Taking Care of People Is What We Do: nGROUP’s Response to COVID-19

For nGROUP and our partners, people are our lifeblood. The health and safety of our team members, associates, supervisors, and managers is of vital importance to us. We make the wellbeing of our people a priority every day, knowing it’s the most important investment we can make.

Since the outset of the global coronavirus pandemic, that commitment to health and wellbeing has only grown stronger. In the face of COVID-19, nGROUP has taken the actions necessary to keep our teams and our clients protected. By safeguarding the workforces that load, sort, inspect, pack, re-pack, and ship crucial inventory, we are helping to safeguard the national economy and its valuable supply chains.

Here, we want to share the details of our response to COVID-19, including the practices we’ve undertaken to keep everyone as safe as possible.

nGROUP has:

Implemented strict PPE and sanitation procedures to maintain a safe and healthy work environment and to avoid the transmission of coronavirus on work sites.
Introduced strict new employee guidelines on all work sites in accordance with the Families First Coronavirus Response Act Guidelines
Trained (and continues to train) all on-site managers, regional managers, and operators on new policies and procedures.
Enhanced our role as a trusted advisor, helping clients stay up to date and compliant.

nGROUP’s Response Measures

From the beginnings of the United States’ ordeal with COVID-19, starting at the opening of March, nGROUP has been quick to respond. Our first priority was to institute enhanced health and safety measures among our teams. These included orders to:

Wash hands frequently
Avoid contact, especially with those displaying symptoms
Remain away from work if you displayed symptoms
Frequently disinfect commonly-used surfaces

As the pandemic has developed, responses have necessarily changed. nGROUP has kept pace at every turn, and continues to follow guidelines promoted by the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.

Today, nGROUP employees and associates are as committed as ever to ensuring the distribution centers, warehouses, and other facilities we work in are safe and healthy. We continue to require everyone to abide by the following:

Wear face coverings
Avoid handshakes and high-fives; use “elbow bumps” only when necessary
Wash hands frequently
Stay away from individuals displaying symptoms
Remain home if sick
Use temporal scanners to check associates’ temperatures

Limiting Virus Transmission

Because of the nature of our work and that of our partners, we simply must employ large workforces, usually operating indoors. Even with the most diligent precautions, asymptomatic carriers can still potentially spread the disease among an entire team.

To combat the virus’s spreading ability, nGROUP has instituted practices to limit transmission. One such practice was to end “group meetings” where possible. Instead of asking large groups of associates to gather together, supervisors are now meeting with smaller “pods” of teammates. This allows for increased distancing, while still enabling everyone to participate in important huddles.

Other measures nGROUP has taken include:

We began staggering shift ending and starting times, resulting in less mingling of staff. For example, 1st shifts may end 30 minutes early and/or 2nd shifts may begin 30 minutes late.
During this shift separation, staff clean touch points such as RF scanners, forklift steering wheel and handles, workstations, doorknobs, bathrooms, shared countertops, breakrooms, and anywhere that may be a hotspot.
Hand sanitizer is provided, hand washing is required before and after lunch/breaks, and reminders are posted in staff areas.
Where available, PPE such as gloves and face coverings must be used.
We created unique break and lunch schedules to reduce the number of intermingling staff.
Where possible, teammates have been spaced out 10 feet or more at their workstations.
Those personnel who can have been asked to work from home when possible.

Not only are nGROUP and our associates taking the personal steps necessary to stay safe, we are also rethinking how we do our jobs. This includes such measures as asking office personnel to work from home if they are able. It also includes our more advanced steps, like reconfiguring workstations to allow for increased distance between individuals.

Finding new ways to get things done is part of the success nGROUP brings to our partners every day. Creating and modifying processes that keep folks safe was simply an adjustment of that same innovative spirit.

Guiding Our Client Partners

nGROUP approaches every client as a partner. Their success is our success, and their concerns are our concerns. That desire to serve as an empathetic guide continues to inform us now, as we work even more closely with our partners to weather these strange days.

As we have implemented our safety guidelines and practices among our associates, we have also been sharing these measures with our partners. Many of our partners have facilities all over the country, and sometimes utilize other labor sources. We have taken it as our duty to help these partners institute the same best practices that we use.

Of course, the situation is constantly evolving and changing. New guidelines are being issued by governmental bodies in different states, and new recommendations are being put forward by medical bodies all around the world. Beyond that, legislative actions are constantly remaking the landscape and rewriting the rules.

This ever-shifting scene may appear chaotic, but nGROUP is accustomed to keeping up with the constantly changing demands of our industry in multiple states. It’s our job to stay on top of laws and regulations governing all sorts of factors related to the work we do, and this time is no different in that regard.

nGROUP is helping our partners by taking the pressure off them. We solve labor management headaches, and that includes headaches related to keeping workers safe and healthy. By staying on top of the latest developments, we let our partners keep their focus on their business and their customers.

A Better Future

Even at the best of times, life can be chaotic. Now, of course, is not the best of times. But we at nGROUP still hold a great deal of hope for the future. That’s because of things we’ve seen in the past few months, things both new and old.

Of course, the new things are many of these measures we’ve described here: face coverings, distancing, enhanced sanitation. We’ve seen how well our people and our partners have responded to the need to protect themselves and their colleagues by upholding these new requirements.

The old thing we’ve seen in constant use is the human capacity for innovation and hard work. At nGROUP, we rely on innovation to provide effective labor management solutions, and we rely on the hard work of our teams and associates to actually get things done. That same inventiveness and gumption have been on display in these difficult times, too.

At nGROUP, we feel hope because people continue to be hard working, they continue to innovate where necessary, and they continue to show respect and compassion for each other. Those are all values nGROUP uses every day. We’re especially proud to use them now as we all work together for that better future.