As you know, the Governor of the State of Louisiana has issued a shelter-in-place to safeguard public health and safety. This is a significant move by our elected officials to match the unprecedented threat that we are facing with COVID-19. During this time of heightened concern, we want to be transparent about our plans to do our part and detail the steps we are taking to continue to provide you with support. We are committed to monitoring the situation, providing regular updates, and remaining agile to update our response based on WHO (World Health Organization), CDC (Center for Disease Control) and government specific guidance.
As of March 23, 2020 our SGS Scott laboratory has encouraged all employees who can work from home to do so. We have also eliminated non-essential travel, limited visitors to our offices, and moved as much of our operations to virtual formats.
Our Scott lab at 500 Ambassador Caffery Parkway remains open in order to support you as you perform work in critical infrastructure sectors important to the state’s health and well-being. While we are taking the required steps to implement the social distancing or staff limitation requirements during all shifts, our smaller teams will work diligently to mitigate impact to our operations and maintain our usual high standards of customer service.
To protect our valuable team members and their families, our business will continue to scale down our normal operations. At the lab, we will limit our essential operations to work with a lean force to avoid working in close-proximity and respect the recommended social distancing guidelines. This will be coordinated by Ron Benjamin.
We have also arranged with a maintenance company to schedule more frequent cleaning protocols throughout our facility, but particularly in common areas.
We have also activated our comprehensive Business Continuity plans which are designed to deal with any type of business disruption. Our plans are continuously enhanced with specific information, such as WHO guidance for COVID-19. Close collaboration between our Operational Integrity, Health and Safety professionals and our global teams ensures the latest response information is available to our network.
We have also setup a Regional Crisis Management Team that meets daily, monitors the situation closely and provides regional guidance on preventive measures to be taken by our management team, in order to avoid the presence of the virus on our premises, protect our team members and minimize disruption of our operations.
Since the outbreak of the coronavirus our top priority has been the health and safety of our people and our customers. We will continue to send any necessary updates as the situation evolves and encourage you to get in touch with us if you have any questions or concerns.
Thank you and stay safe,
Marcus Maguire
Environment, Health & Safety
Senior Vice President – North America
SGS North America Inc.
Ron Benjamin
Environment, Health and Safety
Laboratory Director
SGS North America Inc.