Pandemic
preparedness at SGK

As Coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to spread globally, SGK continues monitoring, planning and responding to this superfluid global pandemic around the clock. Out first priority is the health and well-being of our employees and the people they come into contact with. Below, you will find a summary of the practices and policies we have enacted thus far. We will begin providing updates to this page shortly, on a weekly basis.

Travel

• A moratorium on international, intra-region, and domestic travel for employees has been in effect since February 27th.
• Employees who may have traveled out of the country for personal reasons between March 17 and April 5 are required to work from home for 14 days before reassessing their return to the office.

Cleaning & Disinfecting Protocols

• We have increased the frequency and intensity of office cleaning, and instituted comprehensive sanitization of some of our larger sites on a regular basis.
• We are working with our Global Environmental Health & Safety Systems team and additional third-party resources to advise on effective practices to ensure the highest levels of cleanliness across our footprint.
• Personal cleaning products, disinfectants and hand sanitizers have been made available to staff.

Business Continuity

• We have activated a set of business continuity plans for our major production and creative locations. They are being led regionally and coordinated by global operations and IT to manage escalation paths, contact information, procedures, and policies.
• Some plans are being activated as a result of local government requirements, and we are implementing technology and tools to enable remote work in advance of similar measures worldwide.
• At this time, we are fully prepared to have the vast majority of our employees work remotely to ensure productivity that approximates our normal output, using a combination of additional hardware and software that we have installed across the platform.
• An increased cadence of daily calls along with shared technology platforms have been activated within each region for planning purposes.
• We are already set up to strategically shift work from one location to another both within regions and across continents.
• We have already identified additional, external contingent resources to support our operations remotely or on-site and will engage these as necessary.
• We are continuing to manage proofing and press checks on a case-by-case basis to support the needs of our clients. Several of our clients have already agreed to modify their existing practices to protect our employees and theirs during this unprecedented global health event.
• We are in the process of bolstering our time-sensitive platemaking operations and will be enacting specific contingencies for these locations. Raw materials for plates are being strategically placed in case of site closure, and we are pairing up plate-making locations so that we have clear back-ups and paths of escalation. We are also working closely with our flexographic vendor and partner community to ensure we are able to provide continuous service to our clients.

Communications

• Our Global Executive Leadership Team is meeting daily to plan, advise, and pivot in response to fast-moving changes being mandated or advised by local, national and global authorities.
• We continue to strengthen the capacity and diversity of our communications tools and technologies to ensure that employees working remotely are able to work together seamlessly.