Article contributed by Mike Berman, COO, Day & Nite/All Service, with Tia Tassava
Although overblown and hardly a perfect match, there are many useful parallels and lessons to be drawn from 9/11 and its aftermath for creating your safest possible environment. A look back on how security has evolved these past 19 years provides excellent guidance for guarding against pathogens.
Just as the nature of security threats have changed, requiring different security strategies and measures so, too, will means and methods for protecting against airborne diseases. Consider this among the many reasons why instant, obvious, knee-jerk reactions for reopening are most likely to prove counterproductive. Hospitality’s crushing economic stress as a result of quarantines cannot be minimized or overlooked, but retracing post 9/11 history shows literally billions of misspent, utterly wasted dollars were tossed at ineffective security measures, useless fads, and in some cases outright scams. Even worse, extreme measures led to overreaction, causing profound damage.
Certainly, the hospitality industry won’t engage in anything like active torture to manage public health threats, but here too, we have a cautionary tale of ill-considered overreaction to one-dimensional security threats. Consumed by singularly focused tactics rather than guided by comprehensive strategy, the lack of a meaningful security framework most notably reared its ugly head with utter failure responding to Katrina and other calamities.
Nobody was prepared for COVID-19; any workplace and food safety plan solely focused on how to reopen and deal with only this without preparation for the next threat is guaranteed to fall woefully short of a sustainable, necessary safety framework.
Nothing short of enhanced capabilities, a platform simultaneously dealing with today’s knowns but scalable and flexible to prepare and rapidly respond to tomorrow’s unknowns will suffice. Unfortunately, we see too many instances were not well thought out, or even downright bad policy will work against our industry. A couple of notable examples:
- Increasing evidence shows free and easy airflow is a vital means for protecting against dangerous airborne diseases. Yet, erection of non-porous structures like plexiglass, wood barriers and even traditional floor-to-ceiling office cubes most assuredly restrict airflow, and
- Cardboard is everywhere in our kitchens and storage areas, yet cardboard absorbs microbes and other dangerous particles. Manually cleaning every inch of cardboard or totally replacing these containers is economically unfeasible.
Accordingly, one cannot have a viable safety framework without including advanced technologies and proven solutions to fight today’s hidden enemy, more importantly, the pandemic lurking in our future. Included in the deep research going into the creation of Day & Nite Performance Solutions was studying the history of post 9/11 security, steering clear of the bad, incorporating the good. Even with this considerable analysis, we also know today’s Performance Solutions represents the starting point platform. Built to cost-effectively scale, from the most basic re-opening measures to evolving best-in-class science, Day & Nite Performance Solutions represents both today’s best preparation and remedy as well as the future’s most sophisticated preparation against what may come.
