Originally distributed on March 16, 2020
By now I know you have received dozens of emails regarding how various firms are handling the COVID-19 Pandemic, even including an audio bulletin from our Compliance team.
Our management and system teams have been working tirelessly over the last week to allow our office to continue to service your business regardless of what future developments may occur. The safety of our staff, the processing of your business and the security of your client data are our top concerns.
Yesterday, we announced that we will be allowing all back-office employees to work from home through the end of March. This is partially a result of the Denver area school districts closing, but is also in an effort to practice social distancing to help slow the spread of this virus. We would ask that everyone consider ways you may be able to implement a similar strategy for your firms.
Our focus is ensuring the safety of our employees, keeping your paychecks flowing and continuing to process your new business. We are ready to shift resources on our end to these 2 areas as needed to ensure your experience is as seamless as possible.
We have sped up our implementation of remote working devices and policies to allow us to still work at near optimal efficiency to support everyone registered with The Leaders Group. There will be a few differences, listed below:
While every employee will have access to their direct phone extension, we will have a limited crew here in the office answering calls that go to departments or the operator. Remote workers will not be able to transfer your call to a different extension due to current technical limitations with our phone system. With these 2 things in mind, we would recommend email as the quickest and most efficient method of communication with our staff.
As we will have limited people here in the office, we ask that you refrain from physically mailing anything to us if at all possible for the next 2 weeks. New business can be submitted through the LEADERSlink system as normal for optimal processing. We will also be able to answer questions and receive limited paperwork via email and fax for this period of time. If you have items that you need signature guaranteed, we will do our best to accommodate them; however, if the situation changes where we need to require everyone work remotely, we will not be able to provide this service.
We expect this to be a minor hiccup in business although we know that the economic impacts could be far reaching. During this time of confusion, please stay in contact with your clients and let them know that you are working to ensure their account is invested properly. For our full discussion on how to handle customer relations during this pandemic, please refer to our recent audio Compliance bulletin at the link below.
https://vimeo.com/user15996145/review/397469772/9ec54ff911
Stay safe, stay calm, and know that this will eventually pass. We are more financially stable at The Leaders Group than we have ever been, so we will continue doing everything in our power to weather the storm and keep business going as usual. We will continue to monitor the situation and will update you as we have any changes on our end.
Thank you,
SEAN WICKERSHAM
President/Chief Marketing Officer