Churches Fire & Security statement and actions on the Coronavirus (Covid-19)

Churches Fire & Security continues to monitor the Coronavirus (COVID-19) situation globally, and the safety of our employees, customers and partners is our top priority. Since Churches Fire & Security provides on-site support for you, we want to outline some of the precautions we are taking.

Churches Fire & Security has established a cross-functional group, who monitors the situation daily and provides employees with important information about the virus. We also have country/regional teams that are constantly providing specific site, or business direction.

We are asking employees to take precautions, such as avoiding people who are sick and frequently wash their hands, and to follow the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. This includes all employees, including those who either work from, or visit customer sites and supplier locations.  If an employee is tested positive we are able to track sites they have visited and you will be notified.

These are the steps we are taking:

Visiting Your Site

• All our technicians have disposable gloves which will be worn whilst on-site, and disposed of afterwards.
• Staff are instructed to call before they enter the building on manned sites and ask if anyone has been exposed. If this is the case our staff will not be permitted to enter your site.  If they are given the green light, they will use hand sanitiser before entering.  They will service your building and make any adjustments to your system required to keep your system compliant. (Please remember you need full fire protection, serviced to British Standards even in an empty building.  Your insurance could be invalid if you have a fire and you have not maintained your fire protection equipment).
• Upon leaving your premises they will use hand sanitiser before moving into their vehicle.
• If a staff member has any symptoms they will be in isolation for the 14 day period, no staff member is permitted to work with any symptoms.

Emergency Call Outs/Covid-19 Outbreak Sites

• If your premises has an outbreak of Covid-19 and you require an urgent visit, we will not be permitted to enter for the wellbeing of our staff. We will however be able to get the technician to video call you.  Please provide him/her with your mobile number when they call you and they may be able to walk you through any resets or emergency actions.  WhatsApp is a popular and easy video app which many of our technicians use, so please download this. I’m sure you will understand this is to mitigate ANY cross contamination with any sites we look after.
• Our out of hours service is provided by a large response centre who have been in ‘lock down’ for over a month with no visitors permitted; they are well protected. However, in the very unlikely event they are not able to take out of hours calls, then our team of day workers will be on rota to answer your calls during this time.
• You can reach us on our usual website number. You can also e-mail us, as these are monitored continually and prioritised.
• If you have an urgent call out and want to e-mail that to us please note in the header/subject line ‘Call out required – urgent’. We will action these first.

General Office Assistance/Business Continuity for Office

• Our office staff have been sent home to work except for our call centre in hours. They have been spread throughout our large offices with their own facilities so they keep ‘social distancing’ a priority and to ensure we can still cover your calls.  In the event that they all have to go home, we have a cloud-based telephone system which will be distributed to home workers who will still answer your calls. Please bear with us if we aren’t as ‘slick’ as we normally are.
• As the many employers around the country send their workers home, we expect bandwidth on the system to be a concern. We have therefore a mix of both Citrix and VPN workers to counter act as much as we can.  Our e-mails will continue to be processed by the team.

Technician Business Continuity

• Churches Fire & Security is well equipped in our resource to ensure we can continue to cover the country during this crisis. We have 200 technicians as well as a team of Field Line Managers who cover a large geographical area.  There may be time when it may take longer than average to get to you if our staff numbers fall.  I’m sure all of us are preparing for this scenario.  However, you will be able to get assistance from us during your time of need.
• Our technicians tend to work in their own geographical location, they do not gather together very often and have not been together for a large period of time. All our training and meetings have been cancelled for the previous month.  Our prediction is that we will not be left ‘completely’ uncovered during this crisis from a staff numbers perspective.

Churches Fire & Security continues to comply with all instructions from national and local authorities regarding travel restrictions, self-isolation, reporting and other health precautions. Any Churches Fire & Security employee who travels for professional or personal reasons to quarantined areas or those designated by WHO as high-risk, are required to self-isolate (or work from home if possible) for 14 days after their return.

Should one of our employees either test positive or suspect they have been exposed to this virus, we will inform you as soon as possible if they have been on your site within the last 14 days.

We expect our employees to be honest about their health and travel history for their safety and for those with whom they might come in contact. We also expect customers to immediately inform Churches Fire & Security if there is a confirmed Coronavirus case at their location.

If there are additional and specific precautions you are requiring your employees to follow and want your Churches Fire & Security support to comply with as well, please let your Account Manager know as soon as possible.

Churches Fire & Security appreciates your business and partnership on this issue. If you have questions, please reach out to your Churches Fire v point-of-contact.

Charlie Haynes

Chief Executive Officer