ASGC, one the of the leading Dubai-based contractors, had begun preventive measures to ensure the safety and well being of their staff at project sites and at labour accomodations.
In a statement, David Robinson, HSE Director at ASGC, said:
“ASGC takes the threat from Covid-19 extremely seriously, the potential effect on the welfare of our employees and staff is paramount to us as an organization. If we take our labor camps first where most of our employees reside, we started off initially with a specialist Dubai Municipality approved contractor carrying out a deep clean and sterilization, this has been then followed up with our own teams of cleaners increasing the normal cleaning regime and using the recommended cleaning fluids to ensure continued sterilization.”
“Hand sanitizers and anti-bacterial soaps are provided throughout the camps along with a modification of some of the usual activities such as restricting visitors and stopping large sports events or mass meetings and celebrations that we hold. We have Dubai Municipality registered nurses who have are carrying out health screening and monitoring of temperature on a daily basis in the mornings as employees board the transport buses as well as spending time in the evenings with camp residents discussion health and hygiene in relation to prevention of spread and general lifestyle.”
“Project sites have carried out similar activities with 3rd party cleaning and increased cleaning and disinfecting regimes in place along with health monitoring of office staff and sub contractors on site. We have drastically reduced meetings and visitors to bare essentials, and we are relying heavily on IT solutions such as conference calls and video links where we can.”
“In the head office, each department has been split across our 3 offices, cannot move between offices. All meetings are done through video calls. And we of course stopped bio-metric logins. Social distancing is encouraged through several communication methods, reminders, and by example from top management.”
At all ASGC locations, camps sites and offices have dedicated HSE noticeboards where relevant information is displayed in multi lingual formats this has been supplemented by information sheets being placed in every room on accommodation camps and interactive discussion with camp nurses.
David concluded by saying, “There has also been a constant passing of information through localized small pre-start and tool box talks held in the mornings pre work. We are currently producing a multi lingual video that will be shown at the accommodation camps in the dining areas and reception on the health and hygiene tips.”
