COVID-19 and and our commitment to public services
During this challenging period, the work of our public services has never been more important or more visible. We are committed to ensuring our clients can continue to respond, innovate and be ready for the new future that will emerge. We fully support and sign up to the C-19 Business Pledge.
Looking after our People
The health and wellbeing of our people is paramount. We have 11 Mental Health First Aiders in place across the business, as well as an Employee Assistance Programme. Our social learning & collaboration platform is helping teams remain inclusive, even though we are physically apart. This has brought out the best in some creative thinking to carry on as normal and build our ‘One GS’ community.
We have offered extra support to parents, such as flexing their hours, reducing their working week for a short period or buying back annual leave. These are in addition to other options enabling colleagues to protect their income in this unprecedented situation. We are making full use of our investment in technology by building a virtual community of parents at GS who are sharing ideas and supporting one another.
Protecting our business
Our early action and business continuity planning (BCP) has ensured that all staff can work remotely to the same high standards. Our early investment in processes, systems and technology ensured that all office based staff can perform their role successfully at home. Our systems have performed as planned and we have not experienced any disruption in service. Client service and candidate care remain our number one priority.
Web based video conferencing is being extensively used to facilitate preliminary interviews, assessment centres, final panels and whole team leadership development programmes. Separately, our goal is to reduce our carbon footprint while creating greater efficiencies for our clients and we will use this experience to assess how we can accelerate this programme to both improve service and protect the environment.
Helping our communities
We have introduced COVID volunteering to our CSR programme where two working days are offered to support vulnerable people with phone calls, picking up groceries or medication, providing patient or other NHS transport.
Our purpose is to help shape a better society and we have never been more committed and prouder to support our public service partners.
Please do get in touch if there is anything that we can do to support your own efforts to minimise service disruption.
Kevin Gordon, Chief Executive