Month: June 2020

Complying with communication and health screening requirements is a difficult task. So, we’ve gone ahead and simplified the information for major US cities.

New York

Simply put, NYC requires strict adherence to daily mandatory screening in office buildings. Here are the key pieces to consider, also available on the NY Gov site here,

• Designate a central point of contact, which may vary by activity, location, shift or day, responsible for receiving and attesting to having reviewed all employee questionnaires, with such contact also identified as the party for employees and visitors to inform if they later are experiencing COVID-19-related symptoms, as noted on the questionnaire.
• Implement mandatory health screening assessments (e.g. questionnaire, temperature check) for employees, contractors, and other visitors, specifically asking about: (A) COVID-19 symptoms in the past 14 days, (B) Positive COVID-19 test in the past 14 days, and (C) Close contact with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 case in the past 14 days.
• Review all employee and visitor responses collected by the screening process on a daily basis and maintain a record of such review.
• Maintain a continuous log of every person, including workers and visitors, who may have close contact with other individuals at the work site or area.

San Francisco

San Francisco Health Officer has introduced an Office Facilities Directive, a legally binding document instructing property managers on how to comply with the Health Order laws.

• Develop a plan and implement daily COVID-19 symptom self-verifications for all personnel as required by the Social Distancing Protocol (contained in Health Officer No. C19-07e).
• “Personnel” includes all people providing goods or services associated with the facility: employees, contractors and subcontractors, independent contractors; vendors, volunteers, and other individuals who regularly provide services.
• Each office manager (ie.“office facility”, as stipulated in the Health Order) must provide a copy of the Health and Safety Plan and evidence of its implementation to any authority enforcing this Directive upon demand.
• Each office facility must (a) make the Health and Safety Plan available to a member of the public and Personnel on request, (b) provide a summary of the Health and Safety Plan to all Personnel working on site or otherwise in the City in relation to its operations, and (c) post the Health and Safety Plan at each entrance to any office facility.
• Note: The Directive is somewhat vague in saying that “all personnel” are required health screenings, while the Social Distancing Protocol indicates that health screening is mandatory on construction sites.

Chicago

The city of Chicago has a strong focus on self-reporting COVID-19 cases to the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) and abiding by CDC guidelines for managing COVID-19 cases on your property. Furthermore, the city recommends but does not require that occupants answer a health questionnaire when arriving on site.

• If an individual does contract COVID-19, they must follow all CDC guidelines before returning to work.
• If an individual is identified as being COVID-19 positive, the testing, cleaning and disinfecting must be performed according to CDC guidelines.
• Any individual who has had close contact with a co-worker or any other person who is diagnosed with COVID-19 should self quarantine according to CDC guidelines.
• If a facility becomes aware of 2 or more cases possibly associated with an establishment over a 14 day period, employers are required to report cases to CDPH.
• The city recommends self-screening by which an individual answers 4 questions based on the guidance of the Commissioner of Health.

Boston

The city of Boston has a comprehensive list of mandatory and recommended guidelines, much like New York and Chicago.

• Log everyone who comes in contact with the site to enable contact tracing, including temporary visitors (e.g., those doing material drop-offs).
• Much like other cities, Boston requires you to post notices to workers and customers informing them of important health information and relevant safety measures as outlined in the Commonwealth’s Mandatory Safety Standards for Workplace.
• If a Coronavirus case is discovered on your property, you are responsible to notify the local Board of Health (LBOH) in the city or town where the building is located. Interestingly, the web site does not provide contact info to each LBOH, so we recommend contacting the support center at support@mahb.org or 1-508-643-0234.

Miami

The city of Miami has a handful of rather basic mandatory guidelines that office buildings must follow. Although it does not specify, the language appears to put the onus of responsibility on office tenants and not necessarily the property management. That said, the guidance is vague, so it is prudent to take extra precautions.

For more specific but not mandatory guidelines, the state of Florida recommends that building managers follow Occupational Heath and Safety Administration guidelines. Although this is not mandatory, there are a few important points to call out:

• Prompt identification and isolation of potentially infectious individuals is a critical step in protecting workers, customers, visitors, and others at a worksite.
• Employers should inform and encourage employees to self-monitor for signs and symptoms of COVID-19 if they suspect possible exposure.
• Where appropriate, employers should develop policies and procedures for immediately isolating people who have signs and/or symptoms of COVID-19, and train workers to implement them.

Re-entry is a new area of risk.

