Overall, it seems like the businesses that were deemed essential and have been open throughout the entire pandemic are having great success keeping their businesses operational without their workforce being significantly impacted by COVID. Surely there would be many articles run if it was a major issue, like with the meat packing plants and even the meat packing plants have figured out how to stay open and operational during this time.

So what are they doing that is giving them success? Are our leaders talking to these companies to figure out the keys to their success and help drive decision making in order to come up with plans that are adaptable to the "non-essential" businesses and daily life?

It seems we have an opportunity to learn from some people already doing it. They got thrown into the fire and have figured out something that works for them.

I work for a small (30 ish people) engineering and surveying company that mainly does power transmission. A couple of our kookier engineers wear a mask some or all of the day. Generally we know where our towel is and DON'T PANIC. Nothing else has changed. Not wearing a mask and washing your hands at appropriate junctures in your day also works.

PPE and social distancing at my company once we started bringing people back into the office, along with acting aggressively when a potential issue pops up. I think we are at 75% now. It's worked very well for us. Nationwide company of 750+ employees

Small aerospace lab. A couple company notes to remind us not to touch our faces and to stay 6 feet apart. Neither of which is a big deal as we don't work in close proximity a ton and most of us wash our hands a minimum of once an hour just due to the nature of our work.

Other than that, we were issued face masks to use should someone come in close contact especially from outside the building. Overall, we did not have to adjust much.

Perhaps the contact tracing isn't calculating how many of them have had it. My son works at a grocery store and learned that several of his close coworkers were home sick when a fourth coworker left with a fever. They didn't bother to tell their employees. Certainly no contact tracers contacted my son to tell him he'd been in contact with recently diagnosed people. I think we don't even know how many people have gotten sick at work.

On the positive side, most of his coworkers are in their teens and twenties, so while they've been out for a week or two, they haven't gotten sick enough to be hospitalized.

I have two friends in Central Texas who are both having record years. One is an electrician with about 100 employees, the other is in communications ie phone systems.

The electrician has had about a dozen cases in his crews and has hired 35 people this year to overcome the shortages. The telecomm guy has made six figures in four months moving businesses to stay at home models. He has been REAL quiet about his Covid experiences.


Another friend owns a real nice gym and is on the verge of bankruptcy, yet has not had a single case.

O&G manufacturing plant with roughly 500 employees. We were pretty aggressive in the beginning, and stayed ahead of the curve of what corporate was pushing us and other plants to do.
1. Reduce office employees to 1/3 normal department size, others at home, and rotating periodically to give people a since of normalcy.
2. Plant employees started having split shifts where possible to reduce everyone coming in and out at the same time
3. Mandatory temperature checks for all employees and visitors (as well as checklists for visitors)
4. Mandatory masks if not in own office
5. Teleconference meetings only
6. Locked / taped off common areas

Up until recently, we stayed without any confirmed cases, but some have popped up and traced back to community spread and not at the workplace. Thankfully affected employees were very proactive and notified HS&E and their managers immediately.

Only thing that really sucks is that our corporate HR is citing ADA regulations that we cannot give out any identifying information about a suspected employee, and can only urge said employee to tell people who he might have come into contact with. I hate that rule because it's much easier for me to say "I ran into Bob" than it is for him to remember everyone he ran into.

If anyone has any knowledge about ADA compliance regarding COVID, I'd love to know so I can push HR to be more open.

agsalaska said:

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I have two friends in Central Texas who are both having record years. One is an electrician with about 100 employees, the other is in communications ie phone systems.

The electrician has had about a dozen cases in his crews and has hired 35 people this year to overcome the shortages. The telecomm guy has made six figures in four months moving businesses to stay at home models. He has been REAL quiet about his Covid experiences.


Another friend owns a real nice gym and is on the verge of bankruptcy, yet has not had a single case.

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A good electrician is never looking for a job. Where the hell did your friend find 35 to hire? What industry? The good pickings are slim in ours.

To add something to the thread - we practice social distancing in the office as much as possible. For our field crews we put a lot of trust in them to be up front about symptoms and exposure. Our company livelihood depends on them coming to work and being healthy. So far it's worked out well. We've had one individual test positive with very minor symptoms. Shut the crew down. Sent everyone to get tested and started back up when everyone tested negative.

Quote:

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A good electrician is never looking for a job. Where the hell did your friend find 35 to hire?

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Fort Hood area. But it hasnt been easy.

A good friend of mine is the Regional GM of Outsource, which is a company who has an office in Houston who places electricians and cabling guys and other trades on a temp basis if you're looking for folks.

We have had at least one case in all of our offices, all of them got it from outside of work, most had no symptoms but had family members that did which is why they got tested. For this reason outside sales is not allowed in the office and managers rotate days to minimize the amount of people in the office. Shop and warehouse guys have to wear mask. Those in the office have to wear mask if anyone will be within 6 feet of you.

I have visited several customers in Texas and Louisiana and for the most part none of them are doing any of this with the exception of the plants. Four had COVID run thru their shops in February and three in March. My customer that does stuff in the poultry industry is minimizing all outside contact since they go on-site to do installations and want to avoid possibly spreading it