In the Time of COVID, Bluebean Pushing Forward

“Crisis,” as defined by Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, is “a time of great danger, difficulty, or doubt when problems must be solved or important decisions must be made.”

This generation will remember being put in such difficulty and danger in the month of March 2020 when a virus stopped the world on its track, and life, it seemed, took a pause. It was like a movie scene where cities around the world looked like ghost towns, and the human race was annihilated.

The 2020 pandemic had begun.

A time of uncertainty and doubt, nobody knew what would lie ahead. Big and small businesses alike, including Bluebean, were at a loss: no one in our past two generations has experienced a worldwide stoppage like this. No work, no production, no costs being incurred, no revenue being generated – everything was in suspended animation. This was a blank slate; there was nothing written in our playbook for this.

There was great fear as well because people were dying everywhere. As a result, for every action we planned, we took into consideration the welfare of personnel who were to execute these actions. It was early during resumption of operations that we saw the dedication of our people and their commitment to their peers. Despite fear of the uncertainty, they understood their duty and proceeded towards the unknown.

They were the lonely people who walked abandoned streets all the way to the office. They were the masked strangers clicking on their keyboards while the rest of the building remained dark and appeared haunted. They were the trusted individuals that everybody else relied on for updates on their ayudas and required documentation, money transfers, certifications, etc. They were the technical people who made sure that office utilities were working for the few. They were the heads of families who very anxiously walked back home, sanitized and sterilized their clothes and their bodies, and sanitized and sterilized them some more just to make sure their husbands, wives, children, and other loved ones would not die. Their fear was real. And yet, they forged on.

After the initial financial support for our employees had been prepared and released, and when government policies and guidelines on the crisis were finally announced, we realized that we had to prepare for a return to operations. But we knew fear would rear its ugly head, and the only way to overcome fear of the unknown was to know what we were dealing with.

“They were the masked strangers clicking on their keyboards while the rest of the building remained dark and appeared haunted.”

“But we knew fear would rear its ugly head, and the only way to overcome fear of the unknown was to know what we were dealing with.”

#FactsNotFear

We established our mantra: #FactsNotFear.

We sought out only reliable COVID-related information from the Department of Health, the IATF on COVID, the World Health Organization, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We educated our people and continuously updated them on new developments on the pandemic.

We also used valuable information to strategize and come up with the most reasonable and logical protocols for our employees. No, we did not see the need to invest in “high-tech” COVID sensors or UV lighting nor install so-called disinfection mats. The virus was airborne, and the WHO had established that most infections would most likely occur due to face-to-face interactions and poorly ventilated spaces. So we opened all our windows while keeping air conditioning on, limited room occupancy in small rooms, and strictly enforced social distancing and wearing of masks. We also placed sanitizer stations all over the office, gave away sanitizer bottles, and required maintenance personnel to disinfect door handles, stair railings, telephones, and light switches – all these just for good measure.

We established COVID crisis management protocols in the event of infection in our offices, including wearing of HAZMAT suits for crisis officers, contact tracing of possible infected personnel, and proper closure, disinfection, and reopening of infected office areas in cases of suspected COVID infection. From the beginning of the pandemic period, we’ve only needed to implement these protocols five times – three were false alarms while two incidents of COVID-related employee illnesses onsite were traced to a job applicant and a trainee. All other incidents of employee infections were due to contagions occurring outside of our premises.

The most positive effect of #FactsNotFear was the composure it brought to our office people. The anxiety was thick, there was no denying that. But on every COVID alarm, people calmly exited the offices, waited for the all-clear signal, asked their questions to a candid HR team during the open forums, and went back to work thereafter. Every time, they would express their apprehensions and concerns and yet ultimately accepted that they had to live with the situation. They understood that in order to survive, they needed to know facts and follow guidelines both inside and outside of our offices.

It is another year – the third since the pandemic started. We have learned to live with what remains of this pandemic nightmare, and we are pushing forward. We are veterans of this crisis – we have fortitude, and we have grown for the better.

But we are keeping ourselves alert. We are prepared still.