COVID-19

International Crisis

National, state and local agencies have deemed the vast majority of work in the construction industry as ‘essential’ to our country’s infrastructure and economy. Grocery stores, pharmacies, water treatment plants, healthcare facilities and other critical businesses are also in this category. We have been working tirelessly to balance getting the work done and keeping our people safe. To that end, we have put in place a variety of protective measures to ensure the health and safety of our employees, contractors, industry partners and clients remains our top priority – all while continuing to support the building needs of our communities.

During normal operations, we make safety the most important thing we do – whether in the office or on our jobsites – but during this unprecedented period of time, it is even more critical that our focus on day-to-day operational safety is heightened. Our Operations and Safety teams are taking a personal approach to the CDC guidelines by educating teams on preventive hygiene measures, taking temperatures prior to arriving on site – and placing specific emphasis on the ‘six-foot rule’ in terms of social distancing while working.

Best Practices

In addition to complying with all CDC and government regulations, we have expanded upon them to take the safety and health of our people to the next level in the areas of communication, manlift/buck hoist, social distancing and cleaning/sanitation. A few examples include:

Communicating CDC recommendations and other important tips to protect against COVID-19 to personnel via jobsite posters and alerts in English and Spanish and via text message, where possible.
Adding shifts to substantially reduce the number of workers on site at one time and leveraging manlifts/buck hoists for moving personnel, in addition to stairways.
Eliminating nonessential visitors, rotating office staff and adding trailers to limit office staff.
Providing a portable toilet and cleaning station for each subcontractor and adding a full-time cleaning service onsite to clean and disinfect all common areas and common-use heavy equipment.

These are just a few examples in a long list that will continue to grow as we see more opportunities to implement best practices like these across all of our jobsites. We are actively monitoring this evolving situation and will continue to comply with all CDC government requirements to do our part in looking for new ways to protect our project teams and their families from the spread of COVID-19.

We are committed to staying on top of each new development and to being as proactive as possible in the effort to keep our teams and our communities healthy.