When COVID-19 began to threaten the global community, the Beaver leadership team knew they had to find a way to safely continue operating.
"As an essential business in the defense industry, we were instructed by the Pentagon to continue meeting expectations," says Barry Price, General Manager. ?We had to figure out how to properly protect our team."
A core part of their strategy was screening employees for possible symptoms
Particularly once the local government suddenly began requiring all on-site businesses to do so.
To quickly meet the requirement, the team decided to post leaders outside the facility to screen individuals as they arrived. However, with staggering shift times to reduce numbers on-site, screening needed to be performed continuously for over four hours in order to capture everyone entering the facility.
"We would come in at 3:45 AM and screen until 8:00 AM, when we would start our normal jobs," recalls Matt Parsons, head of Beaver's Human Resources.
Within the first week, it was clear the management team could not keep up with such a schedule.
They instead hired a security guard to collect paper screening forms at the entrance. Each day, the HR team painstakingly transferred the data from the stack of paper into a spreadsheet for tracking and record-keeping. The entire process was expensive, and the time-consuming task of data entry delayed employee follow-up.
Finally, Price had had enough: "I remember this vividly. I said, "There has to be a technology solution [for screening] out there."
Ten days later, Price and Parsons rolled out TeamSense at Beaver.
Thinking back on the decision, Price recalls, "TeamSense had the features we needed, the ability to ensure we were compliant and could account for every single person - and it allowed us to screen employees without having them come inside the building."
The adoption of TeamSense has eliminated hours of work previously consumed by the inefficient process.
Parsons elaborates, "For me, TeamSense is a huge timesaver. I used to have to get all the forms from the guard, spot check them, and enter them into a spreadsheet."
More importantly, the real-time tracking helps the team know that every individual on-site has been screened.
"What was really concerning was the idea of a person coming in without filling out a form," says Parsons. "[With the former screening process] we couldn't react fast enough if people tried to bypass the check-in procedure."
With Teamsense, however, the administrative dashboard and manager rosters provide at-a-glance validation of whether or not an employee has been cleared for work.
That same real-time tracking has also dramatically accelerated follow-ups with employees who report possible illness.
"With the old method, it could be quite a long time before Matt knew who to call," says Price. "With TeamSense, he can quickly identify who to talk to, which is really, really important."
In fact, Parsons adds, "I didn't have a dashboard of who was here every day until TeamSense. From an HR perspective, that is critical."
Both Parsons and Price appreciate how TeamSense has empowered their managers with information about employee status.
Price believes TeamSense has enabled Beaver to include more people in the response to COVID-19, simply by sharing employee status with managers. The immediate manager notifications have also helped production managers plan more effectively, so they can still meet production goals even with an unexpected absence.
"I really like the product a lot," Price concludes. "I think it's very affordable for what we're getting. It's outstanding."
