As the Covid-19 pandemic forced companies to operate remotely and pushed customers to migrate to digital transactions and activities, ranging from banking to shopping and education to healthcare, staff members at data centers and other mission-critical facilities became essential workers. They risked contagion by reporting for work to keep business activities running, joining the ranks of other pandemic “superheroes”.
Like many others in the critical data center industry, Vertiv was declared an essential services provider by the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and our team members deemed essential workers, due to our mission-critical solutions that help keep data centers, telcos and other critical infrastructure operating. During my more than 35 years of serving mission-critical clients and providing them with essential services solutions, I cannot remember a time when these essential workers were under such pressures, but also recognized for their contributions to business continuity.
Following the principles of another superhero, Vertiv recognized that “with great power comes great responsibility.” To keep our workers and customers safe, we have implemented policies and procedures as we continue to provide quality services. This means that both Vertiv and our partners have had to make changes to ensure safety, including introducing new solutions and service protocols that reduce, among other contagion risk factors, the need for travel and service calls in the field. And when we service customer equipment on-site, we make every effort to use the same team at a particular location, limiting risk by controlling the number of individuals introduced to the environment.
We have also decentralized the locations of Vertiv technician teams, tapping into our employees and third-party service providers throughout Latin America. Vertiv has 17 locations in Brazil alone and we have technicians on-call in 35 Latin American local markets. By having a structure that keeps us closer to our clients, we have significantly reduced the need for travel in order to service them, reducing travel-related contagion risks. These measures are in keeping with Uptime Institute recommendations on minimizing risks at mission-critical facilities, including canceling or postponing activities that pose contagion risks or are non-essential.
We have implemented a voluntary quarantine policy that keeps workers at home as a preventive measure if they feel unwell or if a family member is sick. Under this plan, workers may choose to work from home if their tasks can be carried out remotely. We have global emergency teams ready to step in to take over tasks normally completed by someone else who may have fallen ill or is in voluntary quarantine. Our technicians are available to offer support via virtual platforms, as needed. Vertiv’s remote mission-critical facilities monitoring and management solutions also allow us to provide services at reduced risk.
While the pandemic has affected nearly every aspect of our professional and personal lives, posing important challenges to the continuity of businesses we rely on daily, at Vertiv we remain committed to responding to such challenges with innovative mission-critical solutions. We continue to safely offer our clients and partners the services they require. We recognize that, despite the efficient and impactful use of technology, it is the employees and service providers who heroically keep things running properly and safely. They contribute to ensuring the connectivity and productivity of hospitals, utilities, telcos, banks, and data centers, among many other sectors, all of which directly impact business operations as well as human lives.
Now with the relief provided by increasing availability of the COVID-19 vaccine, we are even more reliant on our superheroes! Think about producing, stocking, delivering and tracking all vaccines around world. Our vaccine clinics need 24x7x365 data protection and availability, and once again, our data center superheroes are there supporting this mission and the vital processes of critical businesses.
We appreciate their commitment and thank them for their service! They are our superheroes, and we will remember them even when our pandemic challenges are behind us!
