March 13, 2020
Hollingsworth Message on COVID-19:
In these uncertain times, we wanted to share what we at Hollingsworth are doing to support our employees, stakeholders and our customers’ business. Our first goal remains the health and safety of our employees and all who enter our facilities.
With this being said, the following steps are being taken by Hollingsworth to curb the spread of COVID-19:
- We have communicated, and continue to communicate, the CDC guidelines and information to all our plants.
- We have increased the number of times our crews clean and disinfect common areas such as kitchen area appliances, tables, chairs, door handles, time clock machines etc.*
- We have large containers of hand sanitizer placed in strategic spots in our facilities.*
- We are encouraging our employees to stay home if they are sick and not to return to work until they are symptom free or cleared by a physician.
- If employees do not have a fever and feel well enough to come into work, but are coughing or sneezing, they will be sent home or require them to wear a mask.
- Large meetings or gathering of people will be minimized. Employees will be encouraged to take staggered lunch and break periods and avoid larger groupings.
- We will limit any visitor activity to our sites until further notice.
- Truck driver check-in and gathering areas will be controlled with limited interaction being controlled to the employees in the facilities.
- All travel within the company is being limited to business critical travel only.
* As with everyone else, we are experiencing longer turnaround times on the orders and shortages for sanitizer and cleaning supplies. We are working with our facilities’ team to identify alternative supplies and sanitation strategies.
If we anticipate a rise in absenteeism due to illness, we will immediately notify our customers and assess any potential impact to our customers.
We will make every attempt to bring in temporary staffing, increase overtime, re-allocate resources and identify other strategies to minimize the impact to our customers.
As we all know, if this is a community wide epidemic, it might be difficult to bring in sufficient temporary help. At this time, we are not experiencing any significant signs of increased absenteeism.
In the event of a positive case for COVID-19 in one of our operations:
- We will notify local health authorities and follow their guidance for facility shutdown, testing, sanitation and reopening.
- We will immediately notify our customers and together align operational actions accordingly.
Hollingsworth will have constant communication from our plants, open dialogue with our employees and ensure we are providing the safest work environment that we can.
For the foreseeable future, we have a daily executive team briefing at 8am EST and a plant manager briefing at 11am EST to ensure we are aligned, informed and can proactively manage through these trying times.
If you need additional information or have questions, please contact your Hollingsworth representative.
