Acting responsibly

The coronavirus has changed the world. It has challenged our creativity to find alternatives for familiar workflows. SIKORA has quickly adapted to the new situation. By cooperation, flexibility and strong commitment of all employees, we have created new ways to ensure a healthy and safe environment to carry on business operations and to stay available for our customers.

Early on, we introduced an action plan and established guidelines and recommended actions. These are communicated transparently and implemented adapted to the actual situation. The measures cover a wide spectrum from working in rolling teams to travel and visiting guidelines as well as hygiene regulations and rules of conduct. For your and our safety.

Here for you: In Production, in the office and from home

Since mid-March, SIKORA has been relying on rolling teams in the entire workforce, who alternate daily between working in the office or mobile from home. The teams have no physical contact, so that in case of an infection in one team, the other team continues working. SIKORA’s focus is always to offer customers short delivery times. Accordingly, our inventory is always at a high level, which benefits us in the current times. Our excellent supplier management, which has grown over the years, shows its strength in these difficult times. Currently, there is no shortage of components and spare part deliveries.

We are still in production and as long as the transport routes are available, we are doing everything to deliver your ordered goods to you on time.

At a distance and yet together

We are avoiding customer visits, business trips and face-to-face meetings, which are only carried out in urgent cases and after querying the potential risk factors. We keep a distance to keep each other safe. Instead, we are using digital forms of communication in order to exchange information and, therefore, stay together – with our employees and with our customers.

Enhanced hygiene measures for safety

We have increased the number of hand disinfection stations in the company. Especially, at frequent contact points, for example, the company entrance and in the company’s restaurant. By extending the opening hours of the restaurant, our employees are going for their lunch break divided into three groups at different times. Furthermore, we have halved the number of available seats in order to further increase the distance between employees.

All these measures help to reduce the risk of infection in order to keep everyone safe.

Cultural change for a mobile IT infrastructure

Within a short period of time, we have created a corporate mobile IT infrastructure, so that every employee can work from home where feasible. In addition to laptops, PC working stations with connection to the company server are available for the employees at home. For this, the capacity for a better transmission has been increased tenfold. We communicate with each other and with our business partners via telephone, email and video conferences and thus remain agile. Thanks to the multitude of channels, we can individually communicate with our customers and find alternative ways of contact, especially now, when trade fairs cannot take place. Hence, we can respond specifically to the demands and requirements even though we cannot visit each other at the moment.

For us, this is currently the most important benefit from our digital transformation.

Work flexibilization strengthens profitability and compatibility of family and occupation

By implementing mobile working stations at home, we make working from home possible and at the same time, we want to support our employees with children who have no access to childcare. Flexitime can still be used to combine occupation and family in the current situation in the best possible way, e.g. by reducing overtime and the flexible organization of working time.

Therefore, we remain productive and our customers continue to receive an optimal service.

Strong solidarity

With the fast introduction of the action plan, an open communication as well as the immediate possibility to work from home, we have built trust and a sense of safety. Safety against the possibility of an infection, but also safety that we are taking all necessary measures to overcome this crisis. The current situation still represents a great challenge to an unknown extent. How business life will develop in the future, whether we will become even more digital or whether we will soon be able to travel by air in the usual way and visit trade fairs all over the world – we will have to face these challenges. However, we can actively shape the future by taking responsible actions, the creation of new ways of cooperation and the strong solidarity of our employees.

Thus, we also see a great opportunity in this challenge.