BUSINESS CONTINUITY AND PROTECTING THE HEALTH OF OUR PEOPLE AND OUR COLLABORATORS
24 March 2020
Due to the ongoing outbreak of COVID-19 (Coronavirus), we have implemented additional measures to protect our people and collaborators, manage the potential impact to our business, and maintain our ability to deliver work at this difficult time.
In early March 2020, we assembled a response team including heads of relevant functions and members of our Management Group. Our response team developed a strategy focussing on:
- protecting our people and our collaborators from infection, particularly those who are more vulnerable to serious illness from any infection;
- maintaining continuity of business and service; and
- helping to stop the spread of COVID-19.
The response team continues to meet (via video conference) to assess the external situation and our response to it.
As part of our strategy we initially took a number of actions including: avoiding events with large groups of people; encouraging meetings to happen remotely; reducing the number of visitors attending our offices; and, enabling staff to work from home.
To further protect the health of all members of the Practice and to support the national strategy for tackling the spread of the infection, our workforce is now working from home, other than IT and facilities staff who are essential for maintaining business continuity. We have taken additional measures to protect the health of these staff and to minimise their impact on the national effort.
We have implemented IT systems that enable working from home, and have tools and software (including Microsoft Teams) to facilitate collaborative working and virtual meetings. Email access and correspondence is not affected and our systems allow for full access to our servers. We have also implemented new project management procedures to minimise the disruption to project delivery.
As we get used to this new way of working, we will be as responsive as we can, however there may be times when childcare, caring or other responsibilities cause a short delay. Some of our staff may also be altering their working patterns – if this is the case, they will inform those that they work with directly.
Our people continue to be available via our mobile phone numbers and email addresses, and also through Microsoft Teams.
All of our email addresses follow the format 'initial.surname@maxfordham.com'. If you know the name of the person you wish to contact, please e-mail or contact them on teams directly.
Alternatively, if you are unsure of who to contact, please e-mail us at post@maxfordham.com including the project name, and your message will be passed on.
Also, we are not currently processing physical post so please use an alternative method to send this to us.
We will continue to monitor the situation, taking note of government guidance and implementing any necessary changes in response to the evolving situation.
We wish 'good health' to all our collaborators at this difficult and unprecedented time.