LaBella’s Response to COVID-19: A Message From Our CEO
We are at a unique moment in time as we strive to understand how COVID-19 may affect the communities in which we live, work and play. Over the past few weeks, our leadership team has been meeting regularly to prepare for potential disruptions to our businesses. Although there are currently no reported cases within LaBella, the firm is taking our responsibility to protect our employees, their families, and our clients very seriously during this uncertain time.
I want to let you know of the steps we have taken thus far:
- Communications. As a company with employees across a large geographic footprint, we have communications tools in place that we are using to keep our employees informed. The same tools will enable us to continue dialogue with our clients during this rapidly evolving situation. Individual project teams will be in touch shortly, if they haven’t already, to make sure you have mobile contact information for anyone working remotely.
- Business Continuity. We want to continue to help our clients reach their goals, but we must do so safely. COVID-19 impacts are constantly evolving, but in all cases, our goal is to safely minimize or mitigate negative impacts to our productivity. Our team has been meeting regularly to anticipate potential disruptions.
- Technology. Our IT group has been tasked with assessing our capabilities to react to a large-scale need to connect to our networks remotely. We have taken aggressive measures to ensure our employee’s ability to connect and continue to work in this way.
- Response Plan. We have developed a “COVID-19 Response Plan” consistent with CDC guidelines. The policies we are currently implementing include:
- Eliminating all work-related travel via mass transport until further notice.
- Requiring employees to report all non-work-related travel and informing them of a potential resulting quarantine.
- Adopting social distancing behaviors and alternatives to the traditional handshake.
- Requiring that employees experiencing symptoms of respiratory illness stay home until they are free of fever and other symptoms for at least 24 hours.
- Implementing a “work from home to the extent possible” policy, with a special priority placed on accommodating those employees with greater medical risk factors.
We are a firm of problem solvers. I have encouraged our employees to use their natural reasoning skills to draw out calm from confusion and do their part to provide comfort to their families, communities and clients.
Please feel free to contact me or key contacts at LaBella with any questions regarding our approach to COVID-19.
Thank you,
Steve Metzger
CEO