preparing for a pandemic

Vector was quick to react to the early signs of a pandemic and started to create a roadmap to move its office-based workforce home, which meant it was prepared and able to equip managers and employees with the tools they needed to work remotely.

“Early on, the digital team went out and procured a deal with suppliers for home office kits, monitors, keyboards, connections to laptops and that sort of thing,” Mr McCloskey says. “We’re quite lucky that most of our employees had laptops and they were easy to set up in the home environment. It was a positive step in the right direction. So, from very early on, we were ready to go and the disruption to the business was quite minimal.”

The work Vector put into supporting the well-being of its employees came through in its engagement surveys. During the middle of the first lockdown, Vector wanted to gauge whether it was providing enough communication support, or too much, and it had a high response rate from that survey, Ms Williams says.

“We did a second one towards the end of the first lockdown around productivity while working from home. One of the things we need to consider longer-term is how we want to shape our business and how we want to think about ways of working. We had an incredibly high response rate and engagement for that too,” she says.

Instead of waiting for a survey to act, the regular Care Calls flagged any concerns employees had, which meant Vector could respond and provide extra support, Mr McCloskey says.

critical workers

Despite its office-based teams working from home, and Vector’s field employees practising social distancing, the organisation had to take the necessary steps to ensure the network remained online. It had to create a strategy to run its Electricity Operations Centre, which manages the Auckland electricity network from its Newmarket office.

Vector set up three control rooms and split those teams into three, so if there was an infection in one team, the other two were protected.

Vector’s foresight in preparing for the pandemic early allowed the organisation to protect the health and safety of its workforce while maintaining the integrity and reliability of the essential services it provides. It set up a Pandemic Response Team in January to generate a specific plan around what a pandemic in New Zealand would mean for Vector and its customers.

A major milestone as a result of Vector’s efforts is that it has been able to maintain its employees on their full salary. Additionally, no one was required to take leave or reduce their hours.

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