Dear Valued Clients, Colleagues and Stakeholders,

At this unique time we want to take an opportunity to share Hames Sharley’s strategy on our approach to the COVID-19 virus.

We continue to heed advice from the World Health Organisation and National / Federal Health authorities and are updating our policies and strategies in accordance with their revised advice and recommendations twice daily.

Hames Sharley has ceased all domestic and international travel and encourages all external meetings to be held via teleconference wherever possible (whilst Zoom is preferred, we will adopt to our clients’ alternatives as needed). By Wednesday, we will have trained our staff to use remote communication and project management tools and will use this experience to be able to work more efficiently from anywhere. This will enable us to service you both through any isolation periods and with greater mobility on the other side of it. We anticipate that while we adjust to this new reality we will see a drop in our traditional productivity levels and ask for your understanding and patience in this time.

Furthermore, we have developed behaviours and processes that focus on both the protection of our teams and the continuation of our projects - both in terms of their workforce and intellectual properties. We are doing this by taking steps to mitigate the risk of large scale impact to our practice through behavioural and process changes while utilising training and practice to be 100% mobile. Again, this will take time to adjust but with patience and understanding I am confident this won’t take long and will have a lessened effect on deliverables.

I am pleased to share that by Wednesday 18th March we will have a productive 100% mobile workforce. This allows us to instigate alternate working days in studios and remote processes structured around project teams, thus reducing the effect on the studios when contact occurs and self-isolation is required. We are prepared for this but also understand that that many of us will contract the virus and will need support and time to recover. This will eventually impact the productivity and supply chain of the Nation and Hames Sharley are working tirelessly to get ahead of and adjust to this new landscape.

There is opportunity in adversity, let’s look for those together.

Together, we can work to delay and manage the impact but we must also support and help each other when it happens. There is a cost here that is equally social as it is economic and it will take additional effort to make working remotely / in isolation work. Let’s not forget to understand both our own perspectives but of each other as well and, importantly, continue to use our famous national sense of humour to support each other in challenging times.

I thank you for your understanding and future support. Please do not hesitate to contact me or your Hames Sharley Project Leader/Studio Leader to discuss further if required.

This is a new experience for all of us - insight, thoughts and concerns shared from other diverse places will only help us to better plan for this and be more resilient during it.

Yours sincerely

Caillin Howard
Managing Director