Even as attempts to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 have sent the global workforce home in droves, many individuals the world over continue to work on-site each day to support essential businesses and business continuity in general.  Citizens of the world have taken notice. Here are just two examples:

• Every evening at 7 p.m. New York City residents break into applause to thank first responders and healthcare workers putting their lives at risk to do so.
• McDonald’s is offering free “Thank You Meals” for first responders and healthcare workers between April 22 and May 5.

While we applaud these displays of gratitude, they also beg the question: how are we (and by “we,” we mean everyone everywhere) showing our gratitude toward those members of the workforce who can’t necessarily be called “first responders” but who have continued to work on-site throughout the pandemic? It’s something to think about, right? In the meantime, we can offer the following  insight into how we at Exela are supporting our on-site workforce in supporting our business continuity and the business continuity of our customers:

Staggering work shifts

We have and continue to rejigger work shifts for those employees whose jobs require them to be in the office. Implementing several shifts, as opposed to requiring everyone to be on-site at the same time, supports on-site employees in maintaining greater physical distance from one another by making office spaces less populated.

Providing cleaning products for on-site employees

Providing cleaning products for on-site employees supports those employees in sanitizing their workspaces and keeping their hands free from germs.

Implementing daily cleaning of office space

Cleanliness has never been so important, which is strict daily cleaning of office spaces is critical wherever employees are working on-site.

Providing protective gear

We are providing cloth face coverings for our employees who are on-site in an effort to protect employees from the respiratory droplets of other employees and our customers, where applicable. When our employees must visit viral hot zones such as New York City or medical facilities anywhere (for example, for our healthcare industry customers), we do our best to provide N95 masks (also known as respirators), which are a step above cloth face masks (learn the difference in the COVID-19 Glossary). We also provide protective gloves for all of our on-site employees.

Offering safety training

A mask and gloves won’t help if they become cross-contamination vectors. Therefore, it’s important for on-site employees to be trained in how to apply and remove their protective gear without risking cross-contamination. Training can be provided off-site using tools like Exela’s automated training and certification tools.

Offering non-invasive health monitoring

Wherever our employees are on-site, we have put into place a temperature-monitoring program whereby employees can assess their temperatures (and whether they have a fever). Ideally, this is done via scanner (which doesn’t require skin contact), but disposable thermometer strips are also useful. If anyone logs a temperature of 99F or higher, they should be asked not to enter the site and to instead seek immediate medical attention until a medical fit-for-duty certificate can be obtained.  

Maintaining an agile response plan

At Exela, in the event an employee becomes a “Confirmed Case” (see definition, as well as a full COVID-19 pandemic glossary, here) we have put into place a rapid reporting mechanism whereby all employees are notified and sent home for the day while a nationally reputable cleaning firm disinfects the site before the next workday. We also have a team of experts on hand to collect and analyze all related data using state-of-the-art analytic tool, and business continuity team members, including members of Human Resources and Security leadership, stay on top of such data and related reports to provide continuing real-time guidance on workplace protocols.

“Over”-communicating

The more you communicate with your on-site workforce, the more vital information you and they will have. Keep in at least bi-weekly contact with your employees. Consider offering employee training regarding safety measures. Here at Exela, our Corporate Communications team sends out communications two to three times per week to provide our employees with the latest news, information, updates, and resources.

Encourage your employees to stay informed

With self-service solutions such as Smart Lockers such a popular choice among our customers, it’s only natural we would gravitate toward helping our employees to help themselves become and remain well-informed about the constantly evolving pandemic landscape. Our Corporate Communications team offers news and resources at least weekly, and we keep it reliable by following these 8 ways to sniff out the fake news from what’s true.

Here at the Exela Blog, we’re doing our part to vet the news and share only what we can be certain is true. We hope you’ll do the same. As you work through these challenging times, we hope you’ll find these best practices for making remote working work for you helpful for you -- if you’re working from home, as well as our special edition of PluggedIN, COVID-19: A Tipping Point For Remote Work, a thought leadership publication focusing on remote work trends before, during and after the pandemic and best practices for business leaders and managers to ensure productivity and efficiency while employees are working from home.

