How Indow is Handling the New Coronavirus

COVID-19: Action Plan for Small Companies

Since March 4, 2020, Indow has been responding to COVID-19 to protect our employees, customers, and greater community. This is where you can find our updates as we implement them.

Read our full COVID-19 mitigation strategy.

Read our CEO’s response to the risk of COVID-19.

Updated 11/30/20:

This November, Indow won the OEN Entrepreneurship Award for our creation of Clean Practice. Indow was awarded the GIVE category for Clean Practice’s contribution to the community:

“…there are startups in our midst that have shown true leadership by finding ways to support their communities, not just their companies. They’ve supported each other, lifted each other up, prioritized the greater good, and taken concrete action to build a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.” -OEN

Read Indow CEO Sam Pardue’s thoughts on winning the award and mitigating COVID-19 transmission vectors.

Updated 11/20/20:

Indow sent out care packages to all employees just before the holiday weekend. These wellness kits were curated by staff to include face masks and hand soap to help keep all team members safe. We plan to send these kits to all new employees as they join the team.

Updated 6/02/20:

The CDC has determined that COVID-19 can live on soft goods for only 24 hours. We have decided to reintroduce our paper measurement guides to our kits. We continue to sanitize the kits between each use, but feel this is a safe practice for our customers.

Updated 5/18/20:

Due to lifted stay-at-home orders, our dealers in Atlanta, Charleston, Maryland, DC, and Portland will start their services again. We still suggest self-installation with virtual consultations. All dealers are trained in Clean Practice and will use social distancing and PPE while servicing your homes.

Updated 5/13/20:

Indow has started production on new Hygiene Safety Products to assist other companies in mitigating transmission points. These products help businesses remain or re-open safely.

Hands Free Doorknob Adapters are available on our Amazon store.

Sneeze guards are available nationwide and can be ordered through us directly. Contact us through the Hygiene Safety page for more information.

Updated 3/30/2020:

Indow launched cleanpractice.org as a resource for the business community on COVID-19 mitigation action plans. There are free templates and webinars offering training and development of your own company response plan. Further updates on Clean Practices will be on noted there.

Updated 3/24/2020:

To keep our customers and dealers safe, Indow is offering no-contact self measure & installation nationwide. All dealer services are temporarily paused. To support local business and keep everyone as safe as possible, a percentage of proceeds of each order in their territory will go to the local dealer.

We have also removed all paper measurement guides from our kits to reduce transmission points. As always, each measurement kit is sanitized before reuse.

Updated 3/23/2020:

Oregon Public Broadcasting visited Indow to review and share our Clean Manufacturing practices. Reporter Kate Davidson was able to see many of our methods in action, as Sam walked her around the office and warehouse. Her hope is that other small businesses or large manufacturing facilities can use the practices we’ve developed to survive the pandemic and thrive afterward. Read her article, Ditch The Doorknobs: A Portland Company’s Coronavirus Response. Or, listen below.

Listen

Updated 3/16/2020:

Today, Indow implemented our telecommuting phase, encouraging all those who can work from home to do so. We believe this is the best way to protect all our employees, even those who still need to come into the office, as it reduces transmission points by reducing contact. We have been preparing for this day by testing remote by department to ensure technical needs were met and hosting an in-house webinar on productivity while working from home.

For employees who need to come in to our factory we continue to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our Clean plan by incorporating Gemba walks which help identify places for improvement. Effective immediately, all employees now have access to 80 hours of ETO to recover offsite. This is to ensure that no employee will suffer financially by staying home or risk coming to work at any sign of illness. Our continued and mutual trust is key to successfully mitigating this pandemic.

Updated 3/12/2020:

One of the main principles of our COVID-19 mitigation action plan is continuous improvement. We responded quickly, which was a high priority, but that doesn’t mean our plan shouldn’t evolve as we learn more about the novel coronavirus and our habits.

We are reducing our cleaning time and the possibility of spreading the virus by eliminating transmission points (high touch areas). This includes adding hooks to doors so we no longer need hands to open them, but can use our forearms, and adding a foot handle to our refrigerator door. We have also halted using community dishes. Indow is allowing employees to claim a set of dishes as their own for now so everyone is responsible for their own use and cleansing.

COVID-19: Original Response & Action Plan

Indow is a manufacturing company based in Portland, Oregon, one of the first US cities to experience community transmission of the COVID-19 virus. We have several treasured employees who fall into the high-risk category for a severe, life-threatening infection, which is an important reminder that even if you are not at risk for a life-threatening infection, you can be a carrier to those at risk. We want to do whatever we can to protect them and everyone else at our 40 person company. While the number of infected people in the Portland area is still relatively small, we believe it’s vital to begin our response strategy immediately to give us time to cement behavioral changes before infection or panic become widespread. In our organization there are many who are deeply concerned.

In response to this challenge, we have created and implemented a fairly comprehensive COVID-19 mitigation plan, which is available here.

Read our CEO’s full response to the risk of COVID-19.