Post by ghartong on Apr 3, 2020 11:53:24 GMT -5
Wooten Employees –
We find ourselves into the second week and first pay period following the onset of COVID 19. I have been somewhat quiet this week, but I assure you that company leadership continues to monitor the situation from many angles.
At this time, I don’t have additional statistics to share with you as I’m sure everyone is tuned in to their trusted news outlet for the latest number of cases, hospitalizations, recoveries and deaths. The numbers are increasing across the U.S., some more quickly than others based on population density. What we have learned is that the number of cases is expected to surge within the next 2-3 weeks in the U.S. We ask you to make your informed decisions and we will continue to operate as previously-explained.
I did mention to you that we would have some ‘bumps and bruises’ along the way. Some of these surfaced during our most recent pay period. While we repeatedly encouraged everyone to stay productive while working from the office or home, we had a significant number of hours charged to GENOVHD. The total number of hours charged to GENOVHD was 2,153 in two weeks. That is a company-wide average of (refer to email) hours per employee. To put this in potential revenues numbers, this equates to $(refer to email) in unbillable time.
So I’ll be straight with you. This is problematic. If you don’t have work, then your supervisor should be immediately notified. If this persists then your time should be charged to PTO or unpaid time off.
Over the last couple of days I’ve prepared an Economic Emergency Response Plan for The Wooten Company. Within that Plan are four levels of increasing cost-savings measures when the firm experiences financial losses due to unexpected, unavoidable crises. Each subsequent level is triggered when certain financial thresholds are reached.
We are currently operating in Level 1 and may move to Level 2 next week. Our Level 1 actions were implemented nearly immediately:
• We identified the root cause of distress and made immediate adjustments to mitigate its effects.
• We continued to encourage our employees to be productive as possible.
• We preserved available cash by reducing and eliminating unnecessary expenditures.
• We indefinitely suspended/delayed certain extraneous internal benefit payouts (recruitment bonus, longevity bonus, profit sharing, etc.)
• We communicated our actions with our employees.
The Board of Directors will meet early next week to determine what actions, if any, will be necessary under Level 2. Actions may include indefinite suspension of non-reimbursable personal expenditures (such as cell phone reimbursement, non-project related travel, etc.) and reduced working hours for certain employees. As a Small Business we took immediate action to prepare an application to receive proceeds from the $350 billion Paycheck Protection Program (a set aside program in last week’s Stimulus Bill). I assure you we do not take such measures lightly, but we must be pro-active and not reactive under these circumstances.
In the interim, if you are working from home, please directly communicate to Steven Dodds if you are having technical difficulties. He will quickly decipher whether it is related to office equipment/service or your personal equipment/service. We trust that each of you will make the necessary provisions on your end to be productive as possible and accurate in your timesheet reporting. Timesheets should be completed/saved daily so that the project managers can monitor project workloads.
Thank you for your patience, perseverance and hard work.
GDH
We find ourselves into the second week and first pay period following the onset of COVID 19. I have been somewhat quiet this week, but I assure you that company leadership continues to monitor the situation from many angles.
At this time, I don’t have additional statistics to share with you as I’m sure everyone is tuned in to their trusted news outlet for the latest number of cases, hospitalizations, recoveries and deaths. The numbers are increasing across the U.S., some more quickly than others based on population density. What we have learned is that the number of cases is expected to surge within the next 2-3 weeks in the U.S. We ask you to make your informed decisions and we will continue to operate as previously-explained.
I did mention to you that we would have some ‘bumps and bruises’ along the way. Some of these surfaced during our most recent pay period. While we repeatedly encouraged everyone to stay productive while working from the office or home, we had a significant number of hours charged to GENOVHD. The total number of hours charged to GENOVHD was 2,153 in two weeks. That is a company-wide average of (refer to email) hours per employee. To put this in potential revenues numbers, this equates to $(refer to email) in unbillable time.
So I’ll be straight with you. This is problematic. If you don’t have work, then your supervisor should be immediately notified. If this persists then your time should be charged to PTO or unpaid time off.
Over the last couple of days I’ve prepared an Economic Emergency Response Plan for The Wooten Company. Within that Plan are four levels of increasing cost-savings measures when the firm experiences financial losses due to unexpected, unavoidable crises. Each subsequent level is triggered when certain financial thresholds are reached.
We are currently operating in Level 1 and may move to Level 2 next week. Our Level 1 actions were implemented nearly immediately:
• We identified the root cause of distress and made immediate adjustments to mitigate its effects.
• We continued to encourage our employees to be productive as possible.
• We preserved available cash by reducing and eliminating unnecessary expenditures.
• We indefinitely suspended/delayed certain extraneous internal benefit payouts (recruitment bonus, longevity bonus, profit sharing, etc.)
• We communicated our actions with our employees.
The Board of Directors will meet early next week to determine what actions, if any, will be necessary under Level 2. Actions may include indefinite suspension of non-reimbursable personal expenditures (such as cell phone reimbursement, non-project related travel, etc.) and reduced working hours for certain employees. As a Small Business we took immediate action to prepare an application to receive proceeds from the $350 billion Paycheck Protection Program (a set aside program in last week’s Stimulus Bill). I assure you we do not take such measures lightly, but we must be pro-active and not reactive under these circumstances.
In the interim, if you are working from home, please directly communicate to Steven Dodds if you are having technical difficulties. He will quickly decipher whether it is related to office equipment/service or your personal equipment/service. We trust that each of you will make the necessary provisions on your end to be productive as possible and accurate in your timesheet reporting. Timesheets should be completed/saved daily so that the project managers can monitor project workloads.
Thank you for your patience, perseverance and hard work.
GDH