Overview
Many companies have recently decided to add coronavirus cleaning, disinfecting, sterilization, or decontamination to their list of services offered. Janitorial companies, carpet cleaners, and pest control companies that have received calls for “deep cleaning” or “fogging” have entered the marketplace with dollar signs in their eyes and an “I can do this attitude.” Equipped with a pump-up sprayer and some disinfectant they begin offering these services to their customers.
The questions begin to arise of how many of these companies have real decontamination experience? What about training? Or the proper certifications and insurance? Unfortunately, most of these companies do not even realize the risk, and the companies hiring them for this service might not either.
The Obvious Risk
With the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing respiratory illness, serious complications, and even death for some people, the stakes become extremely high for both companies involved with these transactions. While young, healthy individuals may experience only mild symptoms, the older population and those with underlying health conditions are more susceptible and tend to experience more severe symptoms. At the time is article was written, approximately 2% of persons in the United States who have contracted the virus have died, with closer to a 5% mortality rate around the world. Additionally, many of the people who have recovered are now left with permanent scarring in their lungs. In short, this is a dangerous virus that could kill you or cause long-term health effects and should be taken seriously.
Organizational Safety Risk
We have all been trained that safety never takes a day off, safety is paramount, but this is a new era, and we must all take extra precautions to stay safe and healthy. We all have an obligation to act in the best interests of our staff, our families, and our communities.
Given that your organization is dependent on your workforce, you understand the importance of maintaining a safe and healthy workplace and how that impacts production. Protecting your place of business against infectious diseases involves expertise and certain qualifications. When that is beyond your current training, the use of a qualified decontamination company is the obvious solution.
Insurance Risk
Hiring the wrong company could be detrimental to your organization. We all know how important it is to have proper insurance for your business, but if you haven’t reached out to your agent or broker yet, we have some bad news. Except for a few broad nonstandard policies, standard policies for commercial property and business interruption do not provide coverage for infectious diseases. In fact, most have a specific exclusion of losses due to viruses or bacteria. Check with your agent, broker, or carrier to confirm if this is applicable to your business.
If your own organization doesn’t have coverage for these losses, what about the vendor providing these services for you? If they don’t have proper coverages including workers’ compensation, then who is that responsibility going to fall on if they have a worker who becomes ill, permanently disabled, or worse because they failed to protect themselves properly? It’s surprising how few companies require proof of insurance from their vendors, but it is more important than ever to protect your own organization by verifying your vendor’s coverages.
Beyond insurance, your company’s reputation and brand are on the line. Bad press can be crippling to an organization and have long-lasting impacts.
Reputation and Brand Risk
Nervous shareholders and potential loss of market share are real possibilities.
During times of economic uncertainty, doing the “right thing” becomes critical. The worst thing a company can do – especially an essential company that might be thriving during this pandemic – is to shortcut their normal acquisition procedures and hire an unqualified vendor to save a few bucks. Several major companies have already begun seeing the repercussions from doing just that.
Reducing the Risk
When faced with virus contamination, you want a company with experience in providing safe, efficient, and effective decontamination. You want a company that understands compliance and has a culture built around safety. A professional company will be discreet and transparent while upholding a high level of integrity throughout the transaction.
For the resiliency of your organization, it is important to choose a decontamination vendor wisely when facing the invisible threat we know as coronavirus. This is where Flood Zone Disaster Recovery Solutions comes into the picture. Give us a call today to speak with one of our decontamination specialists to hear why our process and safe work practices are the right choices for your organization.