The hardest part about re-entry is accepting this is a new area of risk. Some cities such as NYC and SF have outlined clear and achievable guidelines that will actually mitigate new cases on your property. While you may be overwhelmed by hundreds of items on your property management list, remember not to lose sight of the bigger purpose – keeping people on your properties healthy and safe.

The quickest win is enforcing clear communications and health screenings to ensure that you’re taking the basic steps to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and reduce your liability as a building manager. Jones has launched a whole suite of new tools to help you reduce the spread of COVID-19 from vendors re-entering properties. Check out a demo today.

We spent the past three weeks interviewing our customers about the hardest problems with re-opening. We learned that mitigating COVID-19 with vendors is a huge challenge. If a lawsuit comes from a vendor or a tenant, the first question will be, did you have guidelines? The second will be, did you enforce them?

Here are the challenges you should expect and why you should be prepared:

1. Communicate guidance to vendors dynamically.

What shocked the world about COVID-19 was that it spread at lightning speed. Guidance from state and local authorities changed on a daily and sometimes hourly basis. But don’t expect things to be stagnant moving forward. COVID-19 is far from over, and with the likely resurgence in the fall, property managers should stay vigilant.

Assume that not all vendors have checked the latest state and local guidance. This is an opportunity to communicate these critical guidelines to protect your property. Common guidelines will include instructions on wearing PPE, social distancing rules, and limitations to usage of physical space on your property. More on that here.

Furthermore, depending on the sensitivity of your landlord and tenants, consider taking a proactive approach to recommending guidelines. This could include setting optimal hours for arrival at the building, instructions on walking pathways, and specific health-related instructions.

If you get hit by a COVID-related lawsuit, showing that you have taken measures to minimize the potential exposure to people could spell the difference between liability protection and millions of dollars in losses.

2. Collect COVID-related health information.

The next challenge is understanding the level of risk that you have working with vendors. A lot of people are grappling with how stringent to be with health screening. Are temperature screenings a good barometer for risk level? How strict should you be at the door? The reality is that there’s no right answer, and you need to balance out managing the uncertainty of exposure with the need to operate your property. With that said, taking basic and frequent precautions to gauge the level of risk is necessary. At the very least, you should be enabling vendors to easily answer COVID questionnaires prior to arriving to your building.

3. Maintain social distancing in crowded areas.

In a normal day pre-COVID, managers spent a disproportionate amount of time coordinating between tenants and vendors to use areas that crowd easily, especially the loading dock and freight elevator. Vendors somehow always arrived in waves, the area got crowded and tenants became easily frustrated when vendors were delayed and charged additional trip fees. It was a tough problem. Nowadays, let’s face it – it’s going to be a mess. With social distancing rules in place, you should consider enforcing a few key practices:

1. Set a schedule during which vendors can use the loading dock and stagger the arrival of vendors to avoid crowding
2. Communicate and update the schedule with all relevant stakeholders (security guards, front desk, etc.) and especially with tenants who hired a vendor.
3. Define freight elevator occupancy limits, and when the loading dock gets crowded send a staff member to help coordinate.

4. Update tenants and follow up with vendors.

Finally, remember that we are still living during a pandemic. Emotions are still running high given the grave danger of falling ill for high risk populations. Your tenants need to feel confident that you are taking the necessary precautions to keep them safe. When it comes to communication, don’t hesitate, overcommunicate. If your tenant has requested approval for a vendor to arrive at the building, inform them when they received approval, when they expect to arrive and confirm that the vendor has submitted a COVID questionnaire. Remember, be proactive.

The same is true for vendors. Once a vendor has left the property, they may be going to other locations. The hard truth is that without immediate testing, it will be impossible to know if vendors contracted COVID while on the property. If the vendor is going to return to your property (and even if they aren’t) consider reaching out to them after a few days to ask whether they have felt any symptoms.

Coming soon – a vendor re-entry solution by Jones.

Do we have proper guidelines? Do we have a plan to enforce them? Are we responsible for checking in with vendors to confirm they haven’t shown symptoms since their last visit? These are urgent questions we hear from our customers.

In response, on June 15th, 2020, Jones is releasing a solution to reduce liability from COVID-19 and safely manage vendors entering your property. As you’ve come to expect from Jones, this solution is simple, effective and easy to deploy. Most importantly, it allows you to confidently answer ‘Yes’ to the questions above.

Real estate managers come to Jones because they have a problem with liability management (ie. insurance certificates), but they quickly learn that solving this problem is a gateway to something much more valuable – building trusted relationships between property managers, vendors and tenants.

Let’s rebuild our industry together, onwards!