This article originally appeared in the December 2020 issue of Security Business magazine. When sharing, don’t forget to mention @SecBusinessMag on Twitter and Security Business magazine on LinkedIn.
The ramifications of a COVID outbreak among employees can be a nightmare for a security integration or alarm monitoring business; however, what happens when the top executive or management team is forced to quarantine?
This is exactly the situation that Dwight Sears, President of CEO of Kentucky’s Silent Guard Security, found himself in earlier this year. While he himself was not positive, most of his immediate family was, which forced him to stay away from the office for an extended period of time.
Thankfully, his family is recovering, but with COVID cases again on the rise in the United States, lessons learned from a senior leadership perspective in a situation like this should be paramount to anyone in the security industry. I caught up with Dwight Sears in this exclusive 1-on-1 interview to chat about how he dealt with being away from the business and what it taught him:
What was the situation that required you to quarantine, and how has everyone recovered?
Sears: For me personally, it was when my wife Barbara tested positive for COVID. It all started the week before on a Saturday when our son, Taylor, started showing possible symptoms. He lives in Lexington and commutes approximately 80 miles one way each day to our corporate office in Somerset, Ky.
That following Monday instead of coming into the office, he went straight to the doctor’s office to be tested for COVID. He was told that his test was negative, he had a severe sinus infection and was cleared to return to work. Instead of coming into the office, he chose to stay home. He spent that entire week at home preparing and working on the final details of our new soon-to-open satellite office in Lexington.
Again, that was on Monday – on that following Friday, he stated that he was feeling worse and that the medicines given to him were not helping, we advised to go back to his doctor for a follow up visit. He did and once again was tested, this time it was positive.
At this time, we suggested that Kellie (his wife) be tested even though she had not shown any symptoms. Our worst fear came true as she tested positive as well. She and my wife Barbara had been working on a small project together, and on the next Monday, Barbara tested positive.
On that same day, I received a call from our local health department telling me I was required to quarantine for the next 14 days. I was also told that if I did not leave our house, those 14 days would not start until Barbara was officially released, so there was a chance that I would be required to be quarantined for up to 28 days. I chose to move out to our farm into our camper.
In total, we had six employees test positive and another three who were in quarantine. Thankfully, everyone has recovered extremely well.
How did you delegate responsibilities for those who were unable to come to work?
Fortunately for us, we were well prepared. On March 13, the President declared a national state of emergency, and on March 16, we made the very tough choice to lay off nine employees. This will go down as one of the most difficult decisions that I personally have ever had to make.
We had been working on upgrading our phone system to IP, going completely paperless and being fully automated since March 2019, with a fourth quarter 2020 target date for the switch. I am proud to say that we were fully paperless and fully automated by the end of January 2020.
For the most part, the day-to-day responsibilities never really missed a beat, as all six were either management or internal office positions. I could not be prouder of how our team stepped up in the absence of their coworkers.
What were some of the best ways you found to run your business remotely?
Our IP phone system and having offsite remote access were both extremely important tools. Of the six who were impacted, three were in management, one in sales, one in marketing and one in the billing department. They were all able to conduct business as usual remotely, pretty much most of the time. Our sales and technical teams receive all work orders, sales leads and/or appointments on their laptops, iPads or other smart devices through our new automated software platforms.
How did this affect the business from a project and/or morale perspective?
Morale and the wellbeing of our team and our customers were and are still our biggest priorities. There are still so many unknowns with this pandemic, so it is import to stay diligent and not get too comfortable. We limit interactions within departments – for example, our technical teams do not come into our offices and/or warehouses. They each drive their vehicles home and have a storage unit assigned to them. Each morning they stop in and pick up their job orders and drop off anything remaining from the day before, including empty boxes, etc.
How did your quarantine change the leadership in your business while you were gone?
Naturally, not being there put additional stresses on everyone, or so I thought. I could not be prouder of our team for stepping up. Although every department was affected, not one single department complained at the additional workloads. They worked late hours during the week and most everyone volunteered to work the weekends.
Did this incident lead you to think more about business continuity and succession planning, and if so, what conclusions did you come to?
We were already in transition phases both in succession and continuity. Our son Taylor took over many of the day-to-day operations about six months before the pandemic hit, and he immediately began implementing new processes to improve efficiencies in every single facet of our business.
It was very costly and extremely overwhelming at first but if nothing else, this pandemic and the personal experiences that we all faced reassured us that they were all the right moves.
We are still not sure how the COVID virus got into our office, but this experience opened our eyes and exposed the vulnerabilities of imaginable unknown threats that we are all faced with.
What advice would you give to other security business owners who may be forced to quarantine?
I do not know how you can prepare for anything like this. My advice is to isolate departments from one another as much as possible. It was very difficult to move our technical teams and our system design teams out of our offices, but if it is possible, I would highly recommend that.
On four different occasions, we had employees test negative, only to test positive 3-4 days later. I would recommend mandating a policy that if anyone has any symptoms whatsoever, do not allow them to come to work and if they think they need to be tested, wait 3-4 days after the test to return. As long as you are not still showing symptoms, the CDC and the local health departments (that we’ve worked with) require a 10-day quarantine from the first day you show symptoms, we have extended that to a minimum of 14 days.
Lastly, be prepared. If COVID gets in, it spreads very quickly. Luckily for us, both rounds happened over the weekends, so we were able to somewhat control the spread.
If any of my fellow integrators have further questions, or if we can assist in any way please don’t hesitate to contact me personally at [email protected].
