SUPPLIERS
JENNY JORGENSEN | STANDARD INTERIORS
Essential Supplier-Partner Message
W
hat if one day you woke
up and the entire country
closed down?? Wait….
that did happen! However, many
suppliers to the apartment industry
didn’t close down, we just changed
everything! As suppliers to an essential
industry, we had to act quickly to
modify our operations and ensure that
we were taking the proper steps to be
conscientious and responsible suppliers.
While every supplier is essential
to our industry, the first question that
we had to ask ourselves was whether
or not the services that we provide are
essential during Covid-19 restrictions.
Essential services, as defined by both
State and Local Orders, include:
• Services necessary to maintain the
safety, sanitation, and essential
operation of residences.
• Services that are critical to
restoring livable conditions and
ensuring every family has a safe
home in which to shelter.
• Construction services that are
necessary for the development of
new residences.
• Professional services necessary to
assist in compliance with legally
mandated activities.
For most suppliers, we found that
only a portion of our staff was actually
preforming essential work on-site. We
minimized the staff sent on-site to
help our owner members reduce the
risk at their communities. Within our
own offices, we reduced the number
of staff members by at least 50% and
asked anyone who could to please
work form home to help flatten the
curve. Suppliers quickly established
www.aamdhq.org
best practices
for our team
members
while working
on-site. Work
in occupied
apartments
stopped unless
the work was
a safety or
sanitation
emergency.
We required
our teams to
practice social
distancing
while on-site,
maintaining
a 6 foot
distance from
all residents,
community
staff, or other
suppliers. Additionally, we provided
our essential team members the proper
personal protection equipment and
cleaning supplies to complete their
work safely and help stop the spread.
Most importantly, we communicated
regularly with our staff to ensure that if
someone had been exposed to Covid-19
or was showing symptoms, that they
followed the government’s guidelines
for quarantine.
Many of our supplier members
also work in the new construction
of apartment homes. We adopted
the same best practices at our new
construction sites and found additional
opportunities to provide a safe work
environment for everyone. New
construction sites can have as many
as 200 people working at the same
time, so it was imperative to develop
additional steps to accommodate social
distancing and keep these job sites safe.
Companies limited the number of team
members that they had on the job site,
and we worked with superintendents to
stagger work hours of different trades to
minimize the number of people on the
site at one time.
We woke up one day and realized
that we needed to change everything,
quickly! And we did. As we move
forward, we don’t know what might
be next. Will we go back to normal
or will we find ourselves navigating a
new normal that we never expected?
After seeing the incredible response by
our supplier members to quickly adapt
to what we’ve seen over the last few
weeks, I’m confident that as an industry
whatever comes next, we are ready
for it!
MAY 2020
TRENDS | 19