Contingencies for General Pandemic Risks
This page sets out OAC’s contingency measures in the event of there being a general pandemic across the United Kingdom and around the world.
All OAC staff (except for a small proportion who are working at clients’ premises at any time) work from home using computer equipment that they operate so we do not have to address issues of having to close premises to avoid / reduce contagion.
Our centralised computer systems are under OAC’s direct control and can operate without manual intervention for considerable periods. In the event of intervention being necessary, we have a number of solutions available to us to cope and we have formal business continuity and disaster recovery provisions in place for this.
OAC staff are spread geographically widely across the United Kingdom. This means we would expect the incidence of illness in OAC staff to be no greater than the average incidence of illness across the United Kingdom even if some regions have a higher incidence than the average among the population as a whole. In fact, OAC staff should be affected less because they are not exposed to contagion through use of public transport nor through proximity to work colleagues, clients or suppliers.
OAC might suffer from a reduction in staff numbers (ie in the event that some OAC staff become ill) but we expect that if this happens some of our consultancy work at clients’ premises will cease temporarily. OAC staff have always been used to being reassigned to other work so this release of some staff will assist in overcoming any staff shortages.
For a lengthy period, if we have too much work for the available staff, we expect to be able to hire and equip additional staff quickly, remotely and at short notice - as noted above we employ staff working at home and therefore we have a very wide recruitment catchment in the UK and abroad and we do not have to accommodate new staff in offices. In addition, OAC always receives a stream of enquiries about work so we have a long list of possible recruitees in the UK and abroad.
OAC can assist clients who suffer shortages of staff by taking on additional work. In many cases OAC can provide solutions quickly to enable a client’s staff to work from home.
In the event of severe problems in the country OAC expects to fare much better than other firms. For example we will not be affected if public transport stops.
If you have any specific queries regarding this matter please do not hesitate to contact us.
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