How UK businesses responded to the COVID-19 crisis

Remote working, health tips and communications

Adam Saville
clock • 2 min read

Research finds 50% of firms had issued a policy on how they were dealing with the pandemic by 16 March

The study of businesses in UK, US, UAE and Singapore revealed that by 11 March, when the World Health Organisation (WHO) had officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic, 83% of businesses had already taken some form of action to support employees. Two to three weeks before local lockdown policies were put in place. A third (31%) had already given employees the option to work remotely and 44% had issued health tips to employees. The research, carried out by Aetna International amongst office workers across the four markers, found that larger businesses (with 5000+ employees) were quicker t...

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