A Roadmap for Adapting Your IFM SOW to Meet the Demands of 2021 and Beyond

Video Transcript

D. Toole: So as we have other people joining, I want to kind of start us off, but you know there’s a lot going on in our facilities world today and really we just want to have that Peace Love and IFM feeling, and really creating great conversations about the future of Integrated Facilities Management. So today we’re hoping to help give you some nuggets and some information that will be very practical in use and that you can kind of start considering as you move forward. Just welcoming you in here is that you know right now there’s some percentages – this comes from a study that was done by McKenzie – is that 57% of people are concerned about the safety of returning to work and you know 54% of businesses, they’ve indicated that their ability to run their business effectively has obviously been reduced. Another survey that came out also showed about trust and about confidence – and you know once again I just want to kind of relay here that we’re giving everybody a minute to still log on and just get settled – but when you look at this graph you see on the screen, it’s amazing to see how trust has changed so much. So when you look at some of the statistics you know employees, or occupants of a building, they don’t even know that they totally trust, only about half trust that their other co-workers are going to adhere to good guidelines. A lot of people just don’t feel safe, but what we want to do today is, we want to talk about how we can help to increase occupants’ trust and their confidence levels upon returning to work or how adjusting your scope of work to concentrate on high impact visible areas of concern, and all of this is to help build this trust that is really needed among all the occupants that enter a facility.

D. Toole: So to kick us off today we have four panelists: my name is Don Toole and I’m Senior Vice President for Flagship Facility Services and I’m going to be your emcee and kind of guide us through this conversation and it really is just going to be a conversation to really share insights. On our panel we have Dan Lent, who’s Vice President of Operations for Flagship. Then we have Michelle Kleiber-Viglione, and I try to always get that name somewhat correct so thanks, but we refer to her lovingly as MKV so you’ll hear that as we go through this presentation, and she’s a National Account Manager for Flagship Facility Services. We’re also joined today by Tracy Davis who’s President and CEO of Trax Analytics. So glad to have our panelists here and I think you’ll get a lot of insights from these; there’s a lot of talent, a lot of knowledge, and I think you’ll be able to gain some great insights and really some nuggets you can use to move forward.

D. Toole: So recently there was a survey that was done by the airline industry, by ACI, and ACI put out a survey and it came back with the top actions to enhance occupant satisfaction, or really was around passenger satisfaction when they did the survey, but you know this survey really works well for all types of facilities because it’s people going in and out of airports; they kind of make up all the different makeups that are in your facilities. It makes up the traveling public, workers, staff, just the public in general, and in this survey the number one thing that came out was strength and health measures. Then a few others that I want to point out that we really will be able to highlight today as we go through this: one of the top ones was ensure enhanced cleanliness for all stages of the facility and how people move around; the adaption of good digital communication so that they have good real-time information, that they have solid understanding of flow and flow through the building and how things are going; adapting and creating better open air spaces; and just a focus on friendliness of staff. I think these are some things that we will be able to really highlight around this, but when you look at this list, the number one item that was on their list was to gain confidence, to create confidence, and to also have a feeling of safety and a healthy environment for which they can work in. So to have success in developing consistency to meet this goal, you need a solid process to guide you and over this next hour we’re going to share several ideas to maximize your impacts and investments with visibility and innovations. So at Flagship we build all this around a four pillared process that we call Pure Clean: it’s refocus, disinfect, educate, and adapt. No one can really predict the future, but we know that the definition of clean has changed forever, and your current scopes of work may no longer serve your facility or its occupants. The solution is a realigned, flexible SOW supported by technology that concentrates effort, cost on high impact areas that really create a source of confidence for you to have, and to share with your staff. The way this pandemic has continued to progress, it’s affecting different organizations in uniquely different ways so this conversation is going to flow and give you more and more insights; that’s the goal. Whether you’ve been completely closed and you’re looking to start reopening, or you’ve been operating through occupancy guidelines set by the CDC and you’re continuing to escalate that, we’ll be emphasizing some of the key points that you need to have top of mind throughout this period of flux. So kind of diving into this: Dan, if you don’t mind, what are some of the key points that have proven positive for partners that are following the return to work guidelines or others for reopening their facilities, and for the staff and clients being back in the buildings?

D. Lent: Thanks, Don. I would say the top thing that we need to do is, you need to religiously review your scope of work as it relates to the current CDC city, state, federal guidelines for reopening. These constantly change, it’s been very fluid, so it’s really important that you have a regular cadence on checking that. I would engage your soft service providers and your facilities team in this, use them for their expertise and the best practices. Although this might be your first reopening, most likely your contractors have done a few openings so they’ve walked through this and are able to share that knowledge with you. Be open; it’s very important to be transparent in this process, talking about budgets and really what you’re trying to accomplish.

