As we continue to face the COVID-19 crisis, Direct Recruiters Practice Leader - Energy & Sustainability & HVAC/R, Matthew Cohen has connected with leading executives within the Smart Buildings, Energy and HVAC industries to discuss their response and perspectives on the pandemic. We know that each industry has unique challenges and hurdles related to COVID-19, and we appreciate our Thought Leader series participants for their helpful insight, advice, and perspectives.

Jump to Interviews: Richard Newberry - KMC Controls, Nick Gayeski - KGS Buildings

Richard Newberry, CEO
KMC Controls

https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardanewberry/

What has been your biggest challenge during the COVID crisis and how were you able to overcome it?

Like so many others, the COVID-19 pandemic caught us off guard, however, we were not unprepared. Due to our already robust system of technology, we were able to quickly pivot nearly 100% of our office staff to a remote workforce.

However, as a manufacturer, the largest portion of our workforce can’t work from home. This meant that we had to quickly adapt the rest of our workforce to adhere to CDC best practices for the workplace. After implementing a strict social distancing protocol and ensuring all surfaces were being routinely sanitized, we swiftly equipped our factory employees with face shields and face masks to help prevent the spread of the virus. We also encouraged any employee who was in the high-risk category, or any employee who felt unsafe at work due to the virus, to stay home with no penalty and without risk of losing their job.

We were able to rapidly respond to this crisis due to a culture of open communication and collaboration at KMC. Early on, we made sure that all senior staff was on the same page and could communicate KMC’s initiatives to their staff. We also clearly communicated a detailed plan of action to all staff. This meant that there were no lingering questions and helped to stifle inaccurate rumors before any had a chance to start.

How are you adapting your company to still provide the same services to your customers?

Through technology and open communication. At KMC we have always prided ourselves on our technical knowledge, support, and responsiveness. When a customer calls us with a question, we have the answer and if we don’t, we make sure that we find it and communicate it to them quickly.

Further, by using state of the art technology our customer support team can work safely at remote locations, and since our business is essential, when customers place orders they can be filled right away. This trifecta of technical knowledge, live customer support, and prompt order fulfilment has been key in ensuring our products and services maintain or exceed our pre-COVID levels.

What are you doing internally to maintain your company culture during the COVID crisis?

By ensuring that each of our remote employees is utilizing state-of-the-art technology we have been able to use this crisis as an opportunity to reinforce our culture. Using Microsoft Teams, our employees can still “pop-in” on each other in much the same way they would in an office environment. Each group or team (such as IT, customer support, or marketing) has their own channel, individuals can chat with each other, and every employee can use the software to schedule video conferences with outside individuals (such as “in-person” sales calls).

By using technology in this way, many of our employees view this time as no different than any other time – with the small caveat of working from their own homes rather than in our headquarters building.

How should building owners change the way they see their energy usage and maintenance in the this COVID crisis?

The first thing they should ask themselves is, “do I have to being in the building to see and manage my energy usage?” If the answer is yes, then they need to ask themselves, “why haven’t I modernized yet?” The pandemic has shown a spotlight on many building management gaps. That’s not a bad thing, rather, it’s an opportunity. Addressing those gaps needs to be a high priority. Building managers should be able to have eyes on and manage their facilities regardless of where they are located.

Buildings are not just buildings anymore. They are data points. Every building, large and small, produce millions of points of data every day, and if you don’t have eyes on that data YOU ARE LOSING MONEY. Building owners should have sensors in place that monitor critical building functions and metrics, those data should be sent to a single interface, where it can be deciphered and displayed in a clear, readable way. This approach ensures that decision makers have all of the information needed in order to best manage their facilities.

Ask yourself, “Are the lights on in my building right now? What’s the temperature? When is the last time someone swiped their badge to get in? Could I be doing anything to save on utilities expenses right now?” If a building owner can’t answer positively to all of those questions, then it’s time to invest in a modern building automation system.

What changes do you see on the horizon to the Building Automation Industry as a result of the COVID crisis?

Indoor air quality will be in the spotlight in a big way. Building automation companies need to be ready to answer questions about how and why they can improve overall IAQ. We’re already seeing that in ASHRAE’s reopening guidance and you should expect to continue seeing the importance of IAQ in the coming weeks and months.

On a positive note, what can we look forward to for the Building Automation Industry in the next few years?

