Mark Marmer Owner Signature Electric
Adapting to COVID
How COVID Has Changed Working in Condos This Pandemic May Forever Change How We Conduct Business. Some of These Changes May Be for the Best
Some essential services were allowed to continue, including property management and construction services with some limitations. This had an almost immediate effect on the operations at Signature Electric. Condominium managers and boards were scrambling to figure out how to protect their residents. One of the immediate actions that were taken was to halt all non-essential work in the buildings. That meant that, in many cases, jobs that were underway or scheduled were stopped or postponed indefinitely. The effect on our staff was almost immediate. We were really only responding to calls that were oemergencies or where the customer was an essential service such as our car dealers.
Managers and boards figured out what needed to be done. Plexiglass barriers appeared, sign in sheets were at the desks, hand sanitizer was everywhere. At Signature Electric, all our staff had masks, face shields (to comply with the requirements at some sites) and hand sanitizer. In about a month we were back to business as usual. In fact, at one building, we even completed the replacement of fuse panels to breaker panels in 188 individual suites with no issue. While the access issues were more or less resolved, some things had changed and the boards and managers were addressing new concerns. Reduced Touch If we could reduce the spread of germs, if we could limit the number of items that each of the residents needed to touch. This resulted in a big demand for Wave to Open (touch free) door operators. In fact, at the start of the pandemic, these were very tough to find as there had not
been a high demand due to the extra cost associated with these operators. Now. we were replacing existing units and nearly all of the new door operator installations requested the inclusion of Wave to Open operators. Work From Home Rarely does a month go by that we don’t have to shut down the power in a building for one reason or another. In the past this was simply a matter of posting notices and shutting down after 9 am with the power back on by 4 pm. This timing eliminated the need for overtime costs and made the planning fairly easy, as during the day parts were available in a pinch. It would seem that those days are over. With people working from home the residents were quite happy to pay the extra cost to shift this work to overnight. The bright side of this new work from home arrangement was the traffic. It suddenly got much easier to get around CONDOVOICE SUMMER 2021
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ILLUSTRATION BY BILL RUSSEL
On March 17 2020 Ontario declared a state of emergency, ordering the closure of bars, restaurants, theatres, libraries, and banning public events with more than 50 people.
