March 24, 2020 – As the world closely monitors and tracks the spread and impact of the new corona virus, business leaders are making decisions about how to mitigate the risk and keep everyone safe and healthy. In the government contracting community, executives are enacting procedures and policies to protect employees, customers and partners while continuing to provide government agencies with the services, solutions and mission-critical support they need.
In this series, WashingtonExec will highlight these leaders and how they are tackling this crisis, in an effort to share best practices in industry and shed light on the virus’ impact on the nation.
Satya Akula, Amyx
To get ahead of and prepare for COVID-19 implications, Amyx, Inc. President and CEO Akula established objectives around continuing to support government customers while keeping employees safe, especially as federal agencies respond to the pandemic. Below, he expands on Amyx’s use of telework, internal and external collaboration and keeping morale high through engagement.
As we all grapple with the challenges posed by COVID-19, Amyx is helping to contain and minimize the effects of the coronavirus disease. At the outset of the pandemic, I established three objectives: continue providing uninterrupted mission support to our defense and federal civilian clients; support agencies responding to COVID-19 such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the departments of Homeland Security and Defense through our United States Transportation Command Global Operations Center contract; and keep our employees safe while ensuring they have the tools to be productive. My top priority is to continue to deliver exceptional support to our customers throughout this challenging period.
In addition, Amyx is partnering and communicating with government program managers, CORs, contracting officers and leaders as we determine the best way to support each client. We have built a real-time portal specific to this current situation where we can collaborate and share information across all the projects. Through our USTRANSCOM GOC contract, we support national and global missions providing transportation assets and resources to Defense and federal agencies who are actively managing and responding to COVID-19.
What has your company done to keep morale up internally for employees?
Amyx is working closely with our government clients to determine the optimal means to delivering services. As the CEO, I have authorized the use of telework across the company in concert with Office of Personnel Management policy to allow “maximum telework flexibilities” during this time.
Our employees who directly support the government will follow the guidance set forth by their responsible contracting officer and we will ensure they have the tools and resources necessary to provide seamless support. We feel that one of the best ways to keep up morale is through communication. Amyx utilizes tools such as Microsoft Teams, SharePoint and voice communication options to not only maximize productivity, but also to enable continuous operations even while implementing a social distancing policy.
Though we are not working in a face-to-face environment, it is important to maintain effective communication and to keep employees engaged. Generally, employees who are engaged and who feel like they’re making a contribution have higher levels of morale.
How has the policy for travel or attending large conferences changed?
Amyx’s motto is “Your Trusted Partner for Strategic Results.” Gaining and maintaining the highest levels of trust with our government clients is important to Amyx. One way that we are partnering with our government customers to minimize the impacts of COVID-19 is to support virtual conferences in support of social distancing.
Additionally, because implementing a broad telework policy means that more personal computers and commercial internet service providers will be used, Amyx is ensuring that our systems have the latest security patches and that Software-as-a-Service tools such as Microsoft Office 365 and its security features are accessible by all Amyx employees. By enabling a secure cloud-based computing environment, Amyx employees are able to virtually attend conferences, events and meetings.