Several large employers tell staff to stay home
Several Quebec employers are joining the fight to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus by closing their offices and suspending business travel.
Hydro-québec, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, Montreal International and National Bank of Canada are among the companies or public institutions that have instructed all employees equipped to work from home to do so for the foreseeable future.
Drugmaker Pfizer Canada is going even further, telling employees of its Canadian head office in Kirkland — as well as field-based representatives — to stay away until the end of April.
Starting Monday, “all face-toface meetings, events and interactions are being cancelled, and we are leveraging digital technology where possible to conduct our business,” Pfizer Canada said in a message posted on the company’s Facebook page. “As a major healthcare organization, our ability to maintain our business operations is extremely important to ensure our continued contribution to the national efforts to control this disease.”
Montreal International, the city’s foreign investment promotion agency, has closed its Old Montreal offices until further notice to limit the spread of the virus, “in accordance with calls from the Quebec government,” according to a message posted on Twitter.
About 10,000 of National Bank’s 16,200 full-time employees across Canada were connected remotely to company servers as of Friday morning, spokesman Claude Breton told the Montreal Gazette via email.
While National Bank branches are operating normally, “strong attention” is being paid to the safety of people, Breton said.
All business travel at the Caisse, “regardless of destination,” is prohibited until further notice, spokesman Maxime Chagnon said Friday via email. Employees who travel for personal reasons will be required to observe a 14-day isolation period at home.
Participation in professional public events — including conferences and training sessions — is prohibited until further notice. Public events that were due to be held on the parquet at the Caisse’s downtown Montreal building are cancelled until May 31 at the earliest.
The Caisse’s ban doesn’t apply to a handful of “critical business functions,” for which a “safe work environment” will be implemented.
Hydro-québec also says some key employees — such as line repairmen — won’t be asked to stay home, because of the critical nature of their role. The electric utility has about 1,700 people working at its Montreal headquarters, “hundreds” of whom are now working from home, spokesman Cendrix Bouchard said.
Videotron said Friday it will automatically lift data limits for its current residential and business internet customers until the end of March to allow more people to work from home.
“That way, all current customers of Videotron’s residential and business internet service won’t have to worry about their consumption, as if they had an unlimited plan,” the Quebecor Inc. cable and internet unit said in a statement.
At Fonds de solidarité FTQ, the province’s biggest labour-sponsored fund, the work-from-home guidelines only apply to staffers who recently returned from “at risk” countries or are feeling symptoms of the virus, according to David Labrosse, a spokesman.
Employees who were planning to travel over the next few weeks are being asked to cancel or delay their trips. Any penalties or cancellation fees will be paid for by the Fonds, Labrosse said.
In the meantime, the Fonds said it’s “ready to work with the governments of Quebec and Canada, as well as other players in the Quebec financial network, to support the economy.” The Fonds had net assets of $16.7 billion as of late November.
“Public health must be everyone’s priority,” chief executive Gaétan Morin said in a statement. “Under current circumstances, however, it is quite possible that Quebec businesses will experience liquidity-related issues. As was the case during the 2008-2009 financial crisis, the Fonds de solidarité FTQ has the funds necessary to support these businesses with funding to limit the economic and financial impacts of COVID-19.”