We are focused on the health and safety of our employees and maintaining unparalleled service to our customers. When the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, we set our full emergency response plan into action. This ensured our global network, 62 offices across 29 countries, could operate optimally and with limited disruption to customers’ supply chains.
Safety
How have we already been affected? In January, our employees in the People’s Republic of China were disrupted by the coronavirus outbreak around the start of the Chinese New Year. The majority of these employees are still working remotely on a rotating basis while our operations continue to normalize. More recently, the global spread of COVID-19 led to the closure of our forwarding office in Milan, Italy.
Our thoughts are with all communities impacted by COVID-19. To maintain a high level of health, our Managing Directors within the Americas, EMEA, and APAC regions are monitoring the status of each office on a daily basis. Many of our branches in EMEA and Americas have moved to Level 2, from ‘normal working conditions’ to ‘optional work from home, if their job allows’.
The World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease and Control, and local public health experts guide our emergency response actions:
- Global employee travel ban for non-essential travel
- Promote prevention through proper hygiene practices
- Maintain a steady supply of antibacterial products
- Enhanced decontamination cleaning protocols wherever necessary
- Advise sick employees to stay home
- Modified work policies for flexibility
- Share company’s Visitor Statement to ensure visitors disclose health and travel history
- Help employees manage their 401K during volatile markets
Service
A sincere thank you to our employees who have shown commitment and adaptability! We’ve been able to find container space and, with some creativity, to also proactively reroute cargo in response to widespread flight cancellations. Our Packaging team launched a global client’s optimization program during the peak of the outbreak in China by utilizing an expanded global supply chain. We’ve also provided dashboards to update shifts in availability and production, thus avoiding factory shutdowns.
Let’s continue to move forward together.