HoyleCohen Business Operations Update Sent to Clients: 3/13/2020

The health and safety of our clients and staff are of paramount importance to us, and as a firm we have invested time and resources into ensuring that we can maintain business operations and serve you as we always have in a variety of conditions. This includes being able to conduct all operations and activities remotely and in isolation during a pandemic.

We want to make you aware of the proactive steps we have taken and will be taking at HoyleCohen to help contain the Coronavirus and ensure the safety of our clients and staff while continuing to serve you.

We can all work remotely. Every employee has a company laptop with access to our systems and data. Everything looks and works exactly as it does when in the office. Our applications are web-based, and our data are securely stored and monitored remotely in the ‘cloud’ with redundancy. Everything is secure and nothing requires human presence in the office. Every staff member has a cell phone and our phone system can forward calls to that number or send voice mail messages to the staff member’s work email box. In short, we are equipped to maintain our normal business operations 100% outside of our office, even on very short notice.

We will begin working remotely in all offices starting Monday, March 16th, 2020. Our focus is on your health and the health of our staff. We want to do our part to keep our staff, clients and communities healthy. As such, we are requiring all but a small skeleton crew to work remotely starting Monday, March 16th, 2020.

We are also suspending all in-office client meetings as of Monday, March 16th. Client meetings during this time will be conducted by phone call or Zoom (video) or will be postponed if a client prefers. If you already have a scheduled in-office meeting and we haven’t reached out to you regarding alternative arrangements, we will do so shortly.

We have practiced and prepared for business disruptions. Our firm maintains a rigorous Business Continuity Plan with real-life scenarios and test procedures as part of our normal business activities. This includes anticipating emergency situations, assessing their potential impact and preparing for them. As a firm with offices and clients in fire-prone areas, we have built a technology and work environment that would allow us to be effective while working remotely. While one never hopes for such an occurrence, it has made us better prepared for situations like the present.

We are confident that this coronavirus will be contained eventually. But, until more is known about the virus and more testing is available, we believe it is prudent and responsible to take these actions now since they will result in minimal business disruption and will help ensure our staff remains healthy and able to serve. We will be posting regular updates to our operational situations and other information related to COVID-19 and the markets on our blog here.

We remain, as always, in your service,

Mark Delfino and your HoyleCohen Team