Bluegrass’ Response to COVID-19

Bluegrass’ Response to COVID-19

None of us have ever encountered a threat like COVID-19. The pandemic’s rapid spread around the world has brought changes to our personal and professional lives that we would have never believed possible a few short weeks ago.

As a community and business leader for 45 years, Bluegrass strives to be a responsible corporate citizen and a caring employer. Our goal is to take appropriate, effective actions to protect the health and well being of our clients, employees and community.

That means making difficult decisions for the greater good. It means keeping our distance from people we enjoy being around, like our clients and coworkers, because we want to protect them from the spread of the disease. It means finding different way to get things done and using technology to keep us connected.

What we are doing to keep everyone safe and continue to serve you

We know we are not the experts when it comes to handling this situation, and so we are turning to the agencies that are the experts in pandemic response for advice and direction.

To protect our team, we are following guidelines set out by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We are also monitoring directives at the state level from Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and his team. The state’s COVID-19 website (kycovid19.ky.gov) is a good source of reliable information.

Here are steps we are taking to be responsible and to prevent the spread of COVID-19 as we continue to do business.

  • Our building is closed to the general public. Essential meetings are held digitally and tours of our facility are suspended until further notice.
  • Employees are required to wear face masks while in the workplace.
  • Employees can only enter and exit through one set of doors.
  • Our employees have their temperatures taken at the start of the workday upon entry to the building, because an elevated body temperature is one indicator of the virus. If an employee’s temperature exceeds CDC guidelines, they will go home and follow CDC recommendations for care. Before these employees return to work they must meet certain criteria.
  • Upon entry and before beginning work, every employee must sanitize their hands.
  • We are taking steps to have some staff work at remote locations. Those who are in the office are to follow CDC guidelines regarding “social distancing,” and hygiene. They are to maintain a six-foot distance from one another, wash their hands properly multiple times a day, use hand sanitizer when hand-washing isn’t practical and sanitize their work station, including all equipment they touch.
  • We are staggering work hours, lessening work hours for all employees to prevent exposure and removing employees ages 60 and up from the workplace in order to protect them.
  • Our drivers who pick up and deliver work follow similar practices.
  • Our cleaning staff is disinfecting the many items our staff might touch on a daily basis – door knobs, handrails, coffee pots, table tops, entrance and exit doors and equipment handles, for example. This is being done multiple times per day.
  • In order for the inside of our building to stay healthy all of our heating and air conditioning units are constantly running bringing in fresh air during work hours when employees are present.
  • This is new territory for all of us, so reminders are important. To help reinforce our policies and procedures, we have created a four-page document for our employees, based on CDC guidelines, which covers the mandatory procedures and rules we have put in place. Of course, this document may change with new directives from local, state and federal governments and as agencies like the CDC change their guidelines.

Please remember too that as Gov. Beshear has said, “We have to be able to adapt as we move forward.” We really don’t know what tomorrow or next week will bring, so things can change. But, our hope is that even as the situation changes, we will be able to adapt and keep everyone safe.

While we cannot guarantee the future, we celebrate our great team. We will continue to do our very best together to protect each other, our families and you.

Interested in how Bluegrass can help?

See what we can do.