Media release
Updated 22 March 2020
Statement from Stockland Managing Director and CEO, Mark Steinert
The safety and wellbeing of our people, customers and retailers is always our first priority and we continue to closely monitor the constantly evolving impacts of the spread of COVID-19.
We are in daily contact with our retailers about the impact of this virus on their business, and we will continue to review the support required for businesses as this situation develops. We are committed to working with our retailers to help support their ongoing trading during these challenging times.
We welcome the additional $66 billion stimulus package announced by the Federal Government today, and strongly support the range of measures announced to help small and medium business, and the more vulnerable people in our society during this challenging time.
We continue to closely monitor advice from State and Federal authorities and will update our customers and retailers if circumstances change in line with Government directions. We maintain our ongoing advice to take precautions in line with the guidance from Department of Health, including following the guidelines on social and physical distancing.
14 March 2020
As the COVID-19 situation continues to evolve, Stockland continues to monitor the situation and take appropriate actions. As always, our first priority is the safety, health and wellbeing of our people, customers, partners and communities.
Since late January, representatives from our operational and functional teams have been coming together regularly to discuss our response to COVID-19 and put the appropriate measures in place to help protect the wellbeing of our people and the community, and prepare the business to operate as effectively as possible during this period. We’re closely monitoring the latest advice from health authorities including the Chief Medical Officer, Australian Government Department of Health and the World Health Organisation (WHO), and will act accordingly.
Actions we have taken include:
- We are communicating directly with all our customers, contractors and suppliers to let them know the actions we’re taking to help protect people’s health and wellbeing.
- We have increased our regular cleaning schedules at our assets and are actively promoting personal hygiene for our people, tenants, customers and suppliers.
- We have reviewed our event plans for our people, assets and communities and have cancelled or postponed large events. We continue to monitor plans for events, group meetings or gatherings and may make further changes over the coming weeks.
- We have provided hygiene kits for all of our asset locations for use by front line teams if and when required.
- We have emergency plans in place to activate immediately in the event of a confirmed case at any of our Retirement Living villages, Retail centres, Workplace and Logistics assets, and head office locations.
- We have reviewed our employee travel policy and reduced both domestic and overseas business travel, and are closely monitoring all employee personal travel plans in line with the advice from the Federal Government on overseas travel warnings.
- For increased safety and protection for our people and assets, we have introduced appropriate visitor policies for relevant assets and in our corporate offices we have been making alternate arrangements to face-to-face meetings with external guests where that is appropriate.
- We’re also preparing our people to be able to, wherever possible, work remotely if required. We already have a highly flexible workforce with demonstrated capacity to work remotely, and we have plans underway to ensure this can be implemented promptly and efficiently if necessary.
Additionally, we will provide paid leave to any employee who is infected with COVID-19 or has caring responsibilities for an infected person, and to those who are required to self-isolate due to confirmed cases in their immediate family or household and are unable to work remotely.
We continue to monitor this evolving situation and acknowledge it may continue for some time. At some stage we, like most other large companies, are likely to have identified cases among our employees, customers or communities. We have thorough plans in place to address this situation, and we will provide communications and instructions as appropriate. It is also important for everyone to remain calm while taking appropriate health and hygiene precautions and demonstrating the same caring community spirit we did during the recent bushfires.