 Hey, we're back. We're live. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Think Tech. Today we're talking about community matters. We're talking about what Hawaii businesses can do to deal with COVID-19. Okay. And we have Janina Abili from Pro Service. She's been here a couple of times. We're trying to connect the dots with her, figure out where we're going here. And by the way, if you didn't realize it, we are in the ninth month. If you say we started doing this in February, actually, I think in large part, according to the Woodward book, it was in January, but hey, give him a break. And then he had nine months of activity here with our health system is under pressure. Our economy is failing. So Janina, Pro Service is an island in the storm. You guys keep on trucking. It's quite amazing. You are helping Hawaii businesses and Bishop Street and small, medium, large-sized companies do business and deal with their workplace challenges here in COVID. Thank you for coming on the show. Thanks for having me again, Jay. So I keep seeing email and you do webinars. You do manuals. You counsel with people. You are on it, man. You are on it. So I want to know what you're doing first. What is Pro Service doing these days? Well, I think, like you said, this is we're going on month nine. I think I counted as seven when I think about when we all started working from home and working remotely. But this pandemic, it's not ending. It continues to challenge businesses, especially small businesses, who are strapped for cash and who are, many of them have already run other PPP funds. We also have the, I think, the state home order kind of revised and started again and extended and so presents continued challenges for businesses that are closing or reopening and then re-closing. And honestly, I think the other thing is the continued community spread of COVID-19 just means that employers are having to constantly navigate the challenges of exposure in the workplace and mitigating risk. Yeah. Well, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's confusion. It's chaos because one day you're, you're having a reopening the next day. You're not, you're, you're pausing from the reopening and the reopening comes in so many different flavors, different kinds of businesses, different kind of activities. So I mean, on any given day, if you stop, if you stop Mr. X in the street, assuming he would be in the street and you talk to him, assuming he, he talked to you, assuming you could hear through the mask. If there was a mask, he wouldn't know, he wouldn't know anything. He wouldn't be able to tell you whether we're in a reopening, a quarantine, a pause. I mean, it all gets so completely confusing. And there's nobody actually out there that you trust to tell you straight, except pro-service. Thank you. Thank you for that. I mean, that really has been, you know, one of our, our primary focuses is trying to just help our clients navigate all of these really murky waters and not just our clients. You know, we've really, since the very beginning of this, we've been publishing all of our materials, all of our guidance, our webinars, everything out to all businesses, whether they're clients or not, because there's just, there is so much, there's an over communication of information and it's hard to know what's correct. So we're trying to kind of curate it and help people navigate all of the scenarios, the questions, the, they had home orders, the exemptions, the quarantines. I mean, there's, there's so much to, to sort through. Yeah. Well, let's, let's, let's talk about your, you have webinars. What do you cover in the webinars? You know, there's a variety of things. I think one of the more common topics right now, again, with the community spread has just been all of the various scenarios related to workplace exposure. So there's been a lot of questions coming through kind of our, our phones, our emails, if you will, it feels a little bit like a telethon sometimes, but of people asking questions about, you know, what do I do if I have somebody who tests positive? What do I do if they didn't test positive with somebody in their household tested positive? And just trying to kind of quell all those employee fears and anxieties and generally get the correct answers to questions related to testing and quarantine and, and all of that. And you have manuals or, you know, memos that you share with people, what, what kind of things are you covering there? The same kind of questions? Yeah, a lot of the same questions. So I would say the two that I think have been the most commonly requested are one, just our guide to handling a positive case in the workplace so that employers know exactly what they need to do. And then two, which was kind of a follow up to that is our manager's guide on handling the 14 most common COVID-19 workplace scenarios. And that actually walks people through not just the positive diagnosis, but all of those, you know, questions related to both quarantine, leave, diagnosis, and then exposure even to people that are outside of work, but how it affects the workplace. And who do you serve? I mean, your own clients, but I surmise from our early discussions that you're more of a public service than just servicing your own clients. Am I right? Yeah, so I think, you know, certainly our clients are important to us and we answer a lot of those direct calls and questions from them, particularly when it is related to actual situations that they're dealing with. So our guides really try to answer the what is. So I think those are really helpful for people who are trying to have a plan, trying to do research, trying to be prepared, which may include our clients or may include just the general public that's looking for information. But our clients do call us with very specific scenarios of situations that have happened and that they're trying to make sure that they do the right things for their employees and also kind of follow the letter of the law. Yeah, right. Very valuable because, you know, we still have a nation of laws, I think. So far. Anyway, I want to talk to you about scenarios and, you know, make me the person with all the questions. So somebody in the company gets sick. And I suppose the first thing to do is send that person home. And then the second