THINKING Ahead By Harris Gant & Michael Calloway
Processing the pandemic industry saw CO I -1 coming; but when it did show up, ECM , Inc. was ready. As a process-driven company, the culture of our business from inception has been to have procedures in place guiding everything we do, in every imaginable situation. We figure out the best way to do things and then we have everybody do it that exact best way every time. Taking on the pandemic was no exception. aving a system, and having trust in that system, allowed us to pivot swiftly and seamlessly—or relatively so. Early recognition of the enormity of the crisis prompted immediate action. A deep-seated commitment to take care of our employees formed and guided the processes we implemented, and transparent channels of communication kept everybody on the same page company-wide.
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“This Thing Is Real, and We Need to Get Ready”
Once it became clear that the public health threat was here for the long haul, the company knew it needed to get out in front of the problem rather than wait for the inevitable to happen. In the earliest meetings, it was warned repeatedly that it was not a matter of if, but when, ECM , Inc. would have an issue related to the crisis. To head off trouble, the first move was to leverage established processes. Although developed with tornadoes, wildfires, and similar events in mind, our isaster Recovery Center became a central component of the early pandemic response. By March, we had sent about half of our customer service representatives to that alternative worksite, located in our manufacturing plant across town. Equipped with a duplicate server that mirrors the server in our corporate o ce in Wilkesboro, N.C., that facility allowed our CSRs to plug in and keep working without disruption while also providing a simple social-distancing solution.
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The Merchant Magazine n
February 2021
To thin the ranks even more, many others quickly transitioned to remote work from home. It was already SOP for each employee to have a company-issued laptop and to take that device home every night, so that made the changeover a lot smoother than what some other businesses experienced. Existing processes would only carry us so far, though. uring a presidential briefing on the virus, it really dawned on us that this thing is real and we need to get ready. We knew we needed a CO I -specific plan. With that in mind, we assembled a crisis management team, made up of all the operating company and division presidents. The team met daily to report such information as what was happening in the different operating companies and whether there were any potential cases of infection. At the same time, we set about putting together response protocols for cases where an employee exhibits symptoms at work or called in after exhibiting symptoms at home. Following C C guidelines, detailed processes, procedures, and scenarios were defined. The management team and supervisors within our 1 locations were provided training, coaching, and talking points to prepare their teams and keep everyone informed. We also had tabletop drills so that we knew exactly what we were going to do when we had our first positive case. That wouldn’t happen until uly. As it turned out, one of our customers had a positive case first—and it unfortunately ended with a fatality. When the customer was sidelined for a week because its people were afraid to go to work, we at ECM , Inc. realized that job one for us was going to be to protect our employees and make them feel safe to work. That was the guiding principle of all our CO I -1 policies and procedures.
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