Prevention
Levolux continues to employ the following measures to comply with government COVID-19 guidance to stay at home wherever possible and away from others (social distancing):
a) Practices where operations can be performed remotely
We continue to perform all office-based roles remotely from the business’s premises and at the homes of our employees. Thanks to our excellent IT support professionals, we are able to perform all of our usual services from our remote locations.
Sales and business development
We continue to liaise with our clients and prospective clients via telephone and video conferencing and we are even offering CPD presentations via MS Teams!
Estimating
Our team remains on hand to price new work and variation instructions on ongoing projects.
Design
We continue to progress with project designs and technical queries.
Procurement
We are busying managing supply chain relations, planning and progressing current and future order requirements.
Projects
Our Project Managers and QS teams continue to manage progress on sites that remain open and work with our clients to mitigate the impact of closed sites.
b) Practices where operations cannot be performed remotely but are able to continue
A number of site operations have been temporarily closed by our customers to allow a more in-depth review of how and whether the sites can safely remain open. Where applicable, we are working with our customers during this review to establish the feasibility of Levolux’s continued operations within the specific context of the solution and site conditions.
Where working on sites that are allowed to be open in line with government guidance, we have:
Reviewed and revised working practices to be able to safely progress works in line with guidance
Worked with our customers to ensure suitable maintenance of health and safety through adherence to government guidance
Ceased work where conditions or works were not conducive to complying with requirements
Worked to identify and communicate potential improvements to working practices
With the recent COVID-19 outbreak we would ask that you follow the latest government directives in relation to working on any construction sites. Goverment COVID-19 Guidance
- The main items to consider are:-
- Social Distancing – try and maintain the recommended 2m guidelines.
- Review the list of chronic illnesses that could make you or your family members more vulnerable to infection.
- If someone becomes unwell in the workplace with a new, continuous cough or a high temperature, they should be sent home and advised to follow the advice to stay at home. if you live alone and you have symptoms of coronavirus illness (COVID-19), however mild, stay at home for 7 days from when your symptoms started.
- If you live with others and you are the first in the household to have symptoms of coronavirus, then you must stay at home for 7 days, but all other household members who remain well must stay at home and not leave the house for 14 days. The 14-day period starts from the day when the first person in the house became ill.
- Ensure good hygiene – wash your hands for 20 seconds, more frequently and catch coughs and sneezes in tissues.
- Ensure that sites are operating a more thorough/stringent cleaning regime and that areas that may be touched regularly (e.g. fingerprint scanners on turnstiles) have a supply of hand sanitiser available.
- Please also provide site and Levolux with any site observations that might make things safer (we have had a number of good suggestions and practices already!).
As such, we need you to assess the risk on a site-specific basis and in accordance with each’s site’s own COVID-19 risk assessment and containment plan. Please discuss the above with your employees.
At present If the site is open, and there are no are cases of anybody with symptoms, and you can generally observe the safe self-isolation distances, together with the above recommendations and you are happy to continue (without any risk to your or your colleagues) then please feel free to work as usual.
If the site or current task does not allow compliance with the government directives then you should cease all works with immediate effect, returning only when advised it is safe to do so.
Please advise site and the relevant Project Manager if you cease works on any sites as a result of concerns over COVID 19.
Ultimately we must all adhere to the government guidelines to help with preventing the disease from spreading!
Response
Our operations remain open, but subject to continuous review to ensure that they can be operated safely.
A number of employees are in self-isolation, following symptoms being felt by the individual or a member of the household in which the individual is resident. However, all employees are currently fit to work.
A number of our supply chain partners have unfortunately had to either reduce capacity or take the difficult to decision to close altogether. Our procurement team has been working hard to keep the lines of communication with these suppliers open, allowing us to plan our present and future workload to mitigate any detrimental impact by involving alternative proven supply sources.
we are constantly reviewing the situation, both at an individual site level and at a more global level, to ensure the health, safety and wellbeing of our colleagues in the construction industry.
The success of our business is significantly dependent both on the skills and experience of our people and on the strong interaction with our customers. Our overriding priority at all times is to ensure the safety of our employees and all of the people that come into contact with Levolux.
Our plan to mitigate the potential disruption to our continued operations as a consequence of the virus comprises two principal components:
Reducing the risk of COVID-19 infection amongst our team members, through eliminating (as far as possible) exposure to potential sources of infection:
- Personnel that can perform their role remotely from offices have been instructed to do so until further notice;
- Physical meetings with colleagues, customers or supply chain partners are being replaced with virtual meetings using Microsoft Teams or alternative VC software;
- Personnel in a role that is location-dependent (i.e. office, factory, site) will be subject to a lower risk of infection as a result of the smaller number of employees operating from these locations. However, here, the following supplementary measures are being taken:
- In the event of experiencing any symptoms of illness (not just those currently associated with the virus), employees have been instructed to contact their line manager before attending any business location.
- The line manager will check this information against latest advice from the UK government and the World Health Organisation (WHO) and, where appropriate, instruct the employee to self-isolate immediately pending further assessments.
- Employees are to follow best practice advice provided by the UK government and WHO in terms of personal hygiene, PPE and workspace cleanliness.