coronavirus resource center for employers.

Randstad’s number-one priority is a safe and healthy work environment for all. We have taken the following steps in furtherance of this commitment:

• The executive team has created a Coronavirus Task Force to manage issues arising from this matter. The Task Force will proactively communicate updates as information and necessary responses evolve.
• Randstad is actively communicating with internal and external employees on assignment concerning:
  • the CDC’s recommendations for the prevention of COVID-19 Coronavirus
  • Randstad’s expectation that employees report actual or potential exposures
  • the need to stay away from worksites and/or self-quarantine when appropriate because they have:
    • become symptomatic (or tested positive for the virus)
    • have travelled to high-risk locations
    • have recently traveled aboard a cruise ship
    • have come in contact with others who are infected or may have been exposed
• Our front and back office is working proactively with clients to meet their specific business, compliance and safety needs. 
• Randstad’s existing Business Continuity Planning team is:
  • updating its recommendations in real time based on information from the CDC and other authorities
  • working with clients’ on their business continuity needs 
  • coordinating with clients and Randstad consultants if worksites for our employees must shift in response to this pandemic

Randstad recruits in a variety of market conditions, including a tight labor market and specialized skill environments. While following guidance from health authorities, we will ensure our talent continues to meet the needs of our clients and customers in the safest and most effective manner possible.

Randstad works with a large and diverse group of employers, and we are committed to working with each of our clients to respond to their specific and unique needs. Working with you, we will develop appropriate, compliant guidelines for your work environment. Strategies to promote the health and safety of your workforce include:

• staggering shifts
• encouraging employees to work from home where possible 
• reconfiguring workflows to keep employees six feet apart
• hiring clinicians to conduct your organization’s clinical screening procedures
• adding overnight shifts to avoid crowding
• introducing flexible attendance policies to encourage those who are sick not to come to work

Business travel to at-risk areas identified by the CDC is restricted for all Randstad employees. Non-essential travel has been suspended in the U.S. until further notice. Client-related travel must be approved by the client and Randstad’s business leadership.

Any Randstad employee (internal or talent) returning from personal travel to a restricted country, travel aboard a cruise ship or who had a travel layover in a restricted country is required to provide relevant travel and health information before going to the office or a client site. Individuals may be required to stay at home and self monitor for symptoms for the CDC-recommended 14 days, depending on their responses.

We're committed to a continuous effort to inform, educate and drive awareness around CDC and WHO prevention guidelines. Additionally, we will work with our clients to develop appropriate and pertinent screening protocols for your work environment that align with recommended best practices. For clients without a process to screen external personnel, we are working to implement a general health questionnaire to screen new talent who have recently traveled to an at risk location, are aware of a known or potential exposure or have recently been ill.

We require all of our corporate employees and temporary workers to inform their manager or Randstad representative if they contract coronavirus.  We will seek necessary voluntary consent to disclose personal information to our clients in this event.  

If consent is withheld, Randstad will provide clients with as much information as possible to allow you to take the necessary steps to protect your workforce without violating legal obligations owed to our employees. For example, we will provide information about the date, time and location of the potential exposure, but we may be unable to disclose an employee’s name.

We have a robust business continuity plan in place, built on three pillars:

prevention

We're monitoring the situation and communicating with federal, state and local health authorities to ensure our employee safety measures are aligned with recognized best practices and official mandates. Our primary concern is — and will always be — the health and safety of all our employees.

preparedness

We have a designated business continuity planning coordinator to lead contingency planning efforts. Meanwhile, our full-time vendor risk management group is proactively coordinating with critical business partners and service providers to minimize the risk of business disruptions.

response

Our crisis management team and business continuity steering committee are overseeing key decision-making related to the global pandemic. We're also working to assist our customers with their own in-house business continuity planning.

We believe governments and health agencies are best positioned to determine appropriate measures, such as the World Health Org (WHO) and the CDC.  We are adhering to their guidelines on mitigation and prevention.

• communicate prevention steps.
• allow employees to frequently wash hands.
• practice social distancing.
• wear face coverings.
• sanitize work areas, providing disinfectant and hand sanitizer to employees in their workstations.
• encourage anyone who has recently traveled to an impacted area, been exposed to someone infected or showing signs and symptoms to remain at home.

Yes, we do. We leverage a rich network of partnerships to provide solutions for talent to work from home, including secure VPN capabilities. Reach out to your Randstad representative to learn more.

Traditional offshore locations face a number of challenges at the moment, and our hearts and minds go out to those most directly affected. We're partnering with clients to stand up onshore helpdesk and call centers and help minimize business disruptions. We’re available to discuss different solutions that may help you minimize disruption.

Please know that as the coronavirus outbreak continues to evolve, we'll continue to take decisive action — and do everything in our power to support our customers while protecting the health and safety of our employees.

We know these are exceptionally challenging times for so many employers, workers, our own team members and our talent. And that’s why, with the support of so many of our allies in the HR tech industry, we have developed a digital toolkit with cost-minimized or free solutions that can be rapidly deployed to help employers and workers get back to business. By leveraging best-in-class digital resources, this toolkit initiative brings together a group of innovative resources to help businesses:

• hire more quickly and cost efficiently
• virtualize the workplace
• redeploy their workforce
• get rapid answers to their pressing workforce challenges
• receive just-in-time consultative support from leading solutions providers

Our workforce management best practices have always put focus on employee safety and during this pandemic outbreak, we’ve heightened our focus by providing solutions specific to our current circumstances. To start, here are the top four essential steps you need to take to ensure your workforce safety is the number one priority at your organization.

You can also download our white paper “safely back to work in the new normal," which explains how to prepare for the new normal in the wake of the global pandemic, as well as the importance safety plays in getting businesses and economies running again.

There are many ways to adjust — or even thrive — in this new normal. One of the biggest ways is to ensure that you have everything you need to transition to a remote workforce, everything from acquiring remote talent to having the best, new processes to maximize your employee productivity. Our remote work solutions can help you easily switch to our new normal by giving you the ability to tap into a more diverse and engaged workforce, expand your client coverage, provide tech infrastructure for best work-from-home experiences and more. Learn more about our remote solutions here.

In order to ensure that the programs that are vital to your business can transition to work for a remote business, you need to have a powerful technical infrastructure with a smart delivery model. Randstad Technologies leverages a flexible delivery model and a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) product solution to support your remote teams, and can rapidly reshore or near-shore build teams to support your business-critical application development. Randstad Technologies also offers ready-built network and system monitoring teams to help scale your team where needed, as well as provides secure remote desktop in the cloud. Learn more about our technologies solutions here.