Situation update : 03/18/2020
In the wake of the recent evolution of the situation concerning COVID-19, it seems important to PhenoSwitch’s team and me to communicate with you and to reassure you regarding our operations.
All of our activities are continuing. Our government is taking serious actions to slow the spread of the virus and mitigate the risk for our fellow citizens. We take those actions seriously and we have also applied different measures to further assure the security of our personnel and their family. We are in a pretty small town and have the luxury of not being in a too crowded region, so keeping a safe distance between people is easier to do. Here is a list of additional precautions we now take to continue our operations in the safest way possible:
Workplace safety measures
- Personnel has been instructed to take more care than usual to hand washing.
- We put in place a mandatory daily cleaning and disinfection of workplace (download our procedure here, we encourage you to do the same!)
- We encourage remote work and already had measured in place for flexible work hours.
- Employees refrain from taking public transportation as much as possible if they need to get to work.
- Employees who are commuting are already taking more care than usual, using hours that are less crowded.
- All employees are obliged to stay at home when observing COVID-19-like symptoms and only return to work after a minimum 14 day waiting period.
- Business trips and travels are completely suspended until further notice.
- Shaking hands is prohibited.
- Meetings with customers are held via internet/conferencing, etc.
- We limit access to our facility to only necessary people.
How this affects our operation: Very low impact
Workforce:
- Project managers will work from home. We try to keep a minimal workforce in place in our office. With a rotation between personnel.
- We have backup personnel for the wet lab and project manager are ready to take over if needed.
How this affects our operation: Low impact.
We always have been all set for remote monitoring and data sharing. This is how we run the weekends without being there. Our project managers have to take care of their family with the fact that daycare and school are closed for at least two weeks. Expect minor delay in communication and a few days' delay to produce final data reports.
Operational planning:
- All meetings (daily follow-ups, weekly planning’s) will be held remotely, using video conference.
- We are stocking up in essential material to run the lab to have a minimal inventory of material that may get more difficult to obtain.
- We have adapted all our schedule to accommodate flexible work hours and remote work.
Risk assessment
While we cannot 100% predict how the situation evolves, we can say that right now, we are in a safe zone with the ability to operate without problems. Our government is taking good decisions to flatten the curve, keep the population safe, maintain response capabilities, while maintaining economy active.
Principal risks at the moment:
- Difficulties or delays to get supply
- Higher response time due to unusual work hours
- Government (local or external) decisions that would require to lower the rate of our activities.