D. Lent: Site inspections are important for a couple of things, but if you’re planning on reopening don’t wait till the last minute to identify things that need to be worked on. When you’ve shuttered a building or partially shuttered, it’s important that you’re constantly walking your facility to look for things like water spots or puddling to make sure everything is running the way it should run. You need to kind of adjust your maintenance plans accordingly and we recommend, and it works well for us, following a specific inspection checklist. Do that every time that you’re doing your site inspections. Deep clean is the new normal; what does that mean? Well there’s a couple things. As we all know, disinfection now is a big part of the cleaning business in addition to the regular cleaning but before you open up, there’s things that you could do, little wins that will help with the confidence level and the perception that your facility is clean. An example would be window cleaning; we don’t think about that but if your building’s been shuttered for six months, the windows are going to be pretty dirty and dusty and when you have a staff coming back in, that’s the first thing they see. So it’s really important to focus on those items that people come back and they see when they return to work.

D. Lent: Refocus: so it’s reopening like I mentioned, items like windows. Make sure that windows are looking good but spend this time on the build-up so you’re ready for that opening. Shampoo your carpet, strip and wax your floors. We’ll talk about a little later, as AC Management, air filters. It’s really important to have everything disinfected, clean, popping ready to go so when people walk in they feel that clean environment, and that will help their confidence coming back to work.

D. Lent: And as mentioned when we started refocusing the statement of work: typically with janitorial services, the only thing we are disinfecting is restrooms and specific environments. That’s changed and that’s not going away, so you have to look at adding disinfection services to your regular services. We do a few different things; I’ve seen a lot of touch point cleaning as well as electrostatic spraying. As we look at this SOW, looking at your equipment an example is if you don’t have HEPA Filters maybe now is the time to change your vacuums to those with HEPA Filters. Make sure you have your plan of people coming back, 25%, 50%, and plan accordingly so everybody could be on the same page, and educate. I mean this is really important, this is a true sport when it comes to a pandemic. Everybody has skin in the game so the employees need to be educated on what their responsibilities are and this will help build confidence. So what I mean by that is signage: wash your hands, maintain six foot distances. The more signage you put up, as well as ‘hey we’re disinfecting at this frequency, this is why you see more cleaners,’ if you’re educating your staff on what they can do and what’s going around them, that’ll help build the confidence coming back into the workplace as well.

D. Toole: Thanks Dan, so MKV can you expand on what Dan shared from a more IFM or more the facility management and facility structure point of view?

M. Kleiber-Viglione: Yeah, thanks Don. One of the things that’s really critical that he talked about is making sure you’re aligned with your clients. In IFM you can have anywhere from an office environment to light industrial or manufacturing environments and you have to understand what stage of their reopening they’re in. Are they fully opened at this point in time? So making sure you have regular scheduled meetings, make sure you know you’re communicating not only with the client but your staff to make sure there’s full alignment at all levels. There’s inspection checklists to go through with your team to make sure things are being done timely, like signage being set up, the cleaning, the disinfectants being done, but also making sure your maintenance is being done in a timely level. In space management we work with our clients to make sure the signage is in place, to make sure there’s the distance between the cubes so people are sitting in the right places for the offices that are partially open, and also make sure if there’s any long-range building improvements that can be done in this time with touchless fixtures. I know a lot of times right now we’re putting touchless doors in the front end where you just wave your hands to get into the main entrances, and that can go from a headquarters to a manufacturing site. The other thing is, make sure you have a list and you’re following a project plan so you can stay on target with what you’ve set up with a client so you continue to meet your deliverables. Again it’s making sure we have buy-in at all levels so people have confidence to come back to work and they see these things getting done.

M. Kleiber-Viglione: So I think it’s very important to remember our HVAC Systems. That is one of the things that’s out of mind and out of sight to everybody when they walk in a building, but it has a lot to do with making sure we’re bringing enough fresh air into the building. Dilution and cleaning of air is just as critical as cleaning the building surfaces so it’s important that we have a strategy to take care of your HVAC Systems. That is done by making sure we’re aligned with the indoor air quality ASHRAE Guidances that have been outlined, and again heavily we want to make sure we are hitting on our dilution and cleanliness to make sure. Another area that people don’t think about is water filtration. It’s really important to make sure that your water systems are working. You want to make sure you’ve flushed everything, you’ve tested your water systems all the way back to the cooling tower and even at the site level to make sure you’ve got clean water for everyone. it’s very critical. Replacing filtration units, recheck the water system, changing filters on a PM schedule. Again, making sure that people have the confidence to come back to work.

