If there’s one thing the team at AffinEco has learned over the past year, it is how to be flexible. When the coronavirus pandemic first struck, and even before non-essential buildings were shut down, AffinEco began implementing health and safety measures to protect their workers and customers. But, as more was understood about the nature of the virus and how it spreads, company leaders shifted gears—implementing new procedures and changing-up some of the ones they had established months earlier.
Upgrading Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) was one of the most noticeable changes AffinEco implemented for its workers. Last summer, when office workers began returning to buildings in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Westchester County, the company wanted to better shield workers on the job. “We added the face shield on top of the mask for our workers to give them an extra layer of protection and also to make the building’s tenants feel safer,” said Nolan Macario, Vice President of AffinEco’s Boston office. “We heard from a few of the property managers and they were happy with the shields.”
For the past year, Nelson Hernandez, Vice President in charge of the southern Connecticut region, has seen his people doing whatever they must to get their work done and doing it with caution. “Whatever you do, you have a mask and shield and gloves and you try to stay away from people. It’s become the norm,” he said.
Last summer, AffinEco began instituting pre-shift health checks, so workers could attest to their health prior to reporting for work. Macario said the process has gone well, in part because managers also provided additional training for their employees on how to access the system, answer questions and provide information. After it was implemented in Boston, Macario’s team changed how workers check into their buildings. “We started separating cleaning staff into smaller groups, so three groups of people would show up instead of two.” The idea, he said, was to keep people apart to avoid potential transmission of the virus.
“We started putting smaller groups of workers on break at a time, so not everyone was sitting down together for lunch,” he said.
Hernandez said employees were encouraged to have lunch alone in separate locations. In addition, the carpooling was banned across the company, after management and the service employees’ union agreed that carpooling posed a danger to workers.
If a tenant in a building AffinEco serviced tested positive for COVID-19, everyone followed the building management’s contact tracing protocols. But, AffinEco added an additional element to make tracing easier. “We updated every cleaner’s job description to include the route they would take during their shift, so we could generally know where someone was during the time they were in the building,” said Macario.
In order to help protect its more senior workers, AffinEco accommodated a number of requests for leaves-of-absence to safeguard a workers’ health or the health of a loved one. A number of workers over the age of 60 took unpaid time off with a guarantee that the company would hold their position until conditions warranted their return.
“We had other people who opted to work only 30 hours per week so they could keep receiving health benefits, but also have more time at home,” said Macario.
Because the pandemic generated an additional need for emergency response, AffinEco has been upgrading its special services units—in every district. Hernandez said the crews have adapted well to the urgent nature of emergency response work. “We are ready to go whenever and wherever we are needed,” he said. “We can get a crew in a place immediately.”
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