Responding to the urgent threat of COVID-19 and setting the foundation for permanent changes will be crucial as the commercial property industry reinvents itself.

COVID-19 has had transformative effects on how society lives, works, and plays. The commercial arena has shifted drastically from traditional settings to cautious travel, work from home policies, and office closures.

Businesses and consumers alike are narrowing their wallets to spend only on essentials. Effective cash management entails focusing on resiliency, sustainability and efficient capital expenditure decisions. Real estate leaders must act now to make several decisions on thousands of scenarios, rather than broad, portfolio-wide decisions.

How can a property owner go beyond adapting to COVID-19?

To ease fear among end-users and improve morale, along with the profit and productivity that follows, property owners and tenants must raise their own credibility to earn the confidence of consumers.

Successfully acclimating to the pandemic era requires property leaders to mitigate harmful pathogens by proactively pursuing and implementing strategies that are tailor-made to their businesses.

One such course would be to engage with a professional specializing in Environment Health and Safety (EHS). These specialists are trained in planning and implementing practices that address these converging factors.

Here are some of the ways an EHS specialist can help commercial properties:

• Quickly scaling the ‘new normal’ in a manner the consumer can visualize and trust
• Developing protocols for cleaning, sanitizing, and adapting common areas
• Providing consolidated services and solutions

The following quote should be the operating mantra of every company as you start to pivot.  Now is the time to review and reset how your business operates.

“Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature’s inexorable imperative.” – H.G. Wells

As overwhelming as it sounds, there is tremendous opportunity here. This truly is a time when you can increase your risk agility, reduce bottom line costs and elevate your preparedness. This increased agility will be invaluable to the future resilience of your business.

At CAM Property Services, we are helping clients across several asset classes achieve just that. Our EHS expertise can yield highly targeted property solutions and services. With statewide reach and local facility professionals, we can provide insights on how your asset should evolve, determine best procedures and protocols, help you address reopening concerns, and reinvent space. Our team is ready to help keep everyone safe and in business.

About The Author: Pranav Heryani is an EHS & Sustainability Specialist. Among the next generation of environmental professionals, his projects have encompassed both local and international efforts toward green initiatives with practical sustainability for the commercial sector.

As customers re-enter public buildings in greater numbers, we need to ensure that they are comfortable in urban spaces and allowed to move about safely. Innovative solutions are crucial to support the well-being of customers.

Our responsibility to property managers is to ensure their assets are pandemic resilient while simultaneously delivering positive impacts on business operations, thus factoring in Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) in decision-making. Our cost-effective strategies are focused on increasing revenue, improving productivity and mitigating risk at a time when it has never been more imperative.

Businesses across California are getting back into shape, proactive landlords and property managers are creating designated safe shopping zones while working collaboratively with us at CAM Property Services. We are constantly updating our service offerings with the latest and safest technologies.

It was not long ago that hardly anyone gave a second thought entering the bustling lobby of a large building or stepping on an escalator. Today, our world has changed, and the way businesses and consumers interact with commercial spaces has been altered. Building owners are making public safety a top concern, establishing safeguards for people to move through buildings with confidence.

For example, escalators are indispensable to today’s urban lifestyle, commonly found in places such as shopping centers, theaters, sports arenas, transit stations, and airports. They are used and touched daily by scores of customers to prevent accidental falls. Unfortunately, worn and gouged rubber escalator handrails can host bacteria and viruses, thus posing a direct threat to human health. It has become common that escalator riders are using handrails progressively less, which has posed increased risks and liabilities.

“If you don’t think the handrail is clean, you don’t want to hold it. Not holding the escalator handrail, however, is not a great option as it increases the risk of injury from loss of balance” says Hanna Inget, head of new services and solutions at KONE, an escalator and elevator provider.

People aren’t the only passengers on escalators. Handrails are often an express lane for germs due to constant contact with unclean hands. Researchers have found traces of blood, mucus, urine, and feces on handrails, not to mention harmful bacteria and viruses. Cleaning escalator handrails has been an ineffective and time-consuming process, until now.

CAM Property Services has added an innovative new escalator handrail disinfection technology to their facility services. It renews and disinfects escalator handrails, providing increased safety and peace of mind for customers who typically hold handrails for balance. The process requires no additional power source, no escalator downtime, and can expertly clean and condition the dirtiest of escalator handrails.

The handrail cleaning system is a non-motorized, safe and simple system to remove dirt, bacteria, and 99.9% of pathogens from moving handrails. A patented cleaning formula is applied to microfiber pads, proven effective in independent studies, attached to molded pad holders on a mobile dolly system, which cleans the moving handrails from “bead to bead” without interrupting operations.

The cleaning and conditioning solutions are biodegradable and have been developed over years.

A mix of silicones helps restore and even protect the rubberized handrail material, extending its useful lifespan. The engineered design uses the power of the escalator to facilitate the cleaning action as it restores and disinfects one rail at a time.

As we ease out of lockdown and re-enter public urban buildings, such as shopping centers, we need to feel comfortable in populated settings. From disinfecting handrails to people flow planning, innovative solutions will not only support well-being but allow your property to adapt and thrive in this new era where EHS is at the forefront.

At CAM Property Services we continue to find new ways to support our clients and their customers. Our suite of anti-virus property management services includes electrostatic fogging, aerial drone inspections, customized plexiglass barriers, and visual cues.