D. Toole: Thanks, MKV. I want to follow up a little deeper on the indoor air quality you mentioned in a couple of minutes, and you know I want to re-emphasize the importance of just having that great communication. That’s what I’ve heard consistently from you and Dan, that you need to make sure you’re engaging great resources and partnerships, and those true subject matter experts or the SME’s to get that initial scope realignment meeting set up so that you can really have a specifically designed plan for your facilities. Once again mentioned earlier we have a great SME with us today: Tracy Davis, who is the President CEO of Trax Analytics and what Tracy and them do, is they’re really engaged with a lot of the today’s IOT. Recently Gartner research put out a forecast that there would be 20.4 billion IOT devices by the end of last year. That’s a 41% increase in a three year period. That same report projected that businesses will contribute about 48 percent of their overall spin to IOT Technology by the turn of this decade. The growth is just striking, there’s just so much out there. Tracy, you know the Internet Of Things and the IOF or Internet Of Facilities is not a new concept but many facility professionals are just not aware of how technology has come into play during this pandemic for things like contact tracing, to improve communication, to usage data that can be shared, and just really how small investments in that technology can now reap big rewards in creating a healthy workplace that builds confidence for occupants. It’s not a one-size-fits-all space. Could you share like what key technologies that you are seeing implemented at facilities as you map out growing occupancies in their facilities as they map it out?

T. Davis: Yeah absolutely, thank you Don. So it’s important to note that IOT doesn’t have to be scary and it doesn’t have to be incredibly expensive. When we all hear the word smart building or IOT we automatically think that it’s out of our budget or we might not have the teams to support implementing that technology. Actually the opposite is true now. So what we focus on is creating a platform that can consume data from a multitude of different vendors and different sensors to make sure that you have the right data and that it’s given to the right person at the right time. So it’s important to create something that’s customized, to your point, to your unique challenges that you’re facing now in the era of COVID, but also what you’re going to see and something that can expand and grow with you as your challenges inevitably change in the future. As you mentioned with occupancy, you know occupancy fluctuations have created a unique challenge for IFM companies to really understand how to staff, when to schedule, what inventory and resources they need now that our occupancy levels are not as consistent as they used to be. I want to map out a couple of key technologies to your point that are budget-friendly, that are easy to implement, and that can have a huge impact on your operations, especially for the janitorial groups. The first component of that is throughput, to your point. So throughput sensors can be implemented in your cafeterias, your conference rooms, your restrooms, and these sensors can give you real-time data on how many people are using that location and just send an alert out to your staff that it’s time to go disinfect that area. It’s also key to note that you can look at that data and just start to learn your new trends. Occupancy is not the same as it was Pre-COVID so as we start to open up and start traveling and reopen our buildings, looking at that data is going to be really key for how we schedule staff. another component is smart dispensers and consumables. So technology driven by groups like Torque where we can actually get connected dispensers, letting us know that the soap is low or your paper towels are low. Now you can really create this digitalized, demand-based cleaning operation so that you never have to go low on inventory, especially when hand washing is really key during this time. Then getting all this data back to your staff, your janitors; being able to have them see in real time on a mobile app where they need to go, what they need to clean, and what they need to refill is key to making sure your operation is functioning efficiently and flowing effectively.

T. Davis: So feedback. I love to talk about feedback. Right now with COVID, touchless has been really key and has been a big hot button, and being able to give guests that confidence to return to work, the confidence that you are taking cleanliness and hygiene seriously, and that you do care about how their experience has been inside restrooms or conference rooms is really important. So we have technology that allows a guest to give feedback in the palm of their hand on their own device. This can be utilized with near field communication stickers or QR Codes, but with NFC Technology a guest simply has to walk up near a sticker and it will prompt them to give notification in a survey. Now you can have customized surveys to let you know that the restroom needs cleaning, or furthermore that a conference room has been used and that your janitor team needs to go out and disinfect that area.

T. Davis: And then the cleaning and inspecting mobile application. So this is key in really digitalizing your operation. Dan mentioned earlier, conducting inspections now is more important than ever, looking at puddles and water spots as you start to open up your building and re-shutter. So when we’re looking at this we now have the ability to pull in maps of your facility to initiate and schedule inspections in the palm of your hand, to rate and wait out the inspections that you’re conducting so that you’re now held different SOP’s than you were Pre-COVID. These can change now during this COVID time and then after, but now you can be on top of understanding how your facility is functioning, areas that need to be improved, and of course you can rate the work of your janitors in the cleaning and the effectiveness that they’ve done during their work order.

