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Dear MGG team,
Thank you very much for the initiative of asking for perspectives from the network. This maintains our spirit alive especially in this moment.
Firstly, I will start to share my personal feelings and secondly Enap’s actions to soften this period.
This is an apprehensive moment for me and my family. My wife is a nurse and my brother is a pharmacist. Both of them work daily in the hospital and they are always exposed to the virus. They are supporting with everything and I am proud of them, but this situation makes me very apprehensive. I am in a total isolation without seeing my parents and other people. Unfortunately many people here in Brazil are not complying with the guidelines for social isolation and this makes all the effort harder. I hope the experience of other countries can help us to see the risks of the virus to our society.
From my institution side (Enap), please find below the main actions we have been done to soften the moment and prevent measures.
Beginning: Enap has been monitoring the virus and since the beginning of March has taken measures to ensure the well-being, health and safety of its servants, employees, professors and students.
People first: before the decision of working by home office regime, Enap had already established new procedures, for example, suspending business trips and preparing the school environments (reinforcing hygiene, installing gel alcohol dispensers and purchasing bottles for the rooms). As well as established a continuous communication with the servants from the beginning.
Full home office regime: on March 23, the School officially adopted the home office regime for all civil servants and employees. Technical and logistical conditions were given for the team to work in their homes, as a loan of equipment for those who identified this need. The coordinators and directors were oriented to define tasks during this period. We are still on this regime.
Remote assistance and guidance materials: the executive board has prepared guides for remote work and tips for useful tools. There was also the acquisition of software, training and support for the School’s activities, as well as remote service by the information technology area.
Outsourced services: in the school environment, the presence of outsourced services was limited to the minimum level, given the activities considered essential, such as property security, cleaning and conservation services and building maintenance. In the group of service providers, Enap carried out a survey of people who are in a risk group (patients with chronic diseases, history of contact with a suspected or confirmed person for Covid-19 in the last 14 days, age over 60 years), establishing quarantine with suspension of service provision. There was also a suspension of the provision of services to people with their children being cared for at home.
Focus and energy to maintain the school calendar: in order to avoid prejudice to students, professors and the performance of the School, as well as to the school calendar, face-to-face classes are being migrated to the virtual environment, using software that allows maintaining the dynamics of classroom interaction.
Suspension of events and face-to-face classes: since March 13, Enap has suspended face-to-face events and classes at its facilities to reduce the chances of transmission. Face-to-face classes are gradually being migrated to virtual classrooms, such as postgraduates programs and master’s degrees. Short and medium-term courses will also be offered in online education.
Online course on Covid-19: Enap launched the first online course on coronavirus, ‚Emerging respiratory viruses, including COVID-19: methods for detection, prevention, response and control‘, offered in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO). launched by Enap on March 13, the course has more than 11 thousand enrolled participants so far.
Virtual School of Government (EV.G): in addition, the School is investing to reduce delivery time in the development of web courses on the Virtual School of Government platform. Tools are being used that create a good experience on small screens, flexible enough to handle larger screens and with significantly less runtime. The Virtual School of Government has already registered, until March 24, a monthly record of enrollments: 113,556 new enrollments in all its 156 courses. Nine courses were launched in the platform in March.
Collective intelligence and innovation to face the coronavirus: an initiative of the GNova Innovation Laboratory, Enap launched, on March 21, special challenges on combating coronavirus in four themes: health system, economy, social impact and technology. Through open innovation, Enap wants to mobilize society to participate in the building of innovative solutions to help the country face the coronavirus pandemic. There are four challenges: efficiency of the health system to face the epidemic, reduction of economic impacts, mitigation of socio-economic consequences and monitoring and management of facing the epidemic. To learn more, visit: http://gov.br/desafios.
Communication is vital: the maintenance of a balanced corporate environment depends on the actions of the leaders and on the way the information reaches stakeholders. Since the beginning of the crisis, Enap has been agile and clear in its communication. In addition to publicizing the measures adopted both internally and externally, the School joins local and global initiatives and runs its coronavirus prevention campaign called #suavizeacurva (‚#softenthecure‚).
I hope these actions can help the SPA group and other institutions of the MGG Network in this moment. Please, let me know if you want to know more about our initiatives and I will be happy to share.
Best wishes from Brasilia,
João Vitor Domingues
International Advisor
International Cooperation Area
Escola Nacional de Administração Pública – Enap
Commentary received on: 30.03.2020
