CEO Communicates BIRGER.’s New Working Measures

The Covid-19 Crisis Solidarity Plan announced in my first message in March is two fold: first of all to revisit our current working practices and secondly to consider flexible working measures. This plan has two objectives namely to safeguard the health, safety and employment of all our employees; and to ensure the continuity of our activities in the long term.

The first part of our solidarity plan was communicated to you by your respective heads of Business Units and reiterated by me in my second message earlier this month. The second part of our solidarity plan will be elaborated in this third message.

The forthcoming economic crisis will be extremely devastating and will last for many months. It is expected that the devastation in many industries will only begin to be remedied in approximately 18 months from now. Our lives will be impacted for many months until a vaccine or cure is readily available and distributed widely to all of us. Hence, due to the time it will take to resume work at the office normally, we have to consider flexible working measures.

Whilst deploying our Business Continuity Plan in March, we have adopted a Work From Home mode. This mode of work will have to be extended, whilst the lockdown is lifted progressively and until a cure is found against Covid-19. The Work From Home PartnerIT module was rolled out this month to ensure that everyone understands the policy, processes as well as their roles and responsibilities whilst working from home.

Resuming work after the lockdown will be done following specific health and safety guidelines recommended by the World Health Organisation as well as local regulations in all countries that we operate in. It is important that these guideline are properly communicated to ensure that all employees concerns are addressed before they resume work at our offices. These guidelines will be very specific and detailed. This plan will ensure that BIRGER. resumes work gradually and in phases, addressing measures such as:  transport recommendations, seating arrangements at the office and at the canteen, social distancing and hygiene measures, wearing of face masks, employees rosters when to attend office and when to work from home. These guidelines will be communicated to you through NewsIT and also explained to you by your heads of Business Units. May I remind you that these guidelines may be amended and adjusted as may be required.

Our office reopening plan will be aligned with local government decisions for testing, contact tracing and quarantine as may be the case. Our advice to our employees, until we are collectively immune from Covid-19, is please avoid leaving home for non essential reasons especially socialising in groups.

To conclude, sometimes change that we experience, is so profound that it is difficult to identify challenges from opportunities. As mentioned in my second message we have started a process with the heads of our Business Units to draw lessons from this crisis and adopt these lessons to our business moving forward. I am of the view that this crisis has more lessons for us to learn from than we may realise. We must continue to innovate our business as we come out of this crisis to ensure that we become more resilient in future. This resiliency will be achieved by creating more financial stability and managing our risks more proactively.

During my past two messages I have communicated to you transparently of my whereabouts and today I am pleased to inform you that I am back in Mauritius in quarantine and in good health.

Please stay secure and safe with your families.

JACQUES HAREL
Chief Executive Officer
​BIRGER.