CAM Property Services is adapting holistic and analytical approaches to facility management and cleaning standards. Combining our diverse array of property management services, EHS subject matter expertise and observational methodologies, we are able to yield highly targeted science-based solutions for any asset class with the industry’s best services.

About The Author: Pranav Heryani is an EHS & Sustainability Specialist. Among the next generation of environmental professionals, his projects have encompassed both local and international efforts toward green initiatives with practical sustainability for the commercial sector.

Although they are commercial properties, multifamily facilities fall into a unique category with regard to upkeep. Unlike most commercial properties for business use, these properties are occupied continuously. Multifamily maintenance requires a wider range of skills and resident diplomacy, whether a high-rise apartment building, sprawling garden style community, condominiums, or townhouse community.

Multifamily properties typically have more paying tenants to keep satisfied. The demands on common areas and amenities also tend to be higher. The lifestyles of the occupants tend to follow less rigid patterns of behavior, whereas business tenants more closely follow a uniform code of behavior.

Working with a property services company that has a cooperative team across multiple disciplines will save busy property managers time, money, and frustration. Imagine the convenience of contacting just one point-person for nearly all property needs such as landscaping, janitorial, power washing, garbage area cleanup, trash chute repair, virus disinfecting, ADA compliance, and parking garage sweeping.

General maintenance is the first concern for servicing multifamily properties. As property occupants are staying home more and paying attention to sanitizing and cleaning procedures these days, a more professional standard of cleaning is demanded. Janitorial services are less behind-the-scenes than they may have been in the past.

Pristine common areas are the first key to making tenants happy. Indoor cleaning may require extra attention on frequent touch point and high traffic areas. Community rooms and fitness centers require additional sanitization. Expert carpet cleaning and floor care can extend the life of your asset. Day porter services also provide a higher level of concierge service.

Common areas are the most visible and important to keep clean. Lobbies, entryways, elevators, stairwells, parking garages, and walkways that are not maintained can become eyesores and liability hazards. A company that properly repairs and maintains trash chutes and garbage collection areas can reduce odors, disease, and safety hazards from properties.

Professional landscaping provides a great first impression for prospective residents and visitors and can add value. Exterior maintenance also covers a lot of ground and includes services such as hard surface steam cleaning, parking lot sweeping, and underground parking maintenance, to name a few. Although these areas may be lower profile, they are equally important to maintain.

Perimeter inspections, aerial drone video inspections, hauling large illegally dumped items, graffiti removal, alleyway cleanup, and handyman services should also be offered by a full-service company.

Hiring a good team that recognizes preventative maintenance issues is also valuable. The more skills a facility services team brings, the more qualified they are to identify and report potential problems. They can prevent small abnormalities from escalating into large, full-blown problems that create headaches and unwanted expenses.

This is the type of depth you should look for when hiring a company for multifamily maintenance. A strong team can save property managers considerable time and expense in the long run. Your property will provide an enhanced living experience and tenants will be routinely happier.

If you are an owner or manager of multifamily real estate in California, you should call upon CAM Property Services. From now on all your multifamily property needs could be handled with a phone call to just one company. They are a premier provider, trusted by many of the top residential property companies in the state since 1987.

Call 800-576-3050 to get started today.

Recalibrating Property Management for Environment, Health, and Safety with CAM Property Services

Weathering the COVID-19 storm with an EHS Specialist

Amidst the uncertainties that surround the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, an opportunity presents itself as a solution for future growth – recalibrating existing business models to ensure environmental, health, and safety (EHS) concerns have a seat in the decision-making process.

Rather than relying on business-as-usual solutions, real estate leaders are now looking to environmentalists, sociologists, and futurists for answers.

• Will the demand for space increase post COVID-19?
• Will people have a fear of riding elevators?
• Do you have the resources to keep up with the ever-evolving EHS arena?

As evident in the financial crisis of 2008, while some assets survive through adaptation, others fade. Acting quickly, decisively, and consistently will not only determine the fate of the players but also the industry after it eventually reinvents itself.

The smartest players are now thinking about how their respective industries will change and are altering their strategy accordingly. Here is how EHS should be a part of your new normal strategy:

• Technical Know-How: Understand the technicalities of science-based solutions
• Industry Expertise: Evaluate the bigger picture to identify maximum impact solutions
• Tactical Revenue Strategies: Optimize business functionality

Moreover, this goes beyond adapting. Implementing preventative measures will be bold steps to deepening your relationship with employees, customers, investors, and other stakeholders.

Here at CAM Property Services, we know what you do next matters. We have been focused on how we can adapt our diverse array of property management services, EHS subject matter expertise, and technology – to best support our existing and new clients in moving forward successfully.

Our holistic approach, CONFIDENCE+, is designed to maximize operations engagement, with an eye toward your bottom line, at a time when it is most imperative.

By focusing on the latest and safest EHS guidelines, applying the fundamentals of cleaning and evaluating assets from a social science perspective, we utilize our broad service capabilities, providing strategies that focus on increasing revenue and productivity while mitigating risk.

Be assured that the CAM Property Services team is here to support your business during these challenging times. If you want to ensure your property is a sanitized space and implement EHS within your business, please reach out to us so that we can help you pave the path forward to the next normal.

About The Author: Pranav Heryani is an EHS & Sustainability Specialist. Among the next generation of environmental professionals, his projects have encompassed both local and international efforts toward green initiatives with practical sustainability for the commercial sector.