T. Davis: And lastly I’d love to talk about digital signage, because this is really key in getting that confidence back to coming into your buildings. You can take this data that we’re consuming inside of a restroom or conference room and you can display it back to your guests or your passengers. We’ve seen a lot of facilities display when the restroom was last cleaned. If it’s actively being cleaned and closed down for disinfecting, you can way-find them to the nearest restroom and actually have walk times to it. Importantly, as you’re seeing now, we can actually display COVID and CDC guideline messaging; this actually is effective in getting this type of technology funded by cares act because we’re now getting pertinent data out to your guests about hygiene, about cleaning. With the use of technology your guests start to feel that level of confidence and comfort that, ‘hey you’re taking cleaning seriously, you’re taking hygiene, you’re using technology to improve the service and the facility offering,’ so this has been a really big, popular offering with a lot of our clients.

D. Toole: Thanks Tracy. It’s extremely interesting that there’s now cares acts funds available to help people with this this type of technology going into their buildings. Just so everybody knows, you’ll be able to contact any of us or be able to get, if you request this deck, we’ll be glad to get you in contact with anybody if any of this stuff is stuff you’d like more information around. I’d also like to let you know that we do have a question portal so feel free to be submitting questions and we’ll try to get to as many of them as we can at the end of the session. So thanks, Tracy, for that insight. Dan, can you highlight some of the key scope and technologies that you’re implementing and the impacts they have on scope and on occupant confidence?

D. Lent: Sure, thanks, Don. One of the biggest changes in janitorial, is the visibility of cleaners. Traditionally janitorial is kind of the behind the scenes thing; you come back to work and the place is clean, unless you have day porters then you have some interaction with them. Now visibility becomes really important because it breeds confidence where employees get to see the people working and cleaning, so it’s important to have a touchpoint cleaning plan throughout the day to make sure that it’s visible, that its people are being seen but we’re also hitting those things at the crucial times. That’s where some of this technology that Tracy talked about comes in handy is you can now reallocate your staff and your labor. So it’s not about labor savings but it’s about real allocating, so you’re dispatching when there’s a need but at the same time that employee can now do other tasks. Signage is another big thing that we’re seeing as a benefit, too; it’s not only sending the message out but it helps with socially distancing, knowing are there stalls available in the bathroom before you enter into a crowded space. A couple of other things that we’re seeing from labor reallocation is autonomous scrubbers. So we’ve been using autonomous scrubbers for a few years now; what it’s done though is it’s taken us from rather than having somebody for eight hours riding on a scrubber, we’re able to take that labor. The floor’s still getting scrubbed but now we can reallocate to touch point cleaning and more of that detail work that’s so imperative. We’re also now beginning to test some vacuums that do the same thing.

D. Toole: Thanks, Dan, I know that you know as a company we’ve been very engaged with companies like Brain Corp. and some of the others in helping to test and improve and get their technology to the next level, so it’s something that we really do stay on the forefront of, thanks for sharing that. Dan, another thing that’s kind of come out there is, can you give some thoughts on good old elbow grease versus electrostatic spraying versus something like UV light technologies? I know that UV light is has been kind of flashy, no pun intended, but solutions, it gets a lot of hype but I know you’ve got to make sure you’re using it in the right way.

D. Lent: Yeah, I know there’s a lot of promise with UV disinfection. It works better in specific locations, more confined spaces, things of that nature. The problem for our needs is we found the dwell time that the UV light needs is quite a bit longer than we have the time for and you gotta move the light to make sure you’re getting all surfaces. What we found best with our customers, is a combination of good old elbow grease and electrostatic spraying. Reason behind that is, as we mentioned, it’s important to do touch point cleaning, also for the visual of that, so it’s important most of our customers are doing two to three times during a day shift and once at night where they’re touching all touch points and disinfecting it for those areas. Electrostatic spraying is great; what it does is it charges the ions in the water and the charged ions now stick to the surface and actually wrap around. So like in a door knob or a door handle you spray and it’ll wrap all around the entire surface. So we’re doing a combination of electrostatic as well as good old elbow grease throughout the course of the day.

D. Toole: Thanks, Dan. So earlier MKV, I mentioned that I wanted to come back to your comment about creating and maintaining you know stronger indoor air quality. you know but before I go further I do want to do a shameless plug that in our upcoming Peace Love and IFM Sessions we are going to have another guest panelist on this subject specifically and also do some review of certifications your facilities can achieve and just show your commitment to the occupant safety and that confidence. MKV, can you just kind of give a little bit of an overview on some of the other things around indoor air quality that can be done?

