Vaccination mandate for anyone accessing Chorus sites effective 13 January 2022 and technicians entering end customer premises effective 31 January 2022 

Overview 

The health and safety of all our employees, wider workforce, customers, suppliers, and members of the public is a major priority for us at Chorus.  We are committed to doing everything reasonably practicable to minimise the impacts of COVID-19.  This is becoming increasingly important as New Zealand moves from a strategy of elimination to the new reality of living with the virus circulating widely in the community. 

We believe that having a highly vaccinated workforce is our best defence in the ongoing fight against COVID-19 so have completed consultation with our broader workforce and technicians and have made the decision to mandate vaccination for access to our sites from 13 January 2022 and for technicians entering end customer premises from 31 January 2022. 

The details 

We have conducted a COVID-19 health and safety risk assessment and identified vaccination as a key control to address the risks posed by the virus.  The vaccine is effective in multiple important ways:  it reduces the chances of an individual contracting the virus, it acts to significantly reduce the negative health impacts on individuals who do catch it, and it also reduces the likelihood of an infected individual transmitting the virus to other people.   

We also know from the latest Kantar research conducted in November that end customer expectations are changing with 83% (+3 since Sep) of New Zealanders now either hoping or expecting technicians coming into their property to be fully vaccinated with 60% of people indicating they would be much more comfortable if the technician showed their vaccination passport. 

Based on this and our consultation with our wider workforce, we have made the following decisions: 

Access to Chorus sites 

• Requirement from 13 January 2022:  Only fully vaccinated people will be permitted to work from, access or visit our corporate offices, exchanges and other buildings that Chorus manages.

Technicians entering end customer premises 

• Requirement from 31 January 2022:  All of our technicians that enter your customers premises to complete work will be fully vaccinated.  
• Proof of vaccination status: Our technician will proactively show their vaccination certificate to your customer on arrival at the premises.   
• Proposed changes to install and assure customer experience: We propose to create a safety statement that can be used across collateral, website, notifications, and interactions with customers setting clear expectations on how we will keep customers safe during installation or restoration activity. This will cover our current COVID-19 protocols of wearing a mask, distancing, and vaccination. Where we propose this is used in the journey is shown below: 

COVID safety protocols 

A reminder that all technicians are currently adhering to health and safety protocols where they’re required to enter premises. This includes wearing a mask, social distancing and cleaning of the work area both before and after their work activity, along with contact tracing.    

There have still only been a small number of requests so far from end customers for a fully vaccinated technician which our service companies have met. You can use our BAU Provisioning and Assure channels to request this today. Please note that until 31 January we will do our best to accommodate the request, but it may result in a delay to your order. 

Next steps  

Confirmation of final experience changes, including any end customer interaction messaging changes will be confirmed in January.

Contact 

If you have any feedback on the changes or queries, please contact your account team.