Coronavirus: Serco Response
How Serco is responding to protect our customers, citizens, employees and partners
The rapid spread of Coronavirus is the greatest immediate challenge facing the world; others we have been worrying about – such as climate change – may have greater long-term impact, but in the here-and-now we are faced by a virus which is making over 1.5 million people ill, and killing a distressingly high proportion of them. It has utterly upended the ways of life, the economies and the supply chains of all nations it has infected, and made millions of people jobless.
In response to the crisis, Serco’s priority is to ensure the continued delivery of vital public services for our government customers and citizens; to protect from harm our employees and those entrusted to our care; to protect our shareholders from loss; and to ensure our preparedness for a world beyond the current crisis.
Ensuring continuity of service
We have enacted well-practiced business continuity and contingency plans across the business, to form a globally coordinated response, while sharing best practice across all of the countries in which we operate.
We are working round the clock with our partners to ensure continuity of our supply chains, and our suppliers and partners are going to extra efforts to continue to service our requirements.
Protecting our people
Our teams in every region are doing all we can to protect our employees – and give them what they need to protect themselves. Whilst we now have around 9,000 people working from home, for the vast majority of our colleagues this is not possible. You cannot change a hospital bed, or empty a dustbin, from home. So many of our colleagues are putting themselves in harm’s way and working tirelessly to maintain public services. In so doing, they embody Serco’s four values – Trust, Care, Innovation and Pride.
Our Chief Executive Rupert Soames has summarised best the efforts of our employees:
“Words cannot properly express the respect and admiration the conduct of our 55,000 colleagues deserve. They have stepped up to the difficult challenges public services are facing with a level of commitment, energy and engagement which is extraordinary and proud-making. Sustaining vital public services puts many tens of thousands of Serco colleagues on the front line in hospitals, prisons, trains, metros, refuse lorries, asylum seeker accommodation, tugs, ships, contact centres and in sites of national strategic importance. They are addressing our customer requirements and available resources which change by the hour and often mis-match, and all the while protecting their families and communities. Our mettle is being tested as never before, and we are determined to rise to the level of events.”
Additional support to governments
Our unique combination of capabilities and experience means that we are well placed to help governments address the challenges posed by Coronavirus, and to actively support them internationally to both combat the spread of the disease and to manage its impact.
This includes our expertise in:
- running services in critical environments;
- delivering government services which are high profile and public-facing;
- redesigning processes and delivery in the face of change;
- understanding government and citizen needs;
- emergency and disaster response.
To name just a few examples internationally, our support so far has included expanding our contact centre capabilities to support government helplines, increasing our capacity within our health settings, enabling the provision of quarantine and testing services, facilitating Coronavirus response workforce management, undertaking deep cleaning, managing infection control in custodial settings, providing clinical and non-clinical transport & logistics, and more.
Supporting our communities
The Serco Foundation - Serco’s independent charitable trust supporting vulnerable citizens internationally - is acting now to support communities and groups which are responding in positive ways to this crisis, many of whom are also facing financial challenges.
We have launched a Coronavirus Community Support Fund scheme, under which Serco employees can nominate voluntary organisations known to them which are providing meaningful and valuable support to others during this worldwide pandemic.
This might be a:
- food bank offering supplies to isolated people
- local charity caring for the elderly or disabled
- community or religious centre providing mental and physical care to those in greatest need
- not-for-profit education provider helping parents while schools are shut.
Many will be feeling anxious as Coronavirus continues to affect the entire globe, but we may also be feeling inspired by the acts of kindness which are being seen in every community.
Related information
Useful news, information and resources
Video message from Rupert Soames to all employees (March 2020)
Trading updates
- Trading Update (01.04.2020)
