Updated April 9, 2020
John Deere produces face shields
John Deere, in collaboration with the UAW, the Iowa Department of Homeland Security and the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, is producing protective face shields at John Deere Seeding Group in Moline, Ill. Deere employees will initially produce 25,000 face shields to meet the immediate needs of health care workers in several of its U.S. manufacturing communities.
Materials and supplies are ordered to produce an additional 200,000 face shields. The company is using an open-source design from the University of Wisconsin-Madison for the project and leveraging the expertise, skills and innovation of its employee base.
Learn more about John Deere’s contributions here.
Updated April 1, 2020
Landscape Development shares COVID-19 management strategies
“Welcome to the curse of living in interesting times,” began Gary Horton’s letter to his company on March 13.
The CEO of Landscape Development Inc. (LDI) personally writes everyone in the company every other day, and the company’s HR director and COO are also communicating often with employees to offer reassurance and information about COVID-19 and how developments with the virus are affecting employee safety and the company’s ability to work.
On the maintenance end of the business, some clients have cut back on services related to large group gatherings, such as churches and sports field maintenance. New enhancement sales have been cut back, because people don’t know where their cash is coming from or how they should spend it.
There’s irony here, says Horton. “We were heading into what was going to be the best three or four months in our company’s history, and then this thing happened.”
Read on for more about how LDI is strategizing for the coming months.
How Blades of Green has changed its approach during COVID-19
“We’re doing better than some and worse than others, but I’d say we’re doing better than most, so we’ll take it,” says Brad Leahy, vice president of Blades of Green in Edgewater, Md. The $11 million company provides 70 percent lawn care and 30 percent pest control services to a 95 percent residential, 5 percent commercial clientele.
Virtual meetings and text messages are now the normal modes of communication between staff members. Technicians take their trucks home and resupply visits to the shop have turned into more of a curbside pickup process to minimize person-to-person contact.
Instead of door knocks at the beginning and end of service, technicians are now doing text-ahead messages for clients and communicating any lawn issues via text and follow-up phone calls. Leahy noted that the company completed 400 lawn care and pest services yesterday and times of service are now written on the back of the leave-behind yard sign.
“Everything’s changing so fast — if you start emailing customers and change what our protocol is the next day, it’s very confusing,” Leahy says. “We chose not to do a blanket email, and we’re individually texting our customers, and trying to keep communication to the individual level — what do they need to know today?” he adds.
To learn other ways Blades of Green is changing up its customer service, click here.
Updated March 30, 2020
A mix of hope and worry at Hyde Park Landscape
Hyde Park Landscape in Norwich, Conn., started a new COVID-19 protocol on March 16. It’s designed to “take care of the crew that’s here and stay safe at work,” says Brandon Hyde, vice president of Hyde Park Landscape. Hyde says he reminds his team at company meetings that these protocols are to help keep everyone safe, including loved ones at home.
“We need to take into consideration that some of us live with others that are vulnerable and it’s about the other people and the community,” he says.
These guidelines, Hyde says, highlight basic things his team need to keep in mind such as cleaning of community tools and equipment after every use, wearing gloves during the workday, when not wearing the gloves keeping them off of community surfaces, avoiding spitting on common area surfaces and maintaining social distancing.
“We’ve also limited the amount of guys on our trucks,” he says, noting that it was typical to have up to three employees in one truck. But, now, he’s scaled it back.
“It’s hard for most companies to have one truck per person,” he says. “Once we’re on the job site, we tend to be able to operate in separate areas.”
Hyde says he’s encouraging workers to use the same piece of equipment during the workday and to disinfect all equipment after use.
“We keep the same equipment with the same person every day, now more than ever,” he says.
Hyde says he’s noticed some scaling back on spending. One hospitality group canceled all contracts with all vendors, including his.
“It was a big hit on the maintenance end,” he says. “We have a great relationship with them. We told them if there’s anything we can help with on the short end, we’d be happy to do so.”
He’s also noticed some of his company’s outdoor living projects have been put on hold. With these cancellations, it has been tough on landscapers in his area, especially after a mild winter in some areas.
“I can tell you in southern New England, there was very little snow this year and a lot of landscapers that counted on snow removal didn’t have that income,” Hyde says. “A lot of companies need to be out there generating revenue.”
On the bright side, Hyde says, while the virus may have changed the way we do things, it’s also given us all an opportunity to take stock of where we are in our lives personally.
“With people being home, we’re able to enjoy the people we took for granted when life got busy,” he says. “It’s a wake-up call for people to enjoy nature, and that might turn into people enjoying their properties.”
The virus isn’t slowing down the change in seasons as the forsythia are blooming and the daffodils are coming up, Hyde notes.
“We’re going to come out of this,” he says. “People kind of slowed down and took a breath and looked at what’s important in their lives – family, nature and their home.”
Yards Done Right still working, but getting long looks in Ohio
Yards Done Right in Westlake, Ohio, is a two-person company of husband and wife Jim and Judy Beveridge and so far they’ve been able to continue work during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s great on our part, but nobody will keep their distance,” says Jim Beveridge. “[My wife] Judy and I are monitoring our health.”
Having a smaller crew helps with sanitizing of equipment, but Jim says he’s noted many customers who want to come up and talk to him and don’t practice social distancing like one customer who recently wanted to shake his hand.
“One thing we’ve been doing all along is communicating on our Facebook page,” Judy says.
The posts on social media encourage clients to email or call if they have questions or concerns instead of a face-to-face conversation. They’ve also used Facebook to discuss with local communities that they serve what they’re doing and how they’re doing it.
“They had no objections to it,” Jim says.
For now, pest control treatments are essential businesses and so, Yards Done Right has been busy with tick and mosquito treatments. They already wear PPE for applications but they take extra steps when leaving bills and any other leave-behinds.
“I have two sets of gloves,” Judy says. “One for fertilizing and one for bills.”
The extra steps they’re maintaining is to keep the customers’ minds at ease.
“We don’t want to infect them and we don’t want them to infect us,” Jim says. “We want this thing to go away as soon as possible.”
And they’re working under what Ohio’s Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted said is that businesses can work as long as they are maintaining safe business practices.
“We have not been designated good, bad, or otherwise by the state,” Jim says.
But the ambiguity of what constitutes as an essential business has created a lot of confusion in the industry. Some states have come out and said certain mowing and maintenance services are essential businesses and other states have banned everything outright.
“There are a lot of frustrated landscapers,” Jim says. “Nobody is making decisive decisions. I wish states would come out with a yes or no. Michigan is not letting any landscaper out their door.”
They both worry about the court of public opinion on the safety of what they’re doing, even with the extra precautions they’re taking.
“There’s a lot of public perception of what’s right and wrong,” Jim says. “We’ve had a couple of people give us strange looks, not dirty looks, but strange looks. We’ve had a lot of nice people, too, he says.”
They do say they are concerned about people taking photos of them working while on a walk and blasting them on social media for staying open.
“We’re so paranoid about this whole thing,” Jim says.
While they’re open, there are larger landscaping and lawn care operations in Ohio that have closed. Jim speculates that if things change and they have to cease operations for a little while, they could survive.
“If we got shut down for 3-4 weeks, we would probably be OK based on the volume of prepay,” he says, noting customers could ask for their money back to help with bills and that would change the conversation.