M. Kleiber-Viglione: Yeah, indoor air quality is really focused around the ASHRAE Guidances. They’ve actually been around Pre-COVID, they’ve been adapting and changing throughout the pandemic. The guidances are not static as we learn more about the virus. There are four main portions: salute, contain, exhaust, and clean; but really heavily focused on dilution and clean, so making sure you’re bringing in a lot of outside air and cleaning it, making sure you have the right filter strategy. A lot of those are making sure you put the right strategies in your buildings to optimize the compliance with the guidance. Not every guidance needs to be followed but what it needs to have is a strategy that meets the base some of the baselines and the guidance. Some of the areas that you can end up doing, because one of the things that we’ve been taught to do over the last 25 years is energy management. Well, as we’ve come into our COVID environment energy management is kind of at odds with solutions, so actually one of the things is to increase more outdoor air coming into the building, is disabling your DCV’s, your demand control ventilation, and making sure you’re optimally bringing the most outside air that your building can manage. Again, these are unique situations to your buildings; not every building can do the highest level guidance requirements. It’s really good to have a strong PM program; we brought that up before, all the way down to cleaning your coils and making sure you don’t have gaps in between your filters, you want to force all your air through your filters. The other thing is making sure of the right filter; MERV 3-13 is guidance but that does not fit in all the units, so you work with the vendors to find out what is the optimum for your situation. A lot of times you can only fit a MERV 11 or MERV 9, and that’s okay as long as you have a strategy for that building that you’re following through and doing the right things at the right time, and making sure you’re picking different things. so that’s you know there’s a lot more that you can do around this but that’s a high-level overview of the IAQ.

D. Toole: Thanks, and one of the things that I’ve heard of is people just going out and buying a MERV 13 or even higher filter, but it’s also important that people are checking their air flows because some of the units don’t handle that kind of airflow. So that’s really important to consider when they’re checking their filters, is to make sure that they’ve got that matched with the airflow from their units. Is that correct?

M. Kleiber-Viglione: It is very correct. It will actually cause functionality problems with your error handling systems and that’s critical. The other thing to watch out for is electrostatic filters, a lot of people have those on the market right now. When they get into humidity the electrostatic is actually – so if you think you have an electrostatic MERV 11 filter and it’s in North Carolina, the first humid day that is actually back down to a MERV 9.

D. Toole: Okay well thank you. In shifting gears a little bit I mentioned earlier and this just kind of doves in on this and just want to highlight, is there’s a real growing interest in building and facilities certification, wellness and occupant confidence increases because of getting these certifications. I know currently we have a large manufacturing group that we’re working with to get the WELL v2 building certification and we also recently engaged in helping an airport receive their global GBAC Star Facility accreditation program. This is something that we’re going to continue to have some more sessions around because they’re really detailed, but it’s something if you have interest in let us know because we can help point you to where the right resources are.

D. Toole: And so with that, Tracy you know your stuff, it’s not just for – you also got to get into all areas of a facility. You have the ability to help in workflow enhancers in all areas, from Hard FM to the saw services. Can you give a little more insight on that?

T. Davis: Yeah absolutely. So obviously janitorial operations are just one piece of the wide range of operations that IFM’s like Flagship manage, and so it’s important to have solutions that are integrated, that are seamless across different departments, that can make your day-to-day tasks and management of those tasks very easy. So we do have solutions like Aurora Atlas here that are able to consume data from other building assets. To piggyback on MKV’s HVAC conversation, there’s certain building assets now that are being used more frequently or less frequently and to be able to maintain those consistently is really important. Of course as an IFM company, you’re going from different types of facilities and owners that have different CMMS Systems on the back end. So being able to consume data from those HVAC Systems that tells you that, ‘hey there’s an issue,’ or ‘it needs to be maintained’ and to be able to have a seamless user interface to allow you to go through a work order process and interface directly to that CMMS System without having to directly touch it, has been really key in making sure that IFM’s are supported across different vertical markets, different clients and owners, and making sure that maintenance is predictive and preventative at the same time.

D. Toole: One thing I’m glad of is that we have you as a partner, because I know that this IOT is a major wave and you really do have to stay abreast of all the needs. One of the things people have to be careful of, is just not chasing the shiny objects; you really do have to make a solid plan to match your individual facility needs to the long-term goals and outcomes that you want to have your individual technology impact. With that in mind, I know you’ve mentioned a couple things already, Tracy, but you know I do want to kind of highlight some of those things around for every budget, thoughts about cost that you can best maximize your spend on the impacts, and more specifically on technologies that can quickly impact confidence at a minimal investment, and then other things that may require a little more investment but you get a greater impact.

