In March, our company held its breath. Three months earlier, The NRP Group had announced ambitious plans to break ground on 28 multifamily projects worth $1.5 billion by the end of the year, representing a 50% increase from 2019. As reports of coronavirus cases and deaths in the U.S. were trickling in, those plans—and the world’s plans—were thrown into question. With everything shutting down, would construction sites be permitted to operate?
State by state and municipality by municipality, most regulators deemed residential construction “essential” and allowed jobsites to remain open, but with many new safeguards in place. With that, an NRP COVID-19 task force, consisting of professionals in our construction, safety, legal, and human resources departments, collaborated with our executive committee to design a rapid response that was both comprehensive and highly effective.
To date, only two of NRP’s construction sites—out of 39—temporarily suspended operations, in contrast to many jobsites around the country that were forced to stop for a variety of reasons ranging from lack of personal protective equipment (PPE), workers falling ill, or workers feeling uncomfortable reporting to work due to insufficient on-site safety protocols. Both of the shutdown NRP construction sites were back up within a matter of weeks. As a result, NRP’s job-week uptime has been 99.4% of possible job weeks since the outbreak began through mid-September.
The virus didn’t spare us completely. We had 13 cases of COVID-19 among our employees and subcontractors. Despite this, our total lost-man-days were only 15 out of a possible 40,500, enabling us to execute 17 job starts from the March outbreak to Oct. 1. And, thankfully, everyone who got sick recovered and returned to work.
How We Did It
The safety team’s goal during the beginning of the pandemic was to gather as much information as possible and work with our senior leadership to decide if it was possible to keep projects moving forward without compromising the safety of employees and our subcontractors. Once we confirmed that we could continue to work safely with the proper protocols in place, we had to quickly understand and then identify ways to comply with the applicable jurisdictional requirements in each of our markets.
One of the biggest challenges we faced was the mere fact that we work in a vast number of states, cities, and counties. In 2020, we had planned groundbreakings in Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia.
Each of these jurisdictions had its own set of COVID-19 rules. For example, in many of the communities surrounding Boston, an early hot spot for the pandemic, nurses were, and are still, required to temperature screen each worker prior to commencing work on site each day. In addition to hiring nurses, we needed to identify a third party to act as our COVID-19 officer for two jobsites. NRP tasked this consultant with inspecting wash stations, signage, and PPE, and verifying that social distancing was taking place on our projects. Before the end of the workday, the inspector compiled a daily report, which was reviewed by both the local health department and NRP to ensure compliance.
Starting in mid-March, we took what we were learning in Massachusetts, as well as Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and applied it to our jobsites nationally, including Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas, where the first COVID-19 wave was still in its early stages. We achieved a high level of knowledge sharing by maintaining constant contact between field staff and office staff. At first, we conducted calls daily. As our familiarity with the subject increased, we ramped down to calls three times per week, and now conduct them weekly and on an as-needed basis.
In order to ramp up communication while also keeping socially distant, we embraced video conferencing, increased the use of other electronic collaboration tools and platforms, and encouraged anyone who could work remotely to do so.
We began using a technology called OpenSpace, which allowed our project supervisors to put a camera on their hard hats and survey a given project in a recorded session that reduced the frequency with which upper managers needed to travel across states lines to visit sites.
For each employee and subcontractor, we created a list of people who had to be notified in the event that individual worker tested positive for COVID-19. In each case, our human resources department based out of our Cleveland headquarters was our first call, followed by the COVID-positive individual’s supervisors. HR was tasked with supporting supervisors with contact tracing to assess the need for quarantining others.
Government Guidelines
Our task force was obsessive in monitoring the latest COVID-19 related safety regulations and construction industry guidelines from applicable governmental agencies, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and city, county, and state agencies. We found it imperative not only to check for new guidelines, but to look for updates to previously issued directives, which were being issued as frequently as daily, to ensure continued compliance.
Social Distancing and PPE
In order to fully comply with social distancing guidelines, we required our employees and subcontractors to remain 6 feet apart from each other whenever possible. To that end, we layered on the directive to avoid working in pairs on any task that could be done by one person alone.
We required all workers, employees, subcontractors, and suppliers to wear face coverings while on site and continued to require social distancing. In addition to face coverings, we required all workers to wear other PPE, such as gloves, hard hats, high visibility clothing, and safety glasses, as appropriate.
We also restricted access to both contractor and subcontractor field offices to authorized personnel, in order to minimize chance encounters with individuals who could be infected. As an outgrowth of that, we coordinated site deliveries for minimal contact and had delivery personnel remain in their vehicles whenever possible.
