In Unipart, we have taken action to protect all of our customers and our people in every way that we can from COVID-19. That has meant significant changes to the way in which we operate and our day-to-day behaviours.
Our senior leaders review the situation on a daily conference call which we started well before the Government advised we were moving into the delay phase. Across the company, our people are working hard to formulate plans, share information and good practice and make decisions very quickly. Every function in our business now has COVID-19 plans in place to protect our customers, our people and our business.
We’ve increased communication and education about the virus in all our sites to promote safe behaviours including the following:
- Continued and frequent handwashing and use of alcohol gel
- The introduction wherever possible of social distancing to keep people around two metres apart to reduce the risk of transmission
- Isolation of anyone returning from one of the countries on the government’s high-risk list such as China; Iran; Republic of Korea; Italy; Hong Kong; Japan; Laos; Macau; Malaysia; Myanmar; Singapore; Taiwan; Thailand; Vietnam, Spain and Switzerland.
- Cancelling and avoiding large gatherings of people such as conferences and exhibitions, and asking people to avoid business travel on London Underground to avoid being in close contact with large numbers of people.
- We’ve upgraded and increased the daily cleaning in our sites and provided hand gel, tissues and wipes for our people.
- We’re using video conferencing to enable people to meet without being in close proximity.
- We’re asking all critical visitors to Unipart sites to complete a screening form to reduce the potential of visitors transmitting the virus.
- In the interests of protecting our customers and supporting the UK to maintain critical supply chains, it is vital that we protect our core operational areas.
- With effect from 16th March, all “non-critical to site operations” colleagues will be refused entry to the operational warehouse or factory areas.
- Restrictions will be put in place in all locations to prevent access unless approved by the site leader as critical operational support.
- Site General Managers will provide guidance and approval on critical colleagues for their sites.
- This restriction will include access to canteens, rest facilities, Faculty on the Floors and any other facilities or areas that are within the operational environment.
- The Operations Site General Manager and Operations Director will provide further guidance at site level and will be responsible for working with any functional teams on site to agree overall site access and protocols.
There are many more activities in our distribution centres, our manufacturing sites and our offices to reduce the risk of coming into contact with people who have the virus. The complete list is too lengthy to include here.
We’ve taken these precautions not because we are alarmist, but because we care deeply about the safety and well-being our people and our customers and we recognise that the situation with the COVID-19 virus is escalating very quickly.
In Unipart, we are all determined to play our part in slowing the spread of this virus in Britain and in our International sites while continuing to deliver outstanding personal customer service in these very demanding and difficult circumstances.