T. Davis: Absolutely, so we’re glad to have you as a partner as well and a part of that is really being able to be there as a support to your clients into making sure that we’re mapping out a solution that’s going to meet everybody’s needs, that’s not more than you need for the time that you’re in. So to your point, there is a solution for every budget. To map out a quick and easy pathway for maybe something to just dip your toe into a digital operation, because inevitably it’s a culture change and for some clients it can be a culture shock, to all of a sudden change the way you’re functioning; now it’s geared on data and demand based versus schedule and paper. So the first piece as we mentioned earlier is just a quick and easy feedback solution; being able to get that data very quickly from your guest or even from your employees out in the field that something needs to be cleaned, that something is not satisfactory to you or to your client. It’s going to be really key and cost effective just to dip your toe into this digital operation. Next piece as we mentioned earlier, is allowing your custodians, your janitors to interact with that data. Again, cost effective because it’s a mobile application that can be deployed on their own device or device that you give them, and they’re able to start making really demand database decisions in an easy interface that all they see is, ‘hey I have to go to my position here, there’s a work order open, let me go clean.’ Again, you’re just paying by the user and you’re able to really start to scale up, have the feedback, have these mobile applications so that your janitors and your staff are getting used to a digital cleaning tool.

T. Davis: And then lastly, it is all those IOT sensors that you said, that I told you they don’t have to be scary, Don. They don’t have to be super expensive, they don’t have to be scary. So when you start to add in sensors, inevitably you’re putting in a little bit more infrastructure or technology, but that’s really the next step up to automate the process. So instead of scheduling or manually telling your staff to go clean a certain area or to go maintain a work order in a certain area, this is when those sensors are telling it for you. Again, it’s automating the process and then displaying that information out to your guest, is the next level up to create that confidence. As you can see, it’s a nice scaling method and a pathway forward to start from ground zero up to a full smart restroom or a connected building.

D. Toole: Thank you. So Dan we haven’t spoken on how technologies impact confidence and training for our frontline heroes. If there’s anything that this pandemic has done it has really highlighted the importance and the professionalism of our cleaning crews that are out there each day, touching all these environments; they really are those frontline heroes. Can you give some insights on how technologies and scopes are being communicated and trained to keep frontline facility service heroes confident and safe?

D. Lent: Yeah thanks, and I like how you put that, calling them heroes because they truly are ambassadors to our brand but they are doing such a strong function essential work so I appreciate you recognizing that, Don. Yeah there’s a lot of change so communication has been key, that we always have to make sure we’re keeping our people in the loop on why we do things, what we’re doing, and the hows, provide PPE. And then share the technology: why is this good, how does this help you do your job and keep this facility safe? By communicating that and sharing the restroom technology, how that’s going to benefit them in the facility as well as the autonomous scrubbers, we get that buy-in and our ambassadors see the big picture. So they’re on board with that and they understand they could do more and produce more by using these technologies.

D. Toole: Excellent, and you’re seeing on the screen that we do have a generic pandemic response checklist that we do utilize, not a generic one we’ve created but it’s one that you could use in your facilities. Once again, all of these things are stuff that you can easily request and we’d be glad to share with you. MKV, can you share in some of the industrial sites that you work with, anything around training with our front line staff that you’ve seen that you can kind of share a little bit about?

M. Kleiber-Viglione: I think one of the biggest things, is training them that they have the authority to do things, to make sure they’re taking actions. This was a conversation we had today at one of our sites. I think it’s increased the focus of both really janitorial but also the maintenance team, that they have the authority if they see something with touch points that needs to be added, that they have that to say, ‘hey this is an area that’s an issue we need to address’ and also the authority to say, ‘hey this isn’t the right filter we can only use this because of the system’s deficiencies.’ So again, it’s that opening line of communication that’s so circular from our internal staff to our clients and I think that’s a really key to success in opening safely.

D. Toole: Well thanks. Well we’ve kind of come toward the end of our session and the conversation we wanted to really bring out. A couple things I want to highlight here is that survey that was done about the top 10 things that that you could do to impact, and I think that hopefully we’ve really shared some nuggets with you today on things around how we can help you with increasing digital signage, or how that’s something you really need to have focus around, and the importance of being focused on employee confidence and increasing those confidence levels within all of your facilities, and how those facilities are interacting in their daily lives, and how they can be educated and improve; we talk about the four pillars to really lean on. So we trust that you were able to gain some insights today and I do want to share that on the screen you’ll see everybody’s contact information and we’ll be glad to help you and give any type of just, if it’s just a question or an insight that we can provide more clarity or just maybe a thought pattern, please reach out to us and let us know. We’re all kind of geeky, we all really enjoy the facility services world, we really get into it, we are passionate about it, so we’re more than happy to try and help in any way that we possibly can. You know it is all about Peace Love and IFM and we know we’re glad to help in getting all of these things set up and moving forward.

