and business continuity plans in place and by adhering to the below protocols we will be able to support each other in upholding these practices in both our businesses:
Social distance
- We understand that it is important to keep the momentum across our organisations so that we can continue to provide a seamless service to you. However rather than doing this in person, we will cease any non-essential face-to-face meetings and will leverage technology to ensure we remain engaged and continue to work effectively together.
- If there is an essential need to engage in person, we ask that this is limited to a handful of people at the most. If you need help to determine if an in-person meeting is required, please feel free to ask any questions of your Site Manger or Account Manager
- We may not allow our team to attend events
Our commitment to each other if there is a confirmed case
If any of your staff members working directly or indirectly with Acronym or our joint customers has:
- been exposed or potentially exposed to someone who has tested positive for the virus; or
- is going through the testing process for the virus; or
- has already tested positive for the virus
then we ask that you contact Acronym healthandsafety@acronym.co.nz before any of our team come to your site. It is important that Acronym is kept informed so that we can support you and your business, and the people your company works with along with our own people. Acronym will keep your organisation updated too, before any of our team come to your site, if we have any confirmed or potential cases of the virus, so that you can minimise concerns about risks to your people.
This outbreak has had significant impacts on global assembly lines, distribution and logistics networks. As a result, we have already seen constraints on delivery times and provisioning.
To date we have had some protection from buffer stocks of many of the more popular lines of equipment we supply. As stocks decline and disruption continues, we will likely see some further delays. Please keep us informed of your needs early, so we have the best chance of matching your requirements to available equipment or appropriate substitutes within your time frames.
If you need to access our building, we now ask that all visitors report to the reception desk where you will be asked to make a declaration around your travel history and current wellness and follow any visitor registration protocols defined.
We understand that this is an unprecedented and evolving situation. We would like to thank you for partnering with us to keep people safe and help prevent the spread of the virus any further within New Zealand.
We will keep you updated with more information as the situation develops. In the meantime, please get in touch with your Site Manger or Account Manager if you have any questions or need further support or email healthandsafety@acronym.co.nz