Finally, we held all meetings outside, as the virus droplets dissipate in an outdoor environment, increasing safety.
Supply Chain
It was one thing to require all workers to wear face coverings and other PPE, it was another thing to be able to provide our workers with this necessary new piece of work apparel at a time when it was in extremely short supply all over the world.
To maintain an adequate stockpile of this critical equipment, we sourced PPE from multiple locations and suppliers, big and small. Disposable masks and gloves were ordered from a medical supply company and also sourced from a local supplier out of the Pittsburgh area. We used our usual safety supplier, Industrial Safety Products (ISP), to buy soap, dispensers, and hand sanitizer. Thanks to our strong relationship with ISP, the company worked with us to ensure that we were supplied at all times.
However, at the time, there were no washable face masks available for immediate delivery in our vendor's warehouse, for any price, for even the most preferred customer. In fact, lead times on these masks were weeks, if not months in most cases.
So we found a creative workaround. We identified a small sewing company in Canton, Ohio, 60 miles from NRP’s Cleveland headquarters, and convinced its owner, a woman sole proprietor, to make masks for The NRP Group exclusively. Over the course of three critical weeks in late March and early April, when the PPE shortage was at its height, she produced over 900 washable masks for us, proving the importance of relationship-building.
Six months later, inventory of PPE continues to be uncertain. To keep PPE in stock, we continue sourcing it from several suppliers and maintain a liberal stock of inventory.
Daily Screening
Workers on all NRP jobsites were required to complete a daily self-certification health screening form before being cleared to enter the jobsite each day. If a worker could not meet the requirements on the form, they were not permitted to work onsite. This policy remains in place today.
Our daily tracking of self-certifications evolved over time. After starting out with a checklist on paper, we transitioned to a technology-based solution to expedite the process. Using online surveys accessed through a QR code on a smartphone, we were able to avoid crowding at the entrance to the jobsite, or even worse, having a COVID-19 positive worker report to work, only to have to be turned away at the gate. Results were tracked and the data saved confidentially to help aid future contact tracing, if necessary.
Personal Hygiene and Cleaning/Disinfecting
We implemented changes both to jobsites themselves and to hygiene protocols at our jobsites. For example, we provided sanitation stations throughout our sites where workers could wash or sanitize their hands and mounted signs displaying how to properly do so.
We brought on extra cleaning staff through a national vendor to regularly clean and disinfect common areas, most notably portable restrooms, as well as high-touch surfaces such as door handles and table and countertops. We instructed workers to avoid sharing tools. To the extent that sharing was necessary, we regularly cleaned and disinfected tools between use.
Suspected Cases
If one of our workers knew they had come into contact with someone who had exhibited COVID-19 symptoms or had tested positive for the virus in the previous two weeks, they were not permitted to enter the jobsite.
If any worker tested positive or otherwise exhibited symptoms of COVID-19, they were instructed to immediately leave the jobsite. Workers exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms were not allowed to return to work until: (1) at least 10 days had passed since their symptoms first appeared, (2) they were fever-free for at least 24 hours, measured when they were not taking fever-reducing medicine, and (3) their symptoms had improved. If the worker had symptoms that could be COVID-19 and wanted to return to work before completing the self-isolation described above, the individual was required to obtain a medical professional’s note clearing them for return based on an alternative diagnosis.
Positive Cases
When an on-site worker tested positive for COVID-19 and was no longer on site, we implemented the following procedures. First, we engaged an outside vendor to disinfect the area where the COVID-19 positive worker had been performing their tasks, as well as all common areas with Vital Oxide or a similar hospital-grade disinfectant cleaner. Other workers were then not allowed back into those areas until the disinfectant had been applied and sufficient time had passed for it to be completely effective.
Our safety team would then determine which individuals on the jobsite may have had close contact with the COVID-19 positive worker, meaning those who had been less than 6 feet away for 15 minutes or longer. Those workers were required to quarantine for 14 days from the last date of close contact and monitor for symptoms.
We made a concerted effort to limit the amount of travel by NRP employees in order to limit the risk of spread of the virus. Instead, employees were encouraged to stay in their established work-groups and limit travel when possible.
In addition to the policies and procedures described above, including social distancing and mandating face coverings, we posted COVID-19 guidelines at all jobsite entrances and discontinued gatherings such as toolbox talks, shut down communal eating areas, and staggered work schedules when necessary.
Looking back, we are proud of what our team accomplished. With the possibility of another wave of the virus in the U.S., and with other countries around the world already experiencing a third wave, we thought it important to share our knowledge so that, despite the lack of a vaccine at present, people in the construction industry and beyond can continue productive work even in these unprecedented and difficult times.