D. Toole: I do want to highlight a couple things. So within this go-to webinar there is a handout section, so there’s a few things that we highlighted. Please feel free to just go to that handout section, you’ll be able to download those and they will be helpful in giving you extra resources. Then you know one of the key items that we also stressed was just having ongoing meetings, so if you’re a current customer that works with us today we really welcome that opportunity and we encourage the opportunity to have these meetings where we can really talk about a specifically designed plan for your facility to be able to create a better alignment for your scope of work, and how we can use that scope of work to increase the areas that need to be addressed. Also, to look at areas that may not be need to be addressed as much because of less usage in the facility, things of that nature, and then if it’s about how to bring in the best technology, we’re glad to work with that as well. With that said, there is a question area so please feel free to help share any questions that you might have. I do think there are a couple that have come in but try to send those in and we’ll continue to answer some of those. I’m scrolling down here. One of the questions that did come up is, where’s the best place to start in incorporating tech into our site? Tracy you want to try and answer that one?

T. Davis: Sure, so the first piece I would say is to speak with a partner to make sure that your problem statements are being heard because that’s more important than anything, in order to map out. As I mentioned earlier the throughput counting is a really quick and cost-effective way to see a large impact on your operation, to just start dipping your toe in. So implementing a sensor that’s just counting how many people are using your facility is a really great starting point, and tying that to our mobile applications so you can make those demand-based decisions, is a really great way to dip your toe in.

D. Toole: Thanks, we have another question about, what is the space that is required before you start considering autonomous equipment in a building? Dan, can you provide some insights around that?

D. Lent: Yeah we can provide based on your facility, just hit us up. Yeah what we found where it applies mostly is, you want a wide open space of hard surface. Where we’ve been implementing a lot of autonomous scrubbers are airport environments, because of the large terrazzo walkways or ceramic tile walkways. So you really need some nice, big, open spaces that you could set the autonomous scrubber up in; otherwise if you have small halls and things it’s not your best option, a walk behind probably would be.

D. Toole: Okay thank you. Tracy I have a two-part question that’s come in: so on the technology one, are you using cameras that are capturing people’s faces, if you’re using a counter system is it capturing people’s faces? There might be a concern around restrooms.

T. Davis: Sure, so no to put it quickly. We do have an option to utilize video analytics which is going to be a great tool for capital programs because it’s high accuracy, you install it and you forget it, but again it’s monitoring movement, it’s monitoring dots crossing a line. So there’s no facial recognition, we’re not storing video. Trust me, we don’t want to see that either, so you have nothing to worry about. We work in a lot of government-run facilities. I’ve worked directly with the lawyers of those facilities and with the chief of police, as well, and they’ve all seen it blessed and approved it so I think we’re safe.

D. Toole: And the follow-up on that was around network connectivity. Is this something where people have to have this connect into their networks within the facility, are there other alternatives, what are some of those obstacles?

T. Davis: Yeah, great question. So we can be networked any way that works for the owner. I highly recommend cellular networking, though, because it’s quick and easy to spin up, we don’t have to get on your networks, you don’t have to worry about all these IOT sensors that you have to maintain security for. Putting a cellular network up into a location is as simple as putting in a gateway and we connect all the devices to it. We do have wi-fi capabilities as well, and if an owner does want to use their own network then we can utilize that, too.

D. Toole: Thanks. MKV I’ll present this next one for you, I think. They’ve been seeing that that fresh air in the building is important in opening windows, they’re seeing that being a guideline. Is that something you can talk about, is that part of the indoor air quality piece, and should you also keep units running if you have that kind of airflow in the building?

M. Kleiber-Viglione: Usually your best opportunity is to increase your airflow through your units. You can open windows, there’s a lot of facilities that no longer open windows, but it’s managing the outdoor air units that are coming in, setting them; most systems can’t be set at 100% even though that’s what the guidance says optimally, but you pick what’s going to work for your system to bring in the most outdoor air that you can. There is new guidance now that actually at the end of the day and the beginning of the day, you’ll want to purge your buildings. So if you have a standard work, a 6 am to a 6 pm for example, two hours before you come in, you’re gonna want to purge your system two to three times making sure there’s a purge of all the air. There’s calculations that are acceptable to do and you can get SME’s to calculate, and then actually post occupancy you’re going to want to do the same thing, making sure you’re purging; that’s making sure you’re removing as much of the contaminates as possible in your area through the system.

D. Toole: Thanks. Dan I’ll give this next one to you that, since there hasn’t been disinfecting in areas other than just restrooms for the most part in scopes, how do you manage cross-contamination of materials used from one area to the next?

D. Lent: What we use and most use, it’s the rag. We use microfiber rags and we color code so there’s different colors, so certain colors are used in certain environments. That way you make sure what’s wiping a toilet isn’t wiping somebody’s phone. Then the disinfection is another color as well, so it’s all color coded and we do the same throughout the country.

