March 16, 2020
To our customers, our neighbors, and our communities,
The safety and well-being of our customers and employees is of utmost importance. As part of that commitment, we wanted to take a moment to share our current stance and practices as it relates to the Coronavirus (COVID-19).
In short, we are monitoring this situation very closely, and following recommended practices as outline by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO). Furthermore, our internal Business Continuity Team is in ongoing and frequent communications, assessing the progression of COVID-19, reviewing our current practices and adjusting our course based on recommendations as outlined by CDC and WHO.
We take the responsibility of ensuring the health and safety of our employees, customers, and our community very seriously. We also understand that as more people change their habits by working from home and choosing to spend free time at home rather than in crowded public spaces, our customers will depend more than ever on our services. Therefore, we want to inform our customers that we are taking the following steps to ensure that we are providing and maintaining our services in the safest possible manner.
Visits to Our Offices or Customer Locations
We’re asking our employees in customer-facing roles or those that require onsite presence to take appropriate preventative measures – whether they are in our offices, or our customers’ homes or businesses. This includes increased cleaning and sanitizing for all company offices. We’re also encouraging employees who may not feel well to avoid coming to work.
Our frontline employees continue to take your health seriously, which is why we ask them to:
- Disinfect their workspace after every customer interaction
- Wipe down all displays and hard surfaces multiple times a day
- Pay extra attention to sanitizing common areas
- Take care of themselves by eating well, washing their hands frequently, staying hydrated and well-rested, and quickly report in they are not feeling well
If you are expecting one of our technicians to visit your home or business for installation or repair call, please know that we’re taking extra precautions to protect you and our employees. Our service technicians are all supplied with hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes, latex gloves, and our technicians will use them between service calls. We’re also asking our technicians to limit their in-person contact with customers by practicing “social distancing” and being mindful of only entering customer premise when absolutely necessary. Attention to these types of factors will better ensure the safety of each and every customer we serve.
For our customers who feel un-well or believe that they’ve been exposed to COVID-19, HTC provides assistance through our website, or by calling our offices at 423-628-2121.
Our Corporate Work Environment
To further safeguard the health of our employees, we have instituted additional measures focused on meetings, travel and the spread of disease.
We’ve canceled or postponed all large meetings and employee gatherings. As our office staffs are able, they’ve been requested to conduct as many meetings virtually as possible.
HTC is also limiting visits to our noncustomer service offices. We’re increasing the frequency of cleanings to our locations to help ensure that they are less of a risk for employees and customers that visit them. We will continue to closely monitor this situation as if develops. Our focus is and will remain on doing all we can to best protect our team, our customers, and the communities we service.
Sincerely,
Highland Telephone Cooperative, Inc
