A big question for Bob Askerlund, when the COVID-19 pandemic in March closed classroom doors and forced students, staff and faculty at Salt Lake Community College to work and study from home, was how to keep about 250 full- and part-time workers busy.
“The grass keeps growing, trees need trimming and weeds keep popping up,” says Askerlund, associate vice president over SLCC Facilities. Irrigation lines need repair, parking lots need sweeping, buildings need cleaning, and on and on. SLCC Facilities has actually been hiring seasonal employees for the spring and summer months. “All that stuff continues.”
The work has been there. It’s just been a matter of reassigning some people. So far, Askerlund has been able to make sure all of the part timers are getting the hours they need.
The bigger question may have been how to make sure everyone can work safely in these times of social distancing and keeping surfaces free of the coronavirus that has been sickening and killing tens of thousands around the world. Some of his people, Askerlund admits, are just plain afraid of having to report to work every day.
“It’s serious,” he says. “They realize it’s serious. This scares people a little bit more, I think, because of the unknown.”
Bob Askerlund
Askerlund has encouraged everyone who can work remotely to stay home. Those whose jobs require being on a campus are scheduled in staggered shifts, driving one person per utility cart or fleet vehicle, staggering lunches and breaks – all to keep people away from each other. A Vietnamese couple in their 70s works part time recycling for SLCC – but they, being more vulnerable to the virus, were asked to stay home and have been given “emergency fund” pay in the meantime. No one, Askerlund says, has been fired or laid off as a result of the pandemic. It’s a time, he says, to be flexible, and if some workers (and there are a few) are just too frightened, if they have family members who are at higher risk of developing complications if sickened or if they are older, Askerlund says he has been willing to use special funding to keep those employees on staff while allowing them to remain home in quarantine.
In the meantime, grounds crews continue their work. Custodial workers are cleaning everything in sight, focusing on areas normally not accessible when classrooms and offices are occupied. More floors are being stripped and waxed. Registers and vents that deliver heat and cold air are getting scrubbed. “Just about anything that can be cleaned, we’re in there cleaning it and brightening things up,” Askerlund says.
A 5.7-magnitude earthquake March 18 meant a lot more cleanup than usual. Ceiling tiles fell in buildings on the Taylorsville Redwood Campus. Drywall crumbled in places. Plaster cracked inside the Grand Theatre on South City Campus. There was minor or cosmetic damage at most campuses, and all of it needed cleaning up – in the middle of a pandemic. It’s been hard, for sure, Askerlund admits. “We’re under a lot of stress,” he says. “Everyone is, of course. It’s different when you have to go into the workplace every day.” Reassuring words in weekly newsletters and emails to his staffers help, a little.
Facilities project managers still need to check in physically on jobs that are ongoing. The art welding lab at Taylorsville is under construction, along with the Construction Trades building and the Student Center on the Jordan Campus. “We have not cancelled one contract,” Askerlund says. “Almost every building has something going on.”
The practice of “over buying” cleaning supplies continues to pay off for SLCC, which is well stocked. And crews previously trained on how to clean and treat for blood-borne pathogens, viruses and bacteria are safely and thoroughly cleaning everything. When people finally return to campuses, custodians will be there, cleaning the keyboard, mouse and monitor of every staff and faculty member or where students use computers, wiping down door handles and windows and every surface a human can touch.
One sad realization right now for Askerlund is that in the 31 years he’s been working for SLCC, not once has Facilities had to cancel the beloved annual college-wide Beautification Day, when staff, faculty and students show up en masse each spring to help grounds crews plant flowers and pull weeds – until now. He’s currently strategizing over a Plan B, which will likely only include his staffers.
Besides keeping everyone employed, busy and safe, there have also been a few other bright spots in all of this. “People talk about how much they miss seeing everyone,” Askerlund says. “We’ve also had some players just really step up and run with things. It’s really refreshing when you have that caliber of folks you know you can depend on.”