Update on impact of COVID-19 at Natus

March 23, 2020

 

Thanks to your dedication, Natus continues to honor our commitments to the customers and patients we serve during this period of social/physical distancing to fight the spread of COVID-19 (coronavirus). As a health care supplier our products are essential to those patients around the world.

 

Many of you are setting new routines such as temporarily working from home, adjusting to new shifts and social/physical distancing on the production floor, or following new protocols when attending to the critical business of keeping products and services available to customers and patients during these tough times.

 

Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

 

Operations to continue during stay-at-home orders

As a medical device supplier for critical needs, Natus is allowed to continue operations, and employees are allowed to report to work, amid any local, state, regional or country stay-at-home orders aimed at reinforcing social/physical distancing.

 

If there is a stay-at-home order in your local, state, regional or country follow the regulation’s timeline if it extends into April, but please remember that Natus is part of the critical infrastructure, so Natus operations are allowed to continue in the face of these orders. This means:

 

• Follow the Natus policy communicated recently which keeps some employees in the office, while others should work from home for as long as your government requires it.

• Most employees in Manufacturing, Depot Repair and Warehouse work should be on site.

• Incoming Inspection Team and Test Engineering and QA release employees, please plan to be on site as needed to fulfill your job requirements. We will do what we can to accommodate childcare as much as possible.

• Field service will continue to respond to our customers including onsite support as required.

• Employees in non-production roles should plan to work from home after manager approval.

 

We’ll continue to follow this situation as it develops, and we’ll let you know if there are any changes to our policy.

 

Questions and Answers

We’re getting some common questions we want to address in addition to other questions and answers posted previously on the COVID-19 resources page.

 

1. Q: How do we make sure jobs won’t be affected by the impact on revenue, some employees are nervous about this?

A: While many people and businesses, Natus included, will feel the economic impact, remember that hospitals, clinics, labs and most importantly patients still need our products and services. We need to stay positive and remember this is temporary and we will do our best to minimize the impact to the business.  We need to be flexible and adaptable as a business and as employees and all pull together.

 

However, we all need to be more thoughtful about where we are spending resources. Reduce spending where possible but keep the ball rolling on critical projects / activities including those that involve compliance, regulations, new product development, and customer appointments for service and sales when appropriate, keeping in mind governmental and hospital restrictions that may be in effect.

 

2. Q: Can an employee request paid time off if they don’t currently have any PTO left?

A: Time-off policies vary around the world. We will continue to handle this on a case-by-case basis.

 

3. Q: I work in the warehouse, or I am a field service employee and I am not sick, but I am worried about contracting the virus at work. I want to stay home, what are my options?

A: We have patients counting on us, and we need to fulfill our obligations. We are taking appropriate precautions and requiring social/physical distancing at work. 

 

For field sales and service employees, please follow the appropriate safety protocols when meeting with customers as directed by the hospitals and comply with all governmental regulations.  Natus is part of the critical infrastructure, so Natus operations are allowed to continue in the face of the current stay-in-place regulations.

 

For operations employees, we are taking precautions to extend social/physical distancing by splitting shifts and continuing to extend floor space as much as possible in addition to the restrictions already in place.

 

4. Q: What happens if they close borders between regions, countries, states

A: The U.S. restricted travel to certain countries. The EU is restricting nonessential travel for 30 days (some countries have applied their own restrictions (https://ec.europa.eu/transport/coronavirus-response_en) and Canada has closed its borders. Pay attention to communications regarding travel and follow all governmental instructions. Keep your management informed of all travel plans. 

 

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We’ll continue to update you regularly, either through email or an all-hands virtual town hall. Thank you again for all that you do for our customers and Natus. If you have questions, talk with your manager or email us at communications@natus.com.