Over the past few weeks, we’ve had many conversations with our clients and partners regarding COVID-19 and how we are managing the situation. We want to take this opportunity to provide you more insight into the steps we’ve taken to continue day-to-day business operations.
At Experian, we continue to closely monitor the situation, and have instituted the health and safety protocols, recommendations and guidelines set out by various international health organizations. It’s a situation we are taking seriously in North America, as well as across the globe.
Please know that we practice business continuity in the event of natural disasters or health emergencies routinely, and—in times like these—we are glad to be well-prepared and have systems in place to maintain our ability to serve our clients and consumers, but more importantly, protect the health and safety of our employees, customers and suppliers. Simply: Experian will continue to operate without disruption.
We have had questions from clients and partners about specific actions we are taking, and want to share some specifics with you here:
- Our Pandemic/Infectious Disease Business Continuity plans and workstreams are activated, which includes making necessary preparations for employee safety and business continuity. Experian North America planning sessions—completed in November 2019—included a pandemic scenario to exercise Business Continuity plan strategies dealing with extended large staff reductions
- As a preventative measure in these unprecedented times and out of an abundance of caution and care for our employees and their families, Experian will ask all employees who are able to work from home, to do so, effectively immediately.
- We have tested VPN capacity with a large number of our employees and therefore are prepared to have a large number of them work from home every day. In addition, we proactively tested the capacity of our IT infrastructure beyond VPN for safe and stable large-scale remote working and flexible working arrangements for staff. If required, employees with remote capability can support business critical operations virtually or through workload transfer.
- We have put in place several measures guided by the advice of the World Health Organisation (WHO), the U.S. Government, the State of California and International SOS concerning travel restriction guidelines, and infection control in our workplaces. We’ve increased cleaning protocols within our sites, ordered additional sanitation supplies and continue to work with suppliers of our onsite services to revise and reinforce their procedures as well.
- We’ve implemented International travel restrictions to identified areas (including China, Italy, Iran, Israel, Japan, and South Korea). Non-essential domestic travel has been restricted. Additionally, employees have been asked to self-declare to their manager and self-quarantine for the following 14 days, even if they are not ill, if:
- They have travelled to any of these countries, including China, Italy, Iran, Israel, Japan, or South Korea, or have been in proximity with people who have returned from these areas;
- They have any reason to believe they have been in contact with someone that may be infected by the COVID-19 virus.
- We have contacted our suppliers and requested they follow our guidelines. We will also follow any specific guidelines our suppliers require of us.
- Last, but not least, we continuously update our response to this situation as it evolves.
We will actively monitor and assess the situation and will keep in close partnership with you as updates surrounding Coronavirus (COVID-19) are made public. Again, we want to assure you that our protocols are designed to protect the health of our employees, customers and suppliers, and continue the regular operation of business.
If you have additional questions, please follow-up with your Experian account executive.
For consumer-related resources pertaining to COVID-19, visit our Ask Experian resource hub.
