Case Studies / Covid-19 Resources

Rapid Response: How KBS Deployed Thousands of Cleaners to Pharmacies Nationwide

Thursday, November 5, 2020

As businesses began to close during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, it became apparent that some essential services would have to remain open. Pharmacies were naturally on this list, given their vital role as a source for medicine and medical supplies.

Large pharmacy chains were faced with a challenge: how to stay operational during the height of the crisis while keeping customers and employees safe. KBS worked with pharmacies to deploy touch point cleaning services nationwide to help customers and employees stay safe. To do this, KBS leveraged its national network of cross-industry expertise and resources. The KBS adaptive culture also played a major role in serving this need.

Staffing Partnership

In order to perform touch point cleaning across thousands of sites on a regular basis, KBS needed to source thousands of team members and deploy them to multiple sites per city, nationwide. Through its subsidiary Hospitality Staffing Solutions, KBS recruited and deployed thousands of hotel housekeeping staff to locations for regular touchpoint cleaning. This network of over 10,000 hospitality workers was largely displaced from the hotel industry and was available to meet the increased need for cleaning in essential services.

Supply Chain

Delivering cleaning supplies, chemicals, and PPE to the large scale of geographies during the crisis was a challenge. Nationally, shortages of supplies plagued many industries and government entities. KBS quickly pivoted and worked directly with domestic suppliers of PPE and other supplies. Additionally, KBS worked directly with transportation companies to ship materials and procured warehouses to keep supplies flowing to teams cleaning pharmacies nationwide.

Training and Employee Protection

KBS put employee safety first ensuring that PPE was distributed to teams nationally. In addition, teams were trained in the proper use of PPE, application of chemicals and proper disposal of waste. KBS teams used multilingual videos to maximize the effectiveness of that training.

Verification

To verify cleaning procedures and continuously improve upon those measures, KBS used ATP (adenosine triphosphate) scanners to measure the viral and bacterial load on surfaces. Studies have shown that the use of ATP meters can be useful for evaluating the effectiveness of hygiene interventions aimed at preventing viral spread. This technology was used to measure viral loads prior to cleaning and after and also was used to determine high touch point areas for teams to focus on.

Summary

KBS worked closely with the pharmacy client to provide an enhanced level of cleaning, at a national scale and verify effectiveness in a very short period of time. By leveraging the company’s cross-industry expertise, technology, and culture of problem-solving, KBS delivered rapid results enabling these vital businesses to continue to operate and serve the public throughout the pandemic shutdown.

For additional information, please contact us.