thing to do is have everybody around that person who was around that person. Tell me how you handle it. Yeah, so definitely the first thing is, you know, send the person home and recommend that they, you know, seek medical advice, you know, get tested. Obviously, if you already know that they were positive, then you would send them home. If they're just showing symptoms, and there's concern, then send them home so that you're not potentially impacting other employees. The close contact becomes important. So it's almost like your own internal contact tracing to try to figure out. So, you know, Jay, maybe you came to work today, and you didn't realize that you were sick, but now you're showing symptoms and you've actually been in physical close proximity to the people that you work with, or even potentially, you know, clients or patients or something like that. We do encourage employers to try to keep the kind of health information is protected, right? So speaking of laws, to keep the confidential information so you don't have to share who necessarily was positive, as much as possible, try to keep that confidential and protect the identity of the person while you're waiting on those test results. So that's the kind of most important thing. And then following up with that employee, so you send them home. Don't wait for them to call you back and to let you know, but follow up, check in with them. Make sure that they also have access to the information because once again, there's just so much information out there. It's important to make sure that that employee then knows what do they need to do next after they seek medical advice while they're waiting for results, while they're quarantining, or do they even need to quarantine? So making sure that you provide that employee with information as well. How much do you tell the other ones short of a test and maybe after you have a test on the one employee who seems to be sick? What do you tell the others? I mean, like other presidents we know, you don't want to panic anybody, but at the same time, you want to be transparent. So what do you say to the other employees? And when do you say it? Yeah, it's a balance. I mean, you certainly need to move quickly to make sure that you notify anybody that could have been impacted. At the same time... Excuse me, sorry. At the same time... Some people would panic if they saw you sneeze, by the way. If you would sit a little further back from the screen, I'd appreciate it. Right. I mean, there is a lot of panic. It's important to make sure that you keep people educated with the most current information. But going back to how much do you tell people, we would encourage employers ongoing to continue doing self-certification. So maybe I haven't actually been in close contact, so you didn't need to tell me necessarily that somebody at work had tested positive because I wasn't in close contact with that person. But I should continue as an employee to self-certify and say, I haven't been in close contact. I have not tested positive. I have not been told by a medical provider to quarantine. I am not showing any symptoms. I feel safe and healthy to come to work every day if I'm physically coming. Obviously, I'm working from home, so... Okay, but now, can you, would you, could you say, look, just for caution here, I'd like you to get a test. And if I feel that way, if I as the employer feel that way, and I do advise another person who is sitting, say, a near distance from the one who has a test positive, would you help me connect with some organization that tests? Because there are testers and then there are testers, some of them are close, some of them are far, some of them are fast, some of them are slow. Would you help me get a test? Yeah, so it's funny that you asked that because we were just having this conversation earlier. It's sticky for an employer to make the decision that they want people to be tested without really having proof that there was potential exposure. So going back to that concept of you weren't actually in close contact, but I just want you to get a test to be safe, that's not actually advisable for employers to do unless they're with close contact, or unless the employer is in an industry where they maybe are, for example, a medical industry or they're dealing with elderly and so they're in a high risk type of environment, because then what you do is if you decide just, I just want to be overly cautious as an employer, I'm going to tell everybody to get a test. Then it actually starts to put the burden on the business to require people to go to testing. Where are they going to get these tests? What happens if they can't? Then am I going to let them come back to work? And then also, if it hasn't been medically deemed necessary, I may be liable as an employer to pay for the test. So being overly cautious is not actually something that we would advise. Yeah, and even early on, I mean, six months ago there were lawyers popping out of the woodwork representing employees against employers for something they did or didn't do about COVID, trying to lay the responsibility for everything on the employer. This is a problem, and I'm sure that you have employers who come to you and say, what do I do to avoid being exposed to a lawsuit? Because that could close your company too. I don't also have insurance for this sort of thing, actually. So anyway, moving right along, what about equipment in the space? Do you counsel with them and advise them, for example, to put up a plastic barrier between desks or between stations? Do you help them get connected? Do you put them in touch with a contractor? How do you get that done? Yeah, so we're not doing specific referrals on contractors or vendors, but we certainly have, we've got guides and we've done some webinars for each kind of industry, almost. So the social distancing measures that you put in place in a professional office look different than in a restaurant, look different than in a construction site, right? So we've tried to help people figure out how do you interpret that information, and then how do you actually implement it. And really, it might seem really basic, but we continue to remind people about the importance of hygiene in the workplace, reminding your employees about hand washing and wearing