D. Toole: Excellent. Nice, steady way to keep things done. Yeah the color coding is something that I think has been used for a long time and it’s just really helped to have that in place of disinfecting. I actually wanna throw this question out there: why is it important not to use bleach? Can you kind of give a little hindsight or a little insight on, I know bleach has a lot of kill factor in it but it has a lot of other issues with it as well. Can you kind of expand on that?

Well I mean the main reason is if you’ve ever gotten bleach on your clothes you know or things like that, it’ll ruin fabric, and it’s pretty aggressive so we have not used bleach. I’ve been in this business for 20 some odd years and I’ve never used bleach. There’s good all-purpose cleaners and disinfectants that do a better job. It is important when you’re looking at disinfectant to make sure that it’s certified through the EPA as a disinfectant to kill, it’ll let you know if it’s good at killing Coronavirus as well as the dwell time.

D. Toole: Well thanks. So I guess with that, I do know there’s some other questions but I do want to make it be considered the time frame that we’ve laid out and and I want to give an opportunity to each person on the team so Michelle do you have any final thoughts you want to make sure you share kind of going away from this webinar today?

M. Kleiber-Viglione: I think we’ve opened up with, making sure you’re listening and defining the scope and finding the right solution for what the client needs and what facility it is. Many clients, you may have different facilities and you need to make sure that no matter if it’s your cleaning strategy or your Air IAQ Strategy, it’s making sure you’re listening and developing something that works for their teams and their comfort zone opening safely, or in many cases, that are open already and taking care of their existing staff. So that SOW needs to be managed, it’s not a stagnant SOW and it’s something of active listening that we need to entail to make sure we’re providing the right services.

D. Toole: Without a doubt we are in a state of flux with how we all continue to work together and I think that, Dan you said it earlier, that this is now a team sport to be able to make sure we’re moving facilities in the proper direction. Dan, do you have any final thoughts you might want to share?

D. Lent: Thanks, Don, you know just lean on your contractors. We’re the subject matter experts, we’ve had weekly, daily meetings on COVID, we understand what’s coming on, what’s expected. Use us, communicate with us, and be transparent. There’s budget requirements, we need to allocate resources differently; partner with your contractors and you’ll be ahead of the curve. We’ve seen those that started developing a strong partnership in the beginning, have a nice plan; they’re ready to go when they do come back in the business and we’re helping maintain their facility for that day. Actually things like this, when you’re in rough times it can cement relationships, I’ve seen by those customers being more open with us and involving us, it’s become a very strong partnership and they are in great positions right now for coming back to work. So lean on us as those experts.

D. Toole: Excellent, excellent points. Tracy we really do want to say thank you for being a part of this today and being a part of our team and just you know lending your expertise but you have a couple of final thoughts or anything you want to share before we kind of end this session today?

T. Davis: Yeah, thank you as well, it’s been a pleasure to be here. I think the only last parting comment I would say is to let the technology do a lot of the heavy lifting for you. As much as me and our team would love to sell you the world, there’s nothing that hurts my heart more than to see technology on the field not being used or getting dusty or not properly giving you an ROI. So let that data tell you what needs to happen and to lean on partners to help support you along the way, so that you’re mapped out with the technology you really need, not something that you’re never going to use or that’s not going to serve a purpose for the challenge you’re facing.

D. Toole: Thank you so much. So for me I want to thank everybody that joined us today and I do want to re-emphasize that we have all of this material in the handout section. Please do not hesitate to reach out to us directly, use the info at flagshipping.com or go to any of us directly. We keep our website updated with a lot of the latest on the CDC. We also have a great newsletter or you know weekly kind of in mail that you can get around IFM that stays abreast on updates and the latest that we’re seeing, so we encourage you to sign up for that and we’d be glad to share all the information that we have as a company. The other thing is, I just want to share with you Peace Love and IFM: we’re going to continue this session we’re going to have sessions on about an eight week increment to continue to give the latest updates that we’re seeing. Also to continue to bring experts in like Tracy that can really help drive your thought patterns and really give you the real tangible items that you can utilize within your facility to get good results and to really help with budgetary constraints. We understand that budgets are changing drastically, just because of the state of how work has been done within different markets, different companies, so we know that impacts how your facilities are going to be maintained. We also understand though there’s a real heightened awareness to bring confidence to your staff, and so we’re willing to help you any way we can to help realign staffing to get scope covered, to not only do a better job and be more visible but to look at where we can also find ways to help mitigate some of those increases in costs that are inevitable when you start increasing disinfecting services and things like that. So we really do appreciate it. The people who we are not able to get to your questions, please reach out to me directly, I’ll be glad to answer them or get it to one of the team members to answer. With that, please stay tuned for the next session of our Peace Love and IFM and we hope that you’ve gained some great insights and we look forward to having a conversation with you in the near future. So with that, thanks and have a great day.