You’re also going to see a renewed interest in remote building management – especially in the healthcare space. It’s likely that many decision makers at healthcare facilities would have a strong preference to limit the number of individuals exposed to the virus, this would include facilities management professionals. However, if they did not have the means to achieve that before the pandemic, it’s likely they couldn’t get it installed in the middle of the outbreak. That said, it’s likely that those same decision makers would prefer their facilities staff have the option of monitoring and managing their buildings remotely, rather than having to put their lives at risk to ensure their critical infrastructure stayed operational.

This is a huge opportunity. The challenge will be getting the right technology in front of the right people at the right time. Those people will likely be industry outsiders, so it is fair to expect that they will want an option that is scalable, so they can ease into a full adaptation. This means building automation companies should be prepared to answer questions about cyber security, cost, scalability, and the intuitiveness of the solution being proposed.

In closing, is there anything else you would like to add that would help fellow executives during this time?

This situation is something we’ve never seen before, however, we shouldn’t assume we’ll never experience it again. Take the things that you’ve learned and share them with your peers. The more we share and communicate the better prepared we’ll be to adapt in the future. As stay-at-home orders around the country continue to be lifted, make sure that all of your bases are covered – and then keep them covered. So, when this happens again, you might be caught off guard, but you won’t be unprepared.

Nick Gayeski, Partner, Co-Founder and CEO
KGS Buildings

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-gayeski-4b82b69/

What has been your biggest challenge during the COVID crisis and how were you able to overcome it?

Our clients’ priorities have shifted rapidly during the COVID crises.  First, it was that they were all working from home and unable to get basic facility operations and maintenance tasks done.  Then, it was determining what operational changes to make in light of shutdowns and unoccupied periods.  Now, it is looking towards reopening buildings in a safe manner and following new guidelines around outdoor air, airflow, and humidity control to be as safe as possible.  With these shifting priorities, our challenge has been to shift the way we work with clients, and the way diagnostic findings are prioritized, so that the information Clockworks creates is aligned with their priorities in this changing facility operations environment.  It is both a challenge and an opportunity to help our clients in a difficult time.

How are you adapting your company to still provide the same services to your customers?

We have been able to continue offering services in a fairly consistent manner since we already work with clients all over the world.  We have had to shift internal meetings to be remote-first relying heavily on video calls.  What we have had to do, however, is to adapt our services, not offer the same services, to ensure the priorities we are focused on align with the priorities of our clients.

What are you doing internally to maintain your company culture during the COVID crisis?

Video collaboration tools have been critical in this time.  It’s important to be able to see each other, and recognize that communicating is more than just words.  Seeing people, understanding what is not said, and asking the right questions is as important as ever it was.  We’ve also increased the number of all hands calls, one-on-ones, and management meetings because there aren’t the in the hallway, in the kitchen, and drop-in checkins the way there used to be.  On top of everything, we’ll have virtual happy hour now and then on a Friday.  That’s been fun.

How should building owners change the way they see their energy usage and maintenance in the COVID crisis?

Many of our clients have looked to implement setback schedules and different occupancy schedules to save energy during this strange time.  Focus has shifted however into reopening and maintaining buildings in a new normal.  ASHRAE guidelines around bringing in more outdoor air, ensuring the right amount of supply flow, maintaining proper pressurization, and managing relative humidity have put greater emphasis on these issues in facilities management.  Our fault detection and diagnostics platform, Clockworks, finds the issues and prioritizes them relative to other problems and opportunities.  During this time, we have increase the maintenance priorities of these issues across the board as that aligns with the priorities of our clients.

What changes do you see on the horizon to the Building Automation Industry as a result of the pandemic?

Long term, I think we will emerge from the crises with a greater focus on building resilience, the ability to monitor and detect issues with systems without being physically present, managing remotely first and on site second, and indoor air quality management as a more important dimension of risk management.

On a positive note, what can we look forward to for the Building Automation Industry in the next few years?

The trend towards using analytics to manage buildings, predictive and proactive maintenance, remote services, and connected buildings is speeding up and this crisis puts an exclamation point on the need.

In closing, is there anything else you would like to add that would help fellow executives during this time?

Ask the right questions of your customers and your team to understand how to adapt, and listen to them and take action quickly and effectively.  It’s not a matter of overacting or panicking, but it is a time to act quickly and deliberately to help clients and employees through a very challenging time.