Balfour Beatty Communities, also known on-post as Fort Jackson Homes, resumed fulfilling routine work orders for on-post residents May 18, while implementing health and safety measures to keep maintenance staff and residents healthy.
“In March we suspended the performance of routine work orders in occupied homes as a safety measure in line with our pandemic response plan,” according to a Balfour Beatty Community release. “Over the past several weeks, we have learned more about COVID-19 and worked diligently, with the help of third-party resources, to put in place new processes and team member training that will allow us to safely move forward with expanded maintenance services.”
In March, BBC suspended all work order maintenance with exceptions for emergency orders such as flooding, loss of power or essential appliances, and heating and cooling failures. As a result, minor work and preventative maintenance began to accumulate.
“We appreciate your patience as we work through the backlog, and we will update you each week as we make progress,” the news release said. “Our goal is to resolve all outstanding work orders as quickly as possible so that we can begin to resume standard response times on all routine work orders in the near future.”
BBC released an eight step “Work order safety process” to residents this week to tackle work orders.
The plan includes screening maintenance staff for signs and symptoms of the virus and temperature checks while residents will be contacted and asked a series of screening questions before scheduling maintenance in their units.
Maintenance teams will wear protective equipment such as face masks, booties and gloves when arriving to a residence. The staff will then ask screening questions to residents before entering their homes.
Once satisfied virus exposure is minimal, maintenance staff will clean and disinfect the area they will perform work, observe social distancing measures while inside a housing unit and complete the maintenance or work order.
Residents are asked to assist the process by clearing access to any work areas by removing any personal belonging and ensure any pets are secured in a location away from maintenance staff such as a fenced backyard or a bedroom.
“Resuming preventative maintenance is critical and we ask residents for their help,” said Emma Watson, chief of the Housing Services Office. “Help ensure social distancing and ensuring pets are out of the area the maintenance tech is working.”
Watson also said residents who may not be comfortable with maintenance technicians entering the home can delay the maintenance.
“Residents can delay the routine maintenance process if they don’t feel safe, but maintenance teams will need to enter the home eventually to make repairs and replace parts to keep appliances in operation,” she said.
Fort Jackson Family Homes has increased training for their staff in the past few weeks.
“We are conducting wellness screening procedures for all maintenance team members to ensure fitness for duty prior to starting work,” the release stated. “Our maintenance team members have received enhanced training developed by a third-party environmental services firm on Center for Disease Control and Prevention-based guidance for COVID-19 and the proper use of personal protective equipment.”
Though work order and preventative maintenance resumes, some amenities such as play grounds and community centers where large gatherings can occur remain closed.
While on-post housing offices remain closed to in-person visits, staff members continue to receive emails and phone calls to assist housing residents.
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