face coverings. And to your point, covering, you know, when you sneeze, right? Like those things are the things that we can get complacent about in the workplace when we are all comfortable with each other. So far, nobody's been sick, right? So it is really important we continue to just remind employers about this. And we do have, you know, some sample signage that people can print. We have sample self-certification for employers. Again, even if they're not clients, anybody has access to these things at our website. So we've got lots of those tools that are out there for people. You know, there's so many things that people forget to do. You raise the word complacency and the thought process of, well, you know, I've been okay. I've followed the rules. I paid my dues. I can relax a little bit because I've shown that I know how to, you know, sneeze in my elbow and wear a mask and do social distancing and all that. And I've been meaning to ask you this question actually thinking about our discussion today. Do you find as a course a kind of evolution in our dealing with COVID that people are here in Honolulu getting complacent? Because I think it's a natural human phenomenon, a psychological phenomenon that if you haven't been sick, well, you begin to feel indestructible and then you get complacent and then you get sick and people around you get sick. It's like the people who attend those political rallies that Trump organizes, they think somehow they're indestructible and then bam, you got a hot spot and a lot of people get sick. So the same thing happens in a business. If people get complacent, they're in for trouble. Do you find that that's happening here? Certainly. I think there, you know, I can't speak to the psychology of why people get complacent, whether or not it's because they feel indestructible or whether or not, like you mentioned before, this is going on month nine, that people are exhausted of feeling like they're, you know, personal freedoms in some cases we hear people talk about or just be trying to keep up with constantly washing your face coverings or having to keep them on order or you know, all of that. And then, you know, I think people are dealing with a lot of challenges in their own workplaces, right? Business owners, like you mentioned before, you're open, you're closed, you're unlimited hours, you're unlimited capacity. I think, you know, on top of that, you've had the stress that people are dealing with of furloughs and layoffs and whether it's in their own business or just even within their own family or friend group. So I think there's just also a challenge with the stress levels that people are dealing with and I would imagine, again, I'm not a psychologist, but I imagine that impacts how much people are willing to keep giving, you know? Yeah, right. The other thing is that, you know, people lose their jobs and I wonder, you know, whether you are at the intersection where an employer has to decide whether to furlough somebody, whether to terminate somebody, whether to pay them at home, work or no work. There's, you know, half a dozen choices there. Your clients come to you and ask you, you know, what do I do now with this employee? Very valuable to me. I want to lose this person. On the other hand, you know, I do have some economics to consider here. What do you tell them? What are the choices? Yeah, I mean, as you just described, I mean, certainly there's always choices like a layoff, a furlough, which is essentially unpaid time off that ultimately can save the business some cash, but allows the employee to keep their job. Employees who are furloughed can still file for unemployment benefits. So it's not a complete loss on the employee's part. And then if the business is able to resume, you know, some sort of normal operations, they can go back to work. So those are obviously the two big options. But there's also been with the family's first coronavirus response act that came out and I think it was March. There's been some additional leave protections that are available so that let's say you are having to stay home because you're caring for somebody who's sick with COVID or you have had to stay home because you yourself were tested positive or you have to stay home because the school is closed and you have a small child at home. There are some additional leave protections. So when we have a client that comes with the scenario, we try to dig in and ask the questions because it isn't always just an economic decision that the business owner is making. Sometimes they're just trying to balance the economics with the actual schedule of the operations and then, you know, balancing the actual needs of the individual employee. And each situation is so unique. We really try to find out what's really happening before we give them that advice. Yeah, that could be critical advice. And we all know, you know, for example, we have done a number of shows with restaurants. And gee, that's a hole in the community into which you pour money and then it collapses. A lot of restaurants going out of business. I'm sure you see that from your point of view as well. And so I'm imagining a meeting where you're meeting with the owner of a business that is really on the edge. And they're asking you, what do I do now? Do I stay in business? Do I terminate my employees and, you know, not have them available to continue? All these balls in the air, including bankruptcy. Do you talk with them about that? Is this an issue? Or let me put it another way. Have you seen meetings like that at which the small business owner said to you, Janina, we're out of here. We cannot continue. And we're going to have to, you know, deal with and fire, terminate, lay off all that people. And this is especially so now with the pause, right? The pause on the reopening. That's a death knell for a lot of businesses that would be the size of the businesses that you service. Are you seeing that? We certainly are. You know, I think there was a lot of that conversation happening when the Paycheck Protection Program loans were first rolled out. So that, I think, bought a lot of people time. And we did our best to try to guide our clients. And again, just kind of to the general public, we had some guides that we published around, you know, maximizing the use of your PPP