COVID-19 (Coronavirus) presents significant challenges and risks to our people, our clients, and our broader community. Here, we outline how Bentleys is caring for the health and wellbeing of its community, while also taking an informed approach to ensure service continuity.
Bentleys’ preparedness for COVID-19 (Coronavirus)
Bentleys takes an informed approach to service continuity, which includes the potential effects of an outbreak such as COVID-19. While there is currently no direct impact to Bentleys’ services, we would like to provide some detail regarding our network’s preparedness should the situation change.
Specific to COVID-19, we are providing an outline of key preparedness activities to help ensure continued service delivery during this period. Our three areas of focus are as follows:
- Impact to people: are we prepared should there be impact to the individuals responsible for delivering service to our clients?
- Impact to location: from which locations do we deliver services and what is our response?
- Impact to systems: does the event have a potential impact on our systems used to deliver and support our clients?
Specific details on each of these areas are below.
Understanding Coronavirus
Protect against Coronavirus
COVID-19 in the workplace
Better practice in hand washing
COVID-19: Impact to people
The health and wellbeing of our people, our clients and our community is our highest priority, so we are doing all that we can to reduce the risk of COVID-19 entering or being passed on within our community. We also acknowledge that our clients are depending on us to deliver service continuity. We have therefore taken the following precautionary measures to minimise risk for our people and to continue to deliver a high-quality service for our clients.
Staff education
- All Bentleys staff have been educated on (1) how COVID-19 is transmitted and (2) best practices in good personal hygiene. We have provided hand sanitisers and disinfectant wipes throughout offices and meeting rooms. We require all of our employees to adhere to good hygiene practices.
Notifying HR and/or local management of matters of concern
- All staff are actively encouraged to keep abreast of updates from local government about matters pertaining to their health and well-being, particularly in relation to either physical or mental health matters pertaining to COVID-19. Where you have come into contact with someone who may be considered ‘at risk’ or you are feeling unwell, you should be tested and also should advice local management and/or HR of your concerns so that it can be managed locally and any problems quarantined as appropriate.
Flexible working arrangements
- Our workplace policies enable staff members, who are responsible for managing client services, to have access to the necessary resources to take action from home or office, wherever possible. Policies across our network are regularly reviewed and adjusted to meet the changing needs of our clients and our work force. Local work arrangements are dictated by local practice management.
Travel restrictions
- Bentleys has enforced staff travel restrictions to help reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection. Instead, we are using the latest video-conferencing technology to conduct our meetings in a safe manner.
- We support, and we expect all staff members to support the travel restriction measures that have been communicated by relevant government authorities, outside of the workplace.
Social (physical) distancing
- Again, to help reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection, Bentleys has adopted a social (physical) distancing policy, whereby onsite events and larger meetings will be postponed until further notice, or conducted using webinar or video conferencing technology.
Masks
- Where stipulated by the relevant government advice, we expect all staff members to abide by these recommendations and wear masks when so required.
Visits to our offices
- Wherever possible, we will seek to conduct all meetings with clients, guests, suppliers and contractors via teleconference, video conference or other virtual means. The Australian Government advises that people who have travelled anywhere overseas in the past 14 days and have COVID-19 symptoms (especially fever or cough) should seek testing at an official COVID-19 clinic, or alternatively contact their GP. We ask that our clients, guests, suppliers and contractors follow this advice. We will ask any visitors to our offices of their recent travel and advise them of appropriate action, to help reduce any unnecessary spread of infection.
Visits to client premises
- In the event that the use of video conferencing or other technology is not viable, our staff may need to visit clients at their premises. If so, our staff will adhere to best practice in hygiene practices, and note and apply the above sections pertaining to the use of masks, etc.
Client communications
- Bentleys has been reducing its dependence on physical postage for client communications for some years. To help enable a time-efficient response, it is recommended that any member of our community seeking to make contact with their Bentleys advisor does so via electronic means.
Learning from leading authorities
- We are referring daily to leading health authorities, including the World Health Organisation, the Australian Government’s Department of Health, the Ministry of Health NZ, and others, to remain abreast of any changes to the COVID-19 situation. We will continue to share updates with our community, and provide details on how our measures may change in response.
COVID-19: Impact to location
With over 700 staff located across 18 locations in the APAC region, Bentleys has expertise and capacity to draw upon to ensure continued operation from any location.
Ability to work remotely
- Bentleys has been embracing cloud-based technologies for some time, enabling many of our staff to work remotely, as required.
Preparedness for building closure
- In the event that staff members, from any office location, are deemed at risk of COVID-19 infection, office facilities may close temporarily. Should this action be deemed necessary, staff members will no longer have access to the facility until further notice from the responsible person. Remote working requirements will be enforced.
Network support
- We are able to draw upon rich expertise and resources from across the Bentleys Network, to ensure continued operation from any location, should individuals fall ill. We have offices located in Adelaide, Auckland, Brisbane, Canberra, Coolangatta, Emerald, Gold Coast, Guangzhou, Hobart, Melbourne, Newcastle, Perth, Shanghai, Sunshine Coast, Sydney and Tamworth.
COVID-19: Impact to systems
There are no known impacts to Bentleys systems. Heightened awareness is in place for the following areas:
Move to video conferencing
- Bentleys is accelerating its use of Microsoft Teams and other conferencing apps to enable meetings to proceed safely.
Supporting systems
- A general principle of cloud service operations is remote management and administration. We see any impact on our ability to manage the systems used, and have confirmed adequate capacity for staff to work remotely as required.
External systems
- Bentleys also has access to the rich resources of Allinial Global – the second largest accounting and consulting group in the world – as required. This includes client services, IT, BD, and HR systems, resources and processes.
Executive governance
- Bentleys’ Australian and New Zealand board members will participate in video-conferences on a regular basis for the foreseeable future to monitor the COVID-19 situation and our response.
Actions you can take
- Understand how you can protect yourself from COVID-19 here.
- Familiarise yourself with best practice in personal hygiene here.
- To understand the significance of this pandemic, read the World Health Organisation Director-General’s opening remarks at the media briefing on 16 March 2020 here.
- Contact your Bentleys advisor by email or phone, and arrange meetings using conferencing technology, such as Microsoft Teams. If your organisation is looking to accelerate its move to Microsoft Teams, overview information regarding Teams can be found here. If you do have a need to work remotely, follow our best practices to maximize your use of Teams.
While this page outlines our latest updates for our communities and the high-level efforts being put in place across our Network, there are significantly more activities that relate to our business continuity efforts – some of which are specific to certain locations – that are beyond the scope of this communication. Nuanced responses from specific locations will supplement this communication.
Last update: 4 August 2020, 4.30pm ACDT.