Compugen CSMO featured in BC Business magazine
Posted March 11, 2020 in Announcements
This statement is in response to interest from partners, customers and the public about Compugen’s business plans related to the current contagion impacting many countries, cities and regions around the world.
Compugen’s two primary concerns are about human health and business operations. Regarding human health, we commit to taking any and all measures within our power, under the guidance of public health authorities, to help slow the spread of Covid-19 and to help any of our staff who may be affected by this public health emergency.
Human Health
Compugen is sharing information with our employees concerning risks and risk mitigation based on government sources (Health Canada, US Centers for Disease Control). We have asked for the elimination of non-essential business travel and put in place a protocol around returning to work after potential exposure. We also require employees to be aware of customer risk mitigation measures and to respect those measures.
• We have ensured that all office staff can work remotely in the event that this is necessary. A significant proportion of our staff can perform most of their daily functions without attending a Compugen office. Field services staff, warehouse and configurations and parts depot staff physically move finished goods and parts, and may attend customer sites delivering parts and services, so cannot perform those functions remotely. Regardless of role, any staff displaying any symptoms, or who have travelled to an impacted area, will be asked to self-quarantine for 14 days.
• For those staff who need to meet or work physically with others, we are providing advice and personal protective equipment, including rubber gloves, hand sanitizers and face masks to mitigate risk as appropriate to the situation. Further, we are working with customers to improve the rate of remote repair, engaging the end-users as much as possible to assist in the process—this could involve, in some circumstances, having the end-user plug in a replacement part, for example.
• We have cancelled currently booked and planned business travel by air or rail, cancelled business attendance at events where 5 or more people are likely to be present, and will not approve such travel to any high-risk areas. .
• Compugen has implemented a return to work protocol for staff who, for personal reasons must travel to areas where the risk of contracting Covid-19 is high. We have reduced the moral hazard associated with asking staff to self-quarantine or to take sick days that would otherwise impact their earnings by extending our paid leave for sickness and for dependent care to cover a standard period of quarantine. We have also temporarily removed certain requirements for doctors’ notes.
Business Operations
Regarding business operations, our goal is to maintain our operations with minimal impact to our customers. Compugen has a pandemic preparedness plan (or PPP, a special instance of the Emergency Preparedness Plan). The PPP is a working document prepared by a group of senior staff from key departments.
The plan is the responsibility of senior representatives of Human Resources, Information Systems, Materials Management (Purchasing and Sales Operations), Shipping and Logistics Support, Receiving and Warehouse, Finance and Services.
Compugen’s customers are regularly apprised of supply chain constraints at the time of order and as relevant during order fulfilment. Our major suppliers also publish relevant information about the supply chain, which continues to be affected by the spread of Covid-19 in China and elsewhere, resulting in factory shutdowns.
Compugen’s operations involve a high degree of technology and management support for remote work, which may reduce the risk of staff contracting the Covid-19 virus at one of our offices.
Our Pandemic Preparedness Plan foresees us relying on cross-trained, backup staff in the event of numbers of key workers becoming ill while providing protection as much as possible to staff who by the nature of their work must interact physically with others either at Compugen or at customer sites.
The pandemic preparedness plan has mandated that all departments have in place tested and up-to-date operational plans that allow them to deliver their services under a variety of possible scenarios, such as a regional or local lockdown, or with many personnel unable to work owing to illness. For example, Compugen may need to shift the responsibilities from one region to another. This is likely to involve training or a requirement for a virtual command centre to adjust regional responsibilities on a daily basis as required by human resources, parts and logistics teams.
In the event of circumstances that prevent parts of the business from being transacted—severe supply chain constraints, government-mandated lockdown, etc., Compugen will work with its suppliers and customers to ensure that operations can continue as soon as possible.
Prioritization during a pandemic will focus on service support for essential services, such as healthcare, utilities, transportation infrastructure and the like. In addition, based on our contracts with customers, we have analyzed our spares requirements and increased supply in the field across the country to provide service and support redundancy.
Like other businesses that have weathered severe repercussions of pandemics, Compugen has plans to manage finances and to support its customers and its staff for an extended period of disruption.
Version 1.4
Date of Issue: 11 March 2020
Date of Revision: 31 March 2020
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