This post was last updated on April 19, 2021.

While the continued pace of vaccinations is quite encouraging, TierPoint will – for the foreseeable future, out of an abundance of caution – continue the policies and procedures that have helped us provide exceptional service to our customers, reduce risks to our employees and their families, and sustain the seamless management of our business throughout the pandemic.

These continuing policies and procedures include but are not limited to the following:

• Employees, contractors, and clients at all our data centers are required to maintain social distance and wear face masks that cover the nose and mouth;
• Data center access is limited to essential personnel, with pre-access screening questions
• We continue expanded cleaning and disinfecting procedures for common areas of our data centers;
• The vast majority of employees who can work from home continue to do so, and for the relatively few who have returned to an office, they are required to wear face masks in common areas and follow social-distancing guidelines;
• We require employees who are ill (regardless of illness) to stay home;
• Travel is limited to business-essential purposes, as we continue the predominant use of tele- and video-conferencing systems for meetings.

In addition:

• Our major suppliers have committed to expediting our purchase orders, given our company’s qualification, under DHS guidance, as a critical infrastructure service provider that supports emergency response, healthcare, and other essential services;
• We were accepted into a critical infrastructure transport program administered by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which allows employees in data center operations and other critical functions to travel to and from work, even during a lockdown or shelter-in-place order.

Overall, our response to the pandemic has:

• Been coordinated by our CEO, working with a cross-functional task force of senior executives and associated experts on their teams, from operations to engineering, from sales to service delivery;
• Been guided by an existing, comprehensive business continuity plan that was in place before COVID-19; anticipates multiple, potentially disruptive scenarios, including pandemics; is tested and updated regularly; and is available at every office and data center, complete with decision trees and key staff contact information, to guide our team’s actions in the face of evolving circumstances;
• Ensured sufficient levels of qualified staff to support customer needs at our Enterprise Operations Centers (EOCs) and over 40 data centers in 20 U.S. markets, with contingency procedures in place for (a) housing critical employees in our facilities for extended periods of time, if needed and (b) securing and deploying alternative, qualified staffing resources, should standard resources not be available;
• Provided the technology required to support extended work-from-home situations for office-based, non-data center employees.

We will remain diligent and take additional actions, as circumstances may require, and notify customers and others, through standard means, of any material developments that affect them.