COVID-19: An update from Gerry Barnett, MD

07-12-2020

With concerns surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak and last night’s (Monday 23rd March) announcement from the Prime Minister, I would like to update you in respect of the measures we have implemented to protect the health and wellbeing of our staff and customers, and to allow the business to continue to operate as necessary to service the market needs. 

We are advised that further to last night’s announcement, the construction industry can continue to operate, and that home and hardware stores can continue to remain open.  Following discussions today with several new build developers and electrical wholesalers, we are advised that some new build sites will remain open and some will now be closing.  We are further advised that a number of electrical wholesalers will remain open and will continue to service contractors on a collection or delivery only basis with their trade counters closed until further notice.

The safety of everyone remains our number one priority, however we recognise the need to maintain our operations and service our customers during the period.  We have and continue to follow and adhere very closely to the guidance and public health advice issued by the UK Government as the situation evolves and have implemented a number of key measures over the last two weeks as follows:

• 90% of office based staff have now been setup to work remotely from home with full access to our systems, email, phones, etc.
• 10% of office based staff will continue to work from the office until further notice
• Our warehouse staff have been fully segregated from our office staff and are operating on two shifts (day and night)
• All office and warehouse staff are continuing to observe the strict hygiene, segregation and distancing policies we have put in place
• All customer collections have been cancelled until further notice
• All non-essential travel and internal/external face to face meetings have been cancelled and will now take place as required using video conferencing software

We are fully committed to ensuring service levels and continuity of supply is maintained throughout this period and have healthy stocks on hand and in transit to support the needs of our customers.  We continue to monitor the situation very closely and will keep you updated should this very fluid situation change. 

In the meantime, I wish good health and wellbeing to all of Deta’s staff, customers and partners and their families and friends during these unprecedented times.  

Gerry Barnett

Managing Director