GLI Report to Regulators, Suppliers, Operators, and Vendors
Regarding the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic
As the world responds to the global health crisis posed by COVID-19, GLI continues to prioritize the health and safety of our team members, their families and all of our partners.
I’d like to share the immediate measures taken in response to the pandemic, as well as what we’re doing as the situation continues to unfold. Our focus is on protecting our employees and communities while maintaining business continuity and integrity.
First, we are following all governmental directives as they are announced including recommendations and guidelines disseminated by WHO, the CDC, and other health organizations. Further, all employees who may have come into contact with a potentially infected person, are feeling unwell, or who may be at higher risk of having their health impacted by the virus are immediately sent home with instructions to remain isolated.
We have approximately 1,050 team members globally across 24 offices and have been able to continue work in nearly every location through a combination of remote work and a limited on-site presence under very controlled circumstances to protect employee’s health. This has allowed us to avoid interruption of essential services and maintain workflow. Specifically:
- Our Spanish and Italian offices have seen nearly 100% of our workforce working remotely except for those who are required to enter our offices on an approved basis, and then for only a limited time to perform essential services necessary to protect the integrity of the business in each location. We have seen no interruption in our services in either of these offices to date.
- Our Netherlands and Austrian offices are in transition to work remotely where possible, again, allowing for those who cannot work from home to work in a highly controlled, safe environment with a limited number of employees using appropriate spacing between all people. Again, there has been no interruption in our services.
- Our UK office, which specializes in iGaming and remote-gaming testing, has transitioned to nearly 100% remote work with a small number of employees present at our office on an approved basis with a controlled environment designed to protect their health. Since testing in the UK generally does not require land-based devices, we have seen no interruption in our service delivery.
- Our Macau and Australian offices continue to operate with enhanced sanitation practices and social distancing. We continue to monitor events in those regions working with the appropriate authorities.
- In South Africa, our staff worked remotely this week, but we will be returning to the office on Monday, March 23rd with essential staff only using the same health and distancing practices being deployed in other offices.
- In the Americas (North and Latin America) we are anticipating government regulation regarding on-site work. Because of this, we have begun transitioning all employees that can work remotely to remote work and will continue to leave essential personnel in place on-site if it is safe and legal to do so.
In order to protect the safety of our employees that remain on-site. It is important for you to know:
- We will not have any in-person meetings at any location. This includes meetings with clients or between GLI employees. Instead, we will use video conferencing effective immediately.
- All business travel has been suspended.
- Every office continues to have a daily cleaning regimen to ensure that all exposed surfaces are disinfected.
- We have given our employees extensive information on how to protect themselves.
- We will continue to receive packages and drop-offs at each location however, such deliveries will be effectuated with the appropriate social distancing that is required for safety.
- All calls to our 24-hour service number will be answered and referred to the appropriate members of our teams during this period.
Team Members that do work at our on-site locations will always be spaced not closer than two times the minimum distance recommended by the CDC and WHO.
Other steps that we have taken or will continue to take:
- We are contacting regulators having location restrictions to make sure that requirements are waived so that we may work remotely as we test equipment. At this time, we have encountered no difficulties.
- We may ask for supplier approval to take equipment off-site so that testing may continue and will do so in jurisdictions where this is allowed.
- Our robust IT systems that are powered by back-up generators, including those systems that we host for lotteries, are secure and working without any interruption. Our Information Technology teams are considered essential personnel and are performing their duties without interruption. We continue to monitor all our systems against security threats and will ensure that any of our workstations operating remotely have the appropriate level security precautions.
- We have deployed a robust system that allows for nearly all our staff to work remotely while having secure access to all our computing capabilities that staff would have if they were in the office.
- Our certification documentation team can work remotely and are able to issue certification documents for any jurisdiction, as needed, from anywhere in the world.
- Our compliance, regulatory, and supplier testing teams will be interacting with suppliers and regulators daily to provide updates and receive information.
We realize that we live in unprecedented times. GLI, by its nature, has always been conservative in the way that we do business over the past 30+ years. Over the past five years, we have made substantial investments in technology allowing employees to work remotely and providing us the flexibility to respond to a variety of urgent situations, including the current pandemic. We made these investments to protect the health and security of our employees and so we can continue to serve our clients and stakeholders in times of crisis. We will continue to do everything that we can to ensure there is no business impact to our clients while making sure that every team member and their families are safe.
We ask that you continue to reach out to GLI should you need any assistance so that we may serve you the best we can. Our team takes pride in its ability to perform during the most difficult situations, and we are thankful for the responsible and tenacious way they are reacting to this crisis. In the meantime, we will keep your health and well-being in the forefront of our thoughts as we hope you will do with our valued team members.
Sincerely,
James Maida
President & CEO