Corona Virus

With the spread of Corona Virus from China to almost every continent in the world, the chances of it being upgraded to a Pandemic are getting more and more likely. The UK has had its first 20 cases and amongst those, the first case of it being contracted on UK soil and sadly the first death of a UK citizen with the outlook being that more are to follow.

As of 28 February, a total of 8,986 people have been tested in the UK, of which 8,966 were confirmed negative and 20 positive.

So what has been the UK government’s advice to businesses regarding safeguarding employees?

Risk level

Based on the World Health Organization’s declaration that this is a public health emergency of international concern, the UK Chief Medical Officers have raised the risk to the UK from low to moderate.

Returning travellers

Stay indoors and avoid contact with other people immediately if you’ve travelled to the UK from:

• Hubei province in China in the last 14 days, even if you do not have symptoms
• Iran, lockdown areas in northern Italy or special care zones in South Korea since 19 February, even if you do not have symptoms
• other parts of mainland China or South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan or Thailand in the last 14 days and have a cough, high temperature or shortness of breath (even if your symptoms are mild)
• other parts of northern Italy (anywhere north of Pisa, Florence and Rimini), Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar or Vietnam since 19 February and have a cough, high temperature or shortness of breath (even if your symptoms are mild)

What could this mean for your business?

Well, if the areas of lock down spread to more countries and cities then more and more of your workforce could be forced to take two weeks off in self isolation. This could have a massive impact on the numbers of your staff who are not able to attend the office. Therefore it becomes essential that your workforce can still participate and work on company business and communicate effectively, but safely in isolation.

How can this be achieved?

PC Matters can investigate your existing IT infrastructure and make recommendations on how to allow your email and data to become available to staff who are not able to attend the office. Primarily using the tried and tested Microsoft Office 365 portal to enable your business to work and communicate better and closer than ever before. The suite allows staff to work on the same documents at the same time but from different locations with the document updating with content from each user in near real time (Internet connection needed).

Some of the inbuilt tools like Teams allow your staff to communicate through text chat, audio and video calls from their laptop, PC, tablet and even smart phone. Data associated with that Team is stored within the Team allowing for easy access, meetings can be arranged and organised within the Team.

PC Matters will also make recommendations around other technologies that will bring your workforce even closer. For example we can use VoIP technology, so that your staff on their Office phone numbers anywhere they have the internet and a laptop, PC, tablet or smart phone.

Please contact us at PC Matters so we can discuss making your work force more efficient, more available and more cohesive.