[Podcast produced by David Myron.]
In response to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), dealers have implemented various new business practices, such as staggering employee shifts and setting up some employees to work from home to comply with social distancing orders. Some have also reported increasing their customer and employee communication efforts. In this Just One Question session, we asked Mike Hammond, CEO of Hammond Lumber Company, and ProSales magazine’s 2020 Dealer of the Year, to share some of his company's best practices implemented as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
He said that, during the second and third weeks of April, there was a lot of anxiety among employees, as they fretted over how quickly the virus would spread from Boston to Maine. This was particularly nerve-wracking for employees of the company's newly acquired EBS locations along the coast, as they were receiving "a lot of second-home business from Massachusetts and New York," he said. "They're getting inundated this early in the COVID process."
So, one issue that weighed on his mind was the need to keep business open, while also ensuring the safety of his employees. Listen to the podcast above to see how he addressed this issue and others.