Covid-19 Update: Focus on Health and Business Continuity

Dear colleagues,

In recent weeks, a new wave of Covid-19 has hit Belgium. Thanks to the high vaccination rate in our country, as well as within BESIX, we seem to be able to better fight the virus. However, the pressure on health services continues to increase.

This highlights the need to get vaccinated, for ourselves, for our families and close friends and for our colleagues. In a few months' time, we will receive a booster to further improve our resistance to the severe form of this disease.

We all hope that you and your loved ones remain healthy and, in the event of Covid-19, that your full recovery is swift.

As you have read, the federal authorities announced new measures on Wednesday 17 November 2021. Whether we agree or don’t agree with them on an personal level, at company level we will implement them, while ensuring that our projects and services remain fully active. The recommendations and intentions of the authorities can be summarised as follows: “prevent and protect, but continue”.

For our activities in Belgium, this translates as explained below (entities in other countries keep taking measures in line with their local governmental decisions):

1. Remain vigilant and stay safe

Collectively for all workplaces:

• All sanitary measures must be applied and respected at all times, whether in your personal life, on sites or in the office: maintain a distance of 1.5 m, wear a mask, wash your hands regularly, ventilate, etc.
• When you are sitting at a desk, you can remove your mask.
• Meeting room and break room limits remain applicable as indicated.
• Rigorous and frequent cleaning (desks, tools…) continues.

Head Office Brussels:

• The restaurant in Brussels remains open.
• Sufficient ventilation is already provided in the head office, the restaurant and fitness room.

For you personally:

• If you have any symptoms of illness, stay home and seek medical advice.
• If you or someone in your household has tested positive, stay home and follow the quarantine rules.

2. Our business continues

All project sites and offices are open and remain running.

• Department heads and project managers remain responsible for verifying the objectives of the department or project and the means to achieve them, taking into account the continuity of activities and the health of the employees concerned.

Teleworking:

• The government has decided to make telework compulsory 4 days a week until 12 December and 3 days a week as from 13 December for those employees for whom this is possible without affecting business continuity.
• Our BESIX policies have remained stable over time and can directly comply with these requirements:
  - If you are working on or for a project site, we consider it necessary to be
  present at the site/office, unless otherwise decided by the local
  management.
  - For other functions, you must telework if you can, but you can come to the
  office when necessary to carry out your tasks.
  - Tasks requiring face-to-face coordination and physical meetings may be
  carried out in the office or at the project site, provided that the appropriate
  measures are applied as described above.
• We remind you that every day of teleworking must be declared in the Employee Self Service. If you do not declare telework, as well as other absences such as holidays and illness, you run the risk of not being covered by insurance in case of accidents.

Safety on projects:

• As supervision on our project sites may be reduced due to illness or quarantine, we insist that normal safety is guaranteed at all times. Contact your QHSE teams if you have any questions.
• Managers ensure that the necessary signage, the presence of sufficient alcohol gel/soap, the use of masks and compliance with quarantine measures are checked at all times.

Once again, we would like to thank you. Your commitment to BESIX, your discipline in applying and respecting the measures, coupled with a very high vaccination rate in our company, have made it possible to contain workplace contamination to a strict minimum and prevent the spread of the virus.

Thanks to our reasonable and resilient attitude, we can once again navigate these very turbulent waters with efficiency.

Executive Committee BESIX Group