It is a great honor to be awarded OEN’s GIVE Award for the work Indow has done with Clean Practice (www.cleanpractice.org). We believe the best path to safer and more productive workplaces is to engage team members at all levels in identifying and mitigating COVID-19 transmission vectors. Clean Practice offers free leadership tools to help you stop COVID-19’s spread while building trust throughout your organization. 

Ironically, the day I filmed our award acceptance video one of our team members sent an all company email letting us know she had been diagnosed with COVID-19. A week earlier we had another scare when one of our team members informed us her husband had been exposed to COVID-19 during an outbreak at his employer.

I am deeply grateful both responded openly, trusting their teammates would support them. The sick teammate posed no risk to the rest of us because she is in Nevada. But I was impressed she used her announcement to encourage the rest of us to remain vigilant by wearing masks, washing hands and continued social distancing. The open, trusting response by the second team member whose husband was exposed allowed us to quickly shift her to a 100% work from home status, mitigating the risk and providing immediate access to rest if her health deteriorated. It turns out she’s not infected. A huge relief.

The disintegration of trust in our country is a fundamental reason we are failing so pitifully to save lives and stop needless economic destruction. The dismal numbers shown here are directly tied to the rate at which our citizens trust health experts and government leaders about wearing masks, washing hands, and social distancing.



Trust is the key to managing the COVID-19 epidemic now and as we work to vaccinate tens of millions of Americans. But how can we restore trust when our politics are so broken? Our experience at Indow suggests businesses and other organizations can play a key role helping people adopt safer behaviors to protect family, friends, and teammates. 

If your organization is like Indow, you have found yourself behind the curve at various points during the pandemic. As science improves our understanding of the virus, our organizations need to update their COVID-19 response plans. We need to engage our team members in identifying where the new risks might lurk in our workplaces and how we can respond. The more involved team members are at all levels in creating the solutions, the better the health outcomes, the lower the fear, and the greater the trust.


Indow CEO Sam Pardue holding up Clean Practices action plan which includes contactless installation

Clean Practice offers tools to engage your team this way. We have created a new ‘Improvement Kata’* webinar designed to help leaders refocus their teams on great safety and morale outcomes. Our ambitious goal is to help you encourage team members to take their safe workplace behaviors home. Let us know today if your business or organizational network would like a Clean Practice webinar by registering today at https://www.cleanpractice.org/webinars.

*Clean Practice is based on Lean manufacturing techniques, but instead of eliminating inefficiencies, we help teams find and mitigate COVID-19 transmission vectors. Lean expertise is not needed and Clean Practice is designed to be accessible to organizations of all types.

Watch the OEN Award Video here: