Given the UK government’s inadequate response to coronavirus and what will likely become a rapidly-developing situation here and elsewhere, it is sensible and prudent that Open Briefing takes steps now to reduce the risk to our people, operations and clients from the pandemic and associated repercussions.

Our internal planning is focussed on three key areas: business continuity management, travel risk and our public health responsibilities. 

We have today enacted a number of temporary measures with immediate effect. These include sensible social distancing measures, such as increased home working, no domestic or international travel for work, and using video conferencing instead of face-to-face meetings, as well as business continuity measures, such as increasing our ability to rapidly reassign work where possible to other team members.

Further, as a rights-based organisation, we have an increased duty to meet our public health responsibilities, as it will be the most-vulnerable in our societies who are most impacted by the coronavirus pandemic and associated repercussions. As such, we have asked our team to consider what additional social distancing measures they can sensibly enact now, such as limiting their use of public transport, and what concrete steps they can take to stay healthy in order to reduce the burden on our healthcare systems and increase their resilience to coronavirus and other illnesses.

Finally, we are keenly aware that public health crises such as this can cause immense stress and that some of the measures that will likely become necessary in the coming weeks may impact our mental as well as physical health. As such, our wellbeing and resilience lead is available to all our team to signpost to helpful resources and discuss other support that may be available.

However the pandemic develops, there will be impacts on our team and our work – either from the virus itself, the measures taken to delay its spread, or knock-on effects, such as strained health services. By enacting sensible and proportionate measures now and planning for reasonable future scenarios, we hope to reduce these risks. If we can help your team do the same, please contact us to discuss.