3PM’s response to COVID-19

3PM's response to COVID-19

by 3PM

In light of the recent developments with the spread of coronavirus COVID-19 in the UK, 3PM would like to reassure clients and the teams we work with that we are taking the necessary steps in line with the governments guidelines. We have prepared a business continuity plan which outlines our measures we have in place which can be issued upon on request, please be in contact with 3pm@3pm.uk.com .

Business Continuity

Responsibility for business continuity within 3PM sits with the Management Team: the group of five partners who manage all of the high-level business affairs of the firm on a national basis. The 3PM Management Team hold overall responsibility for assessing and managing the potential impact of COVID-19 (and the steps put in place by relevant Governments and authorities to deal with it). This includes:

  • Development and implementation of a business continuity plan, taking into account relevant legal and regulatory obligations and the issues we set out below.
  • Prioritising effectively and managing potentially conflicting imperatives.
  • Establishing and maintaining clear internal and external protocols for regular and emergency communication with employees, clients and other key stakeholders.
  • Monitoring and responding to developments and taking advice, with appropriate senior management and/or legal oversight.
  • Consideration for support functions including HR, IT, purchasing, procurement, security and legal and is split across different regions and time zones (where relevant).

Our Team
We have responsibility for our 3PM Family, our Team, and ensure we comply with all health and safety duties, broader duties of care and good faith owed to them, including:

  • Monitoring local Governmental and World Health Organisation advice and notifying/ reminding staff of recommendations not to travel to particular areas and of measures to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.
  • Introducing policies prohibiting or limiting business travel, particularly to high-risk areas, and using our alternative communication solutions (e.g. video-conferencing).
  • All team members are now working from home and using the technologies we have in place to continue working as normal. We have implemented home-working arrangements for projects team members and all our office-based particular roles.
  • Introducing policies on the self-isolation of staff (whether mandated by law, imposed by the business or requested by individual staff members).
  • Establishing procedures requiring staff to report if they feel unwell or are absent, and to report possible infection or exposure to the virus (including following private travel to high-risk areas) or concerns involving others they have been in contact with at work.
  • Providing staff with the right equipment for disinfecting hands and (if official advice recommends) protective masks, and with any additional health and safety training or support that they might need.
  • Planning resourcing strategies such as the re-allocation of staff, the splitting of teams, the rotation of in-office/home-working arrangements or the cross-training of staff who perform business-critical functions, to minimise the risks of disruption if large numbers of staff, or key staff, are absent.
  • Make special arrangements for vulnerable employees.

Every staff member is set up to work remotely, so should we need to isolate the entire company, business will continue as normal and our services will remain unaffected. Measures of this policy includes:

  • Robust communications channels are in place including mobile phones, and office landline diversions should attendance in the office be unavailable for some time.
  • We operate on Office365 where all of our emails and files are stored securely on the cloud and can be accessed by our team anywhere and at any time.
  • We use Microsoft Teams for conference and video calls and can utilise this platform at any time should face-to-face meetings not be appropriate or recommended. A Microsoft Teams conference call can accommodate up to 300 participants enabling us to run full project and company meetings fast. The messaging feature also lets us chat to specific Teams of people at once in real time.
  • Our mainstream suppliers such as Microsoft have also planned various measures to assist with remote working.
  • We also use our company Whatsapp group to provide the team updates in real time.
  • We educate our team how to stay productive when working remotely.

We are also maintaining regular contact with our entire team to ensure their physical and mental wellbeing is maintained during this testing time for all, and providing tips for productive and successful remote and home working methods. We feel keeping constant communication with our team is important to ensure they are all ok and we will always continue to support them in any way we can to help them and their families through this time.

We will also provide our team with regular updates at our Monday morning team ‘huddle’ which is a forum for business updates, what’s happening on our projects and resource needs within the team.

Should a member of our team contract the virus and become unwell or have to self-isolate, we have team backup plans in place to ensure continuity of our service to our clients and projects, including:

  • Our project partners are actively involved in projects to provide back up to our project management teams.
  • Our peer partners are deployed on every scheme as a backup to ensure that if any partner is off sick, our clients have access to senior level support who are up to date on the project.
  • We carry availability within our project management delivery teams so that should a team member fall ill, another will be available to take their place temporarily.

Continuous Working From Home
In the event of a prolonged period of remote working, we will implement our communications plan which includes:

  • Team members reporting to a Partner on a daily basis
  • Formal sickness notifications via the line manager plus the Partner responsible for projects affected
  • Contact to be maintained at least once a day ensuring all deadlines are met and understood
  • Where necessary other team members allocated by agreement with all Partners

Contact Us
All communications to the 3PM Team are still operational as normal so please continue to communicate in the usual ways to us. We hope everyone we work with stays well, safe and takes care during this time.

We are committed to you all and will help when and where we can, please do not hesitate to contact us in any regard.

-The 3PM Team.