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Span Alaska Delivers By Tasha Anderson
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pan Alaska ranked Gold as a Quest for Quality Regional LTL Carrier in 2020; that ranking is based on customer service, on-time performance, value, information technology, and equipment and operations. The Gold ranking reflects Span Alaska’s mission, which is to ensure its customers receive the highest level of service and reliability when shipping their goods to, from, and within Alaska. And while the pandemic changed a lot of things, it didn’t change that. “We are very proud to serve the state of Alaska for more than forty years, and we understand our responsibility as a transportation lifeline of food and essential supplies throughout this crisis,” says Span Alaska President Tom Souply. “We have had no disruptions or slowdowns during the COVID pandemic—and that is a testament to our employees who understand this responsibility, who care about what they do every day, taking care of our customers and those communities.”
messages by text, email, voicemail—or all three—to any or all employees within two minutes,” Souply says. Along with such alerts, Souply now participates in virtual meetings throughout the day to maintain lines of communication across the organization. He meets on Zoom daily with the Span Alaska executive team: “There are five people that get on the call each morning, and we review all protocols that are required and mandated by the CDC and by the states to make sure that we’re in line with those protocols. “We also go through—on every call— talking about any employee who has reported an illness, trying to understand what their symptoms are, and making sure that we manage that appropriately. We err on the side of caution and, in many cases, have had employees stay
home, get tested, and then determine what the next steps are. We work with those employees and their families until they’re able to come back.” The executive team is especially vigilant because the nature of Span Alaska’s work prevents many employees from working remotely; as of yet, containers don’t get loaded and unloaded by robots, and trucks don’t drive themselves. However, as of publication, many Span Alaska office employees are working from home in accordance with various city, state, and federal guidelines. “We’ve got an amazing IT team that has enabled us to get everybody booted up in their home and be effective working from home,” Souply says. He says Span Alaska is looking forward to having all of its employees
COVID-19 Early in the pandemic, companies that adapted quickly and efficiently were the same companies that focused on communication at all levels, and Span Alaska was no exception. In addition to ramping up utilization of Zoom and maintaining other, established forums such as newsletters, quarterly updates, and town halls, “We realized we needed a quick way to communicate to our employees if our operations are affected by emergency stay-athome orders and other restrictions. We implemented an alert system that sends
64 | April 2021
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