Statement on COVID-19 (March 2, 2020)
As businesses around the world both begin and continue to feel the impacts of the situation surrounding COVID-19 (Novel Coronavirus), Horizons has enacted special measures to protect staff and safeguard client operations.
Protection of Staff
Horizons has offices across the Asia-Pacific, Europe, and North America. We are closely monitoring the situation in each of the regions, and in the past few months, all of our staff members have been diligently following government and health authority advice, avoiding all but essential personal travel, working from home, and ensuring best practices when it comes to hygiene and emergency preparedness.
With greater normalcy resuming in China, our regional headquarters staff in Shanghai have been allowed to return to the office, but we continue to facilitate remote work for all colleagues if required or preferred. Our company has extensive systems in place to facilitate virtual operations, and appropriate steps have been taken to ensure adherence to all applicable employment and data protection regulations in all countries in which we have operations.
Given the dynamic nature of the outbreak, we will continue to support our staff members with adjusted working arrangements and will ensure that all who require reduced hours or leave to cope with the outbreak are supported in their day-to-day work and protected financially.
Safeguarding Client Operations
Horizons supports clients across Asia and the Middle East, including in many of the countries where the COVID-19 outbreak has been most severe. Our operational teams have implemented our Business Continuity Plan to ensure that the impact on our clients’ operations is mitigated as far as possible. We are pleased to report that we have been able to ensure full service across all countries thus far, with no disruption to client operations.
A number of our clients, understandably, are having to take unprecedented measures to manage their operations abroad. We continue to offer extensive support to our clients, and have contingency plans in place to enable businesses to retain their staff, rather than terminate them. We encourage all businesses who fear having to terminate staff to contact us at their earliest opportunity so we may advise on compliant means of reducing labor burden abroad without effecting redundancies and terminations.
Information and Support
We will continue to publish updates about the situation as it develops on our website and social media pages. For further support with any of the matters described herein, or any new issues arising due to the COVID-19 outbreak, please contact our team at contact@nhglobalpartners.com or call our Shanghai office on +86 158 0055 0478.
