Pandemic Protocols – What Digital Island is doing

  • First and foremost, we have advised our people to stay home if they are feeling unwell and to seek medical advice via Healthline or their GP;
  • Like many large businesses we have a robust set of Business Continuity Plans in place to ensure we can continue to operate in the event of an issue or crisis. As every situation is unique, we are in the process of testing business critical operations to identify if any additional safeguards need to be put in place in the event of an outbreak. We are confident that with our robust plans and geographical spread across the country, we can fulfil our commitments to our customers in relation to continuity of service;
  • All business-related international and domestic travel has ceased;
  • Prior to the Government’s border control changes, which require all people entering New Zealand to self-isolate for 14 days, Digital Island was requiring this of any employee returning from a high-risk country, as defined by the Ministry of Health;
  • We have cancelled internal events and have stopped our people attending any public work-related events of any size;
  • Our people come into direct contact with our customers through our retail and business hub store locations, as well as our engineer, technical, sales and service teams that visit your premises from time-to-time. We understand that many of these visits are critical for you, especially when we need to make physical repairs to ICT equipment. We are now asking our people only to visit customers in person for business-critical work. Any other work can be managed remotely and we are using voice and video technology to reduce face-to-face meetings and visitors to our buildings;
  • We are asking our people to start taking their laptops home and prepare to work remotely should the need arise. All of our internal IT tools required to service existing business-as-usual services can be accessed from any location geographically;
  • Keeping social distance is known to be an effective precaution to slow down the spread of the virus, so in addition to our precautions around meetings and gatherings (noted above) we have asked our people to change how they greet each other. If meeting in person is essential, we’re asking them to try an elbow bump instead of a hongi or hand-shake;
  • We have a robust communications plan in place to keep our people, customers and suppliers regularly updated about any changes to travel, meetings, events and working restrictions, as well as reminding them of best practices around hygiene and self-care;
  • We have increased cleaning in high use areas and are distributing cleaning and sanitising products across our sites.

What we ask of you

We anticipate that you too will have similar company protocols and business continuity plans in place and by adhering to the below protocols we will be able to support each other in upholding these practices in both our businesses:

Social distance

  • We understand that it is important to keep the momentum across our organisations so that we can continue to provide a seamless service to you. However rather than doing this in person, we will cease any non-essential face-to-face meetings and will leverage technology to ensure we remain engaged and continue to work effectively together.
  • If there is an essential need to engage in person, we ask that this is limited to a handful of people at the most. If you need help to determine if an in-person meeting is required, please feel free to ask any questions of your Customer Lead or Service Lead.
  • We ask that you cancel or postpone any events that require Digital Island people to attend.

Our commitment to each other if there is a confirmed case

If any of your staff members working directly or indirectly with Digital Island or our joint customers has:

  • been exposed or potentially exposed to someone who has tested positive for the virus; or
  • is going through the testing process for the virus; or
  • has already tested positive for the virus

then we ask that you contact the Spark Health & Safety team on healthandsafety@spark.co.nz. It is very important that Digital Island is kept informed so that we can support you and your business, and the people your company works with along with our own people. Digital Island will keep your organisation updated too if we have any confirmed or potential cases of the desease, so that you can minimise concerns about risks to your people.

Supply chain impacts

This outbreak has had significant impacts on global assembly lines, distribution and logistics networks. As a result, we have already seen constraints on delivery times and provisioning.

To date we have had some protection from buffer stocks of many of the more popular lines of equipment we supply. As stocks decline and disruption continues, we will likely see some further delays. We will continue to actively forecast demand, manage backlogs and delivery dates for equipment needed on your behalf. Please keep us informed of your needs early, so we have the best chance of matching your requirements to available equipment or appropriate substitutes within your timeframes.

Accessing Digital Island buildings

  • If you need to access our buildings, we now ask that all visitors report to the reception desk where you will be asked to make a declaration around your travel history and current wellness and follow any visitor registration protocols defined at each site.
  • Please note that the above protocols apply to all data centres (within the Spark network buildings and at Spark’s standalone data centre).

Thank You

We understand that this is an unprecedented and evolving situation. We would like to thank you for partnering with us to keep people safe and help prevent the spread of the virus any further within New Zealand.

We will keep you updated with more information as the situation develops. In the meantime, please get in touch with your Customer Lead if you have any questions or need further support or email info@digitalisland.co.nz

More information
If you need more information or guidance, please email us. You can also visit the following websites: