COVID-19 and Our Response

To our customers and community:
The outdoors has always been and continues to be (especially in these uncertain times) one of the best places we can all spend time.  While we encourage staff to continue delivering services to our customers, we also encourage our clients to get outside and utilize their landscapes in the best possible way.  Investing in your landscape now and supporting it from an ecological perspective will pay off later.  
Our community’s health and well-being are our highest priority. Strauser Nature’s Helpers is taking proactive measures to combat COVID-19.  We want to make you aware of the following measures which have been put in place:

1.  Effective today, our office and management teams are working from home.  Increased cleaning and sanitation has begun immediately.  
2.  The offices are currently closed to the public – please contact your account manager directly, or send us an email at info@strausernature.com with any questions or concerns.
3.  In order to adhere to social distancing guidelines, our grounds crews are reporting to work with assigned and staggered start times
4.  All of our employees will be no less than 6 feet apart whenever possible.  
5.  We ask that everyone who may come in contact with our staff respect our measures and maintain a similar distance of at least 6 feet.
6.  Tools are assigned to specific employees and only handled by them accordingly.
7.  Unless an emergency, our staff will not enter any customer buildings.  We appreciate the hospitality of our customers; however, we need to do everything possible to minimize the risk of everyone around us.

Strauser Nature’s Helpers has much gratitude and humility being tasked as your landscape maintenance service provider.  We are all in this together and the safety of our clients, customers, and community is of the utmost importance to us!   Please be patient with us as we are adapting to the changing world around us. If you have specific employee emails or cell phone numbers, please use those as our office phones will be unmonitored. Be safe and stay healthy!

March 23 Update

The following policies must be put into effect today, March 23rd. If you have questions or concerns, please contact your supervisor.
 
  1. As of today, no more than ONE person will be permitted in any vehicle. Staff are permitted to meet on job sites as per manager direction.
  2. All staff must remain 10′ apart at all times, whether on a job-site or at the shop.
  3. All staff must wear gloves at all times.
  4. All previous policies and alerts must continue to be followed (see links to notices below).
  5. No sharing of ANYTHING is permitted at work. Duct tape or tags must be used to assign key equipment per person as needed at the beginning of all shifts.
  6. All work other than snow service delivery is on hold until further notice for both in-house and subcontracted work.

Our management team will be meeting at 9 am to work on next steps for all work plans. Please be on the lookout for another company update via email by the end of today.

We’ve created this video message to the public and for anyone who may encounter our crews next week when we resume services. Please feel free to pass this along to your coworkers, family-members, residents, and property guests/visitors as needed.
 
Starting April 6, we will begin dispatching crews to provide lawn care, weed control, and highly essential services. We ask that everyone maintain a 10′ distance from each of our employees as we practice every precaution we can to protect our customers, our employees, and the general public.
APRIL 10th
 
In addition to our previous policies and procedures, we have decided to also mandate that all staff wear a facemask while working on properties. This comes from recent advice among healthcare professionals globally and we want to do everything we can to protect our customers, our employees, and everyone else. This is a sudden change so expect to see a variety of masks and scarves worn by our staff to cover their nose and mouth.
 
Below are the new COVID-19 Policies and Procedures again for reference and we want to thank all of you for being so patient with us and doing your part to keep everyone safe! Thank you!
 
Standard Operations – Start Up and Shut Down Procedures
 
  1. Pre-trip inspections completed daily by field managers, including disinfecting of vehicle door handles and all vehicle interiors. 
  2. All equipment assigned to ONE employee to accomplish their assigned tasks – no shared equipment permitted.
  3. Safety/tailgate talks will be completed every day to reinforce PPE and hand washing procedures.
  4. All communication with client will be done by account managers and field managers (if necessary) via phone or email, not in person.
  5. Employees will sanitize hands before putting on rubber gloves followed by machine washable work-groves.
  6. Hand sanitizer will be provided by the company. Portajohns with built-in sinks will be provided by the company on SOME commercial job-sites, with the approval of client.
  7. Employees will wash hands before and after eating lunch. No sharing of food or drink permitted.
  8. Employees must maintain 10′ of space at all times.
  9. End of day, ONE designated employee will down equipment and put back into trailer. 10′ rule remains in effect, and no more than one person is permitted in a trailer at one time.
  10. End of day, field manager will disinfect all vehicle door handles and trailer along with vehicle interior (steering wheel, dashboard, console.)
 
PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), Hygiene, & Wellness
 
  1. Employees must maintain social distancing of 10′ at all times. This rule also applies for clients.
  2. Handwashing – employees will wash hands according to CDC guidelines, before and after touching anything in common areas, before and after eating. Wash stations will be available in tailers and portajohns on some properties.
  3. Hand sanitizer will be provided for when hand-washing is not feasible.
  4. Machine washable work gloves will be provided, and nitrile disposable gloves will be provided.
  5. Employees will be provided good hygiene practices and are expected to follow these guidelines while at home.
  6. Employees who appear sick will be sent home and are encouraged to seek medical guidance.
  7. Employees are encouraged to ONLY leave home for essential living items, emergencies, and work (if available)

June 1st

Strauser Nature’s Helpers is happy to be moving forward with servicing clients in the safest manner.  We recently have updated our COVID-19 procedures to ensure that we could start sending crews out in the same vehicle.  Many crews will remain as report on site, but for those that will be traveling together we are following health safety precautions. We will limit the number of crew members in a truck to the number of doors on a truck.  We have provided each crew member with N-95 masks to be wearing during the drive.  Crew leaders will be performing pre screening health check offs in the morning including  temperature checks with no touch thermometers.  Trucks will be sanitized in the morning, and we will continue with assigned crews and equipment.  Our morning stretch and flex routing will continue on site with employees keeping a 10″ distance.    Each employee has been provided with N-95 masks that they will wear when traveling in a truck with other crew members.  Before entering the trucks hands will be washed and gloves and masks on.  When exiting the truck gloves and masks will come off and masks will be stored in individual ziploc bags.  Excess in and out of the truck will be avoided throughout the day and any trucks in use will be sanitized again mid day.  We will continue doing all previous health safety measures instituted to keep our clients and employees safe and healthy.

More updates will be added as we release information