Portable Sanitation Association International

ASSOCIATIONINSIGHT Portable Sanitation Association International News BIWEEKLY EDITION MARCH 17, 2021 Page 15 Evolving Expectations on Worksites, Part 1…continued from page 14 Are the cleaning products on the approved list? Do they meet the requirements? And are we leaving it on long enough for it to do its job? We have to make sure the drivers are going through the proper procedures to ensure the cleaning products are doing their job. Phil Vetter, United Rentals/Reliable On Site Services, Charlotte, North Carolina. We are obviously seeing demand for more toilets, more service, and more sinks. In the oil and gas industry, rather than shutdowns, we are seeing "shut ins." The companies are not letting people leave. So, we're now bringing in showers, laundry, and additional restroom facilities in the form of trailers. Needs like that have been great for our business. We have also seen customers asking not only about cleaning, sanitizing, and disinfecting at the time of service, but some are also asking us to come back later in the day and just disinfect again. That was something really new for us. We had never before been asked to only focus on disinfecting the touch points with an approved hospital-grade disinfectant and to safely provide that service as a company. Another thing that we are seeing is that customers want to lift our sinks up into the buildings on projects. In the past they just stayed on the ground. But we're listening to our customers. So we're putting casters on the sinks and rolling them around. Sinks are here to stay; there's no doubt about it. How Are Changing Customer Expectations Affecting Revenue, Cost Calculations, and Business Planning? Phil Vetter, United Rentals/Reliable On Site Services, Charlotte, North Carolina. One of the topics that comes to mind for me is PPE. At United Rentals there's just a real culture for safety. The "old days" for service technicians are long gone. Everyone is in masks, and the company has provided N-95s for all of our people. But it's more than that. It's boots and safety glasses. It's hard hats. I know it seems kind of obvious. We talk about gloves—not only just providing them as a company, but also making sure our people wear them. The company will spend the money to make access to good PPE part of the business, and that's something that the employees embrace. Previously, if I spent two dollars on safety glasses, I thought I was spending a lot of money to be able to say I provided them. Today it's just, "Go get what you want; I want you to wear it because I care about you." This is one thing that changes our expectations around expenses. With respect to revenue and expenses related to customers, one of the things that we're seeing is the sudden shift from service once or twice, to as much as five times a week. More recently it is reverting back maybe to three times a week. It is a constant process of adjustment to find the efficiencies in routing as these needs are changing. We're also seeing a significant uptick in the consumables being used by customers. For example, sinks used to just be the cool thing to add to an event or to a job site—almost as something that looked good, but rarely got used. The consumables stayed there. Today the soap, the sanitizer, and the hand towels are all getting used. It adds some real cost, and we have to pay attention to that. Continued on page 16 Phil Vetter

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