The COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting thousands of businesses worldwide and affecting about 100 million people, or way more than that, turning into an international health crisis as well. 

Here we are at Intelligent IT Hub, taking every single step not only to prevent the spread of CoronaVirus but to support and comply with the government's advisories and their decision. As a company, it is our duty, we are committed to the health and safety of our whole team, as well as ensure the safety of our partners during COVID-19.

Quickly Moving to mandatory work from home globally + supporting our employees (Friday, April 10)

Our top priority remains the safety and health of our employees, and we also have a responsibility to support our partners and communities, those who are vulnerable, and the healthcare providers who are on the front lines of this COVID-19 pandemic. To continue this push, we at IIH Global, are moving beyond our earlier guidance of “strongly encouraging work from home” provided on March 23rd and have now informed all employees and partners globally they must work from home.

We totally understand this is an unprecedented step, but these are unprecedented times, the situation is worse. And we will continue to do all that we can to support our Nation and the Government, including:

#IIH Global Business Continuity Plan

Designed to overcome challenges and help employees, clients, business associates stay connected. We are safe, accepting of the new reality of remote working from home, and will continue to provide the best support to clients with the same quality. 

#Additional resources to support employees

As part of our ongoing global benefits support, IIH GLOBAL is stepping in to ease additional expenses of employees that they may be experiencing when working from home, laptops and personal systems have been provided to them, for the smooth going workflow, which is affected due to COVID-19. The expenses incurred have been reimbursed from the management side directly.

#Helping the employees to set up their at-home offices

All employees and partners will receive reimbursement toward their home office set up expenses, and we are working with our clients to ensure that their work-from-home needs are met as well. We listened to employee feedback and expanded our policy to include home office equipment, such as laptops, personal computers, desks, desk chairs, and ergonomic chair cushions. We’re also allowing employees to expense online fees while working from home.

#TheTalkShow

I still remember, last year, we introduced #TheTalkShow, a program activated when employees want to come together during difficult times to share what’s going on with them and be heard by our managers and management. News around COVID-19 is impacting people in a number of different ways - from schools, colleges and offices being closed, to serious health concerns, to racism towards communities, we’re all dealing with a lot. The management took the help of #TheTalkShow, which acknowledges that there’s a direct correlation between conversations between us, the health of our workplace, the health of our partners and clients, and mainly the health of our service. 

#Resource guides to make the work-from-home transition easier

I know that working from home can be a challenging transition, so we have provided a variety of resource guides to help our employees continue to get their job done. We are listing some of them here as well just because at times like this, sharing insights and learning is so important. We are all in this together and we want to help others outside of IIH Global, to make their transitions to working outside of their offices easier.

• Working From Home Best Practices: We have shared the factors to consider to make sure employees are ready to be productive and healthy. Some factors include workspace, communication, self-care, and logging hours. Overall, working from home doesn’t change your day-to-day work, it just means you’ll be doing it from a different environment and different place.
• Managing a Distributed Team: Being a People manager means providing a consistent and positive employee experience for everyone on your team, regardless of location. This manager resource basically highlights the three key pillars of management: Strategy, Growth and Care. So what changes when your team is fully distributed? The good news—not much! These pillars still apply whether you manage a distributed or co-located team. 
• Virtual Interview Guide: All interviews at IIH Global will be done via video conferencing or will be telephonic. A complete virtual interview has its own benefits. It is ideal for introducing candidates to remote work cultures, and it is a great opportunity for candidates who will work remotely to get a sense for the experience of interacting with other team members remotely.  While this Virtual Interview Guide is not a holistic Interview Guide, it instead focuses on the aspects of interviewing candidates remotely that differ from interviewing candidates in-person or face to face. 
• We have also shared guides for working across time zones, utilizing collaboration tools to stay connected, and ergonomic tips for working from home and on-the-go.

We will continue sharing information as we navigate these changes. It is all in dedication to keeping our employees and everyone around us healthy. We’re all in this together!

#Encouraging employees to work from home 

Beginning from today and from the last many days, we are strongly encouraging all employees globally to work from home if they are able. Our main goal is to lower the probability of the spread of the COVID-19 for us - and the world around us. We are operating out of an abundance of caution and the utmost dedication to keeping our employees and work healthy. 

We are working to make sure not only the internal meetings, all hands, but other important tasks are optimized for remote participation. We analysed that working from home is not ideal for some job functions. For all those employees who need or prefer to come into the offices, they will remain open for business. Working from home will be mandatory for employees based in our London, UK offices due in part to government restrictions. 

While this is a big change for us, we have already been moving towards a more distributed workforce that is increasingly remote. We are a global service provider and we’re committed to work.

We also have the responsibility of ensuring that the health and safety of our employees and partners is not compromised. We have continued to monitor the situation closely and are adjusting our internal policies to respond to this rapidly-evolving situation. On February 29, we informed our people and started notifying partners that we are suspending all non-critical business travel. 

This policy is effective immediately and will continue until the Centers for Disease Control or World Health Organization, deem it appropriate to step back from pandemic with precautionary measures or when a vaccine becomes available. 

Our goal is to reduce the risk that anyone at IIH Global, might contract or inadvertently spread the virus. It is important that we take these proactive steps to protect ourselves and others and minimize the spread of COVID-19. 

There are various transnational ways and efforts underway to tackle this virus. As a global company with a global workforce, we want to do whatever we can to help the success of the multi-stakeholder containment efforts and for our Nation. We want to thank our people, partners, clients and customers who stick with us in this situation by their patience and understanding.

IIH Global, is open and our team is working for home. We are safe, adapting to the new reality of remote working successfully, and will continue to provide clients with the same quality services.