Eurofound's EU PolicyWatch collates information on the responses of government and social partners to the COVID-19 crisis, the war in Ukraine, rising inflation, as well as gathering examples of company practices aimed at mitigating the social and economic impacts.
Factsheet for measure LT-2020-46/1454 – measures in Lithuania
Country | Lithuania , applies nationwide |
Time period | Open ended, started on 11 November 2020 |
Context | COVID-19 |
Type | Other initiatives or policies |
Category |
Ensuring business continuity and support for essential services
– Smoothing frictions or reallocation of workers |
Author | Rasa Mieziene, Inga Blaziene, Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences |
Measure added | 23 November 2020 (updated 04 May 2021) |
With the increase in the number of cases and the workload of epidemiologists, the National Public Health Centre (NPHC) in Lithuania is no longer able to inform all those infected with COVID-19, trace their contacts and conduct epidemiological investigations. Late epidemiological evidence undermines the control of the spread of the infection in the country. In view of this situation, and in order to help the NPHC, Lithuania’s socially responsible businesses gathered and trained an additional contact tracing team with their own funds and set up a temporary COVID-19 call centre.
In view of the deteriorating situation in Lithuania due to the COVID-19 pandemic, companies and their umbrella associations have joined their forces for the social initiative “Let's Overcome It Together”, which aims at encouraging business and society to help Lithuania manage the spread of the COVID-19 virus. As part of the initiative, on 16 November 2020, a temporary COVID-19 call centre was set up in Lithuania with about 20 new employees. The call centre is expected to provide a total of at least 50 additional jobs for conducting epidemiological investigations. The new COVID-19 call centre is located in the conference centre of the Panorama Hotel in Vilnius. As the number of employees is expected to grow, it is planned to use conference halls of other hotels too.
Employees for this job are carefully selected and fully trained, as well as provided with all the necessary work and safety equipment; their work is coordinated by NPHC representatives. Teams of the additional call centre will work on a rotating shift schedule to ensure uninterrupted assistance seven days a week.
More companies are being sought after to join the initiative so that it will continue to run as long as possible. Currently, the "Let's Overcome It Together" initiative has 13 partners which not only provide financial support, but also supply the centre with necessary resources. For example, on 17 November 2020, Tele2 mobile operator announced that it will cover the communication costs of the "Let's Overcome It Together" call centre volunteers for a period until the end of quarantine. The company will also bear the cost of maintaining 10 volunteer jobs.
The call centre started operating on 11 November 2020. Advertising agency MP AGENCY is responsible for the idea and coordination of the initiative.
As part of the initiative, on 16 November 2020, a temporary COVID-19 call centre was set up in Lithuania with about 20 new employees. The call centre is expected to provide a total of at least 50 additional jobs for conducting epidemiological investigations.
Workers | Businesses | Citizens |
---|---|---|
Does not apply to workers | Does not apply to businesses | Applies to all citizens |
Actors | Funding |
---|---|
Company / Companies
|
Companies
|
Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:
Trade unions | Employers' organisations | |
---|---|---|
Role | No involvement | No involvement |
Form | Not applicable | Not applicable |
Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:
No involvement of social patners.
No involvement of social patners
Citation
Eurofound (2020), Social initiative "Let’s Overcome It Together", measure LT-2020-46/1454 (measures in Lithuania), EU PolicyWatch, Dublin, https://static.eurofound.europa.eu/covid19db/cases/LT-2020-46_1454.html
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