Our response efforts to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis are continuously under review. We are keeping an eye on various sources of advice and are following the most up-to-date guidance from the government.
As part of our initial business continuity strategy, we issued a policy outlining a number of actions in order to restrict the spread of COVID-19 including: reducing the number of visitors attending our offices; encouraging meetings to happen remotely; and, enabling staff to be able to work from home.
In line with the intensifying global situation in March, we put further measures in place to support the national strategy for tackling the spread of infection while also ensuring the safety of our team, their families and our clients.
Our workforce is now working from home. While our physical office is closed until we can safely meet again in person, we have made remote access to the studio available for all staff following the government guidelines of social distancing. We believe such measures are essential to restrict the spread of the virus.
During these unprecedented times, Turner Works continues to support you and your projects as usual. Small adjustments are being made to the way that we work, so we can effectively maintain the functioning of the studio and business during this challenging period and meet our project commitments. This includes the following:
Remote working systems
We have robust remote working systems in place and our team is supported with resources to facilitate collaborative working and enable virtual meetings, both internally and externally, via Microsoft Teams. Our systems allow for all staff to have access to necessary information on our servers as well as the relevant IT hardware to enable them to work effectively from home. Our servers are being backed up on a weekly basis by an appointed local member of staff.
Furthermore, a nominated member of staff who lives a short distance from the studio will, when safe to do so, regularly check the premises for mail and collect any essential information required and forward onto the relevant team members.
Communication
Communication is vital to sustain productivity under these circumstances. As such, we continue to carry out our regular quality checks including a weekly studio-wide meeting via VC and project team meetings at least once a week to ensure all team members are on track and have a sufficient workload.
Meetings are to be held with each individual client to confirm to them the systems that we have put in place during the Covid-19 lockdown period.
Our emails and phone lines are not affected, and we encourage you to reach out to us via these modes of communication.
All email addresses follow the format ‘firstname@turner.works’. If you know the name of the person you wish to contact, please e-mail or contact them on teams directly.
Alternatively, if you are unsure of who to contact, please e-mail us at hello@turner.works including the project name, and your message will be passed on.
Support
To ensure staff have the support that they need, we have put in place a mentoring system so that all members of staff have a mentor or peer to peer buddy.
Quality Checks
Continued technical checks are taking place within teams. Prior to the issue of drawings and information, each team member self-checks their own work then provides a draft digital issue to their mentor or peer technical checker who checks and comments on the work before approving it for issue.
As we begin to establish a working rhythm that allows us to continue operating as effectively as possible, we endeavour to be as responsive as we can. However, we ask for your patience and understanding that under these new circumstances there may be short delays in our ability to respond as promptly as usual.
We have begun planning ahead for the next stage of the business during and after the COVID-19 pandemic and will update our policy accordingly.
At a time when there is so much uncertainty, we hope the measures that we are putting in place give you comfort that we take our responsibilities seriously and that as a business we are working hard to continue to operate as normal.