If there is any way you think we can assist you, please do not hesitate to contact us at covidresponse@exelatech.com.

As part of our continuing education program for our employees, Exela offers enterprise-wide biweekly seminars on topics of current interest that pertain to our business. Lately, the focus has been on all things related to how we can help businesses tap into the inherent (and often, untapped) value of their enterprise data. Most recently, the focus was on “Information Governance,” which is crucial to any business’s plan to manage their enterprise information. This particular seminar featured a roundtable discussion featuring four of Exela’s leaders in information governance:

• Saleem Ahmed, Vice President Business Strategy (SME)
• Peter Caporal, Vice President Portfolio Management
• Matt Crumrine, Vice President Business Development
• Michael Marinelli, Client Engagement Director

The discussion, facilitated by Salar Salahshoor, our Director of Product Marketing, was fascinating, and employees have been talking about it ever since. Because the discussion touched on proprietary information and strategy, we can’t share the video or transcript. But because information governance is such an important topic—and seemingly so misunderstood—we felt it would be a disservice not to share what we can. We hope you find it as illuminating as we did:

What is information governance?

The term “information governance” refers to an enterprise’s overarching policy for handling all information in any form that is received from any source or generated by the enterprise, with the end game being the optimization of that information (i.e. maximizing value while mitigating risk associated with the information).

But hasn’t information governance always been part of the business landscape?

Information governance begins with the age-old truism that information is the lifeblood of any business. That’s as true today as it ever was. However, in the past, copying important documents for members of one’s working group and maintaining paper files in cardboard boxes for the length of time required by applicable laws, rules, and regulations could pass as an adequate form of “information governance.” Thanks to the digital revolution, information is now generated and received in mind-boggling volume, at mind-boggling speed, and in disparate forms. Not all information rises to the level of “Big Data,” but the volume and velocity at which information is generated and received in the current landscape, as well as the speed at which business is now conducted, demands a disciplined enterprise-level approach to managing the value, utility, risks, and requirements posed by the data deluge.

What’s at stake?

An estimated 30% of enterprises would be forced to shut down within weeks of a catastrophic event that destroyed their paper records (e.g., fire, flood, earthquake), according to Exela’s Vice President of Global Strategy (SME), Saleem Ahmed. But the loss of any single document creates an estimated 25 hours of additional work in recreating the information contained therein, and even in the most mundane day-to-day operations, a typical employee spends as many as 400 hours per year to search for documents. Again, this isn’t exactly news to most C-Suite executives. In fact, more than half of all enterprises have identified “information governance” as the largest anticipated area of enterprise spending going forward, according Exela's Vice President of Strategy & Business Development, Matt Crumrine.

Seems simple enough; what’s the part that’s misunderstood?

As the digital world invents and reinvents itself on an ongoing basis, new buzzwords emerge, and old buzzwords develop new meanings. Information governance has emerged as a buzzword alongside “information management,” which is used somewhat interchangeably with “enterprise information management” (EIM), Enterprise Content Management (ECM), and Master Data Management” (MDM).

Both information governance and information management are concerned with the entire life cycle of information. However, “information governance” is a concept distinct from “information management.” We’ll be discussing information management in upcoming blogs. For now, our Enterprise Content Management Solutions, our Master Data Management Solutions, and our Big Data Analytics Solutions can provide a preview of what information management can do for your business.

The difference between “information governance” and “information management”

Whereas information governance addresses an enterprise’s overarching policies and strategies with regard to information, information management addresses how those policies and strategies are carried out within the enterprise. If information is the lifeblood of your business, then information management is your business’s circulatory system, while information governance is your business’s backbone. If you need help getting started on designing and implementing an information governance plan for your enterprise, Exela can help. Schedule a consultation today.