funds, maximizing your loan forgiveness with your PPP loan to try to make sure that our clients and anybody who needs this information has really thought through how to, you know, how to make the funds last, make sure you spend them correctly within the guidelines that have been published so that you do get maximum loan forgiveness. Because, you know, a little bit of extra cash can really be a make or break situation for small businesses that are just hanging on by a thread. So we absolutely have tried to, you know, I would say that we're the HR partner, right? So in any normal business, if you had an internal HR partner, you'd probably talk to your HR partner about some of these decisions. And so we try to be there for our clients as much as possible, knowing that we technically sit outside of their business. We're offering advice, not making the decision for them, but trying to make sure that they're really assessing all those options and doing it carefully and also taking care of their employees at the same time. You know, on the repayment of the loan, structured as a loan or the first CARES Act, I say first CARES Act, I should just say CARES Act. But, you know, if I have an issue about whether I should write a check and repay, you know, the PPP, but I don't have any money, I'm not going to write the check. Let's see, I can pay my employees for current work, I can pay my vendors on my bills, or I can pay the government back. That's an easy choice. I'm not going to pay them back. And if they want to come after me later because I didn't dot the I's and cross the T's on achieving forgiveness, I don't care because I was desperate at the time. And I think a lot of businesses would make that kind of analysis. Look, I need to keep my doors open one more day if you don't mind. Don't hassle me with payback. Yeah, you know, the ultimate goal of the program was to keep people employed, to be able to, you know, allow people to keep paying their bills. And, you know, hopefully most of the people that took out those loans are going to be able to get maximum loan forgiveness and not have to pay it back. You know, it's a really small percentage on the interest rate. So if they do have to start paying back, which many people are really are, they have the potential for the 24 weeks for people who took the loans out and sort of the second part of the loan process, that 24 weeks is coming up soon, but there's safe hardware protections for headcounts through the end of the year. So some people aren't really going to even need to make a loan payment until let's say 2021. And then hopefully by them, they'll just have worked out their process and submitted a loan forgiveness application when the banks get all those, you know, open and up and running, and they'll be able to just get that maximum loan forgiveness and they'll have to stress out about it. Because that would be just, it would be an added stress for business owners, right? Yeah, a lot of people are disappointed with, and likely they should be, disappointed with the failure of the federal government to go beyond the original CARES Act. And it's stuck in the Senate. It's stuck between the Senate and the House. The president makes these proclamations, which are probably not legal. Nobody knows what to do. Nobody's following up. Nancy Pelosi says, I'm not giving you, I'm not going to negotiate between the two because you guys are unreasonable in the Senate. And McConnell says, you guys in the House are unreasonable. So what we have is a stalemate in government. It's not coming through. That's got to have a huge effect on the national economy. I wouldn't make bets that it'll get resolved before Election Day, although they really should try. And Carl Bonham of the New Hero Organization at University of Hawaii warned in the civil beat yesterday and today about how Hawaii could be, you know, hugely affected by this. And, you know, our economy is already in the tank. It's going to be worse because the hotels are not opening up. So what happens now? This is a hard question, Janina. What happens? How does a small business navigate in a declining economy or an economy would fall in over the side where there's no money coming from Congress, even though they really expected to get some money for, you know, for staffing for employees, for businesses, for state and local government, even for the post office. You know, it's like we're really stuck for the lack of action by our governmental structures. What do you think about in that context? Because you have a very good position, a good focal point as the island in the storm to be able to see what's happening to the Hawaii business community. Yeah, you know, it is going to be, I think, continue to be a really challenging fall. For those folks who did get those loans, there's a little bit of that wait and see because to your point, everybody's waiting to see whether that automatic forgiveness bill ever gets approved, which it doesn't seem to have the political will. That's not happening. It is at a standstill. I think, you know, continuing to stay tuned to the decisions that our local authorities make because that has an impact on everybody, regarding tourism, regarding the quarantine related to not only essential workers, but the potential for travelers to come, you know, back to visit, which is a really important part of our economy here. So, you know, I think that each business owner has to make the right decisions for themselves right now. Many businesses are shuttered again with the stay at home order. And I think it's the 20, is it 23rd, I think, was the date for the extension. So, hopefully cross our fingers that on the 24th, many of those businesses will be able to reopen and then resume, even if it's a small revenue stream, that again, that little bit of cash is king, right? That can keep them afloat for maybe another couple of weeks and hopefully keep their employees employed and paying their bills, which is an important part of the whole cycle. How's pro-service doing? Are you going through changes? Are you worried about being a victim to all of these factors too? Oh, certainly. I think everybody is. But, you know, we're doing well. We have, we've had to pivot the way that we serve our clients, certainly. We don't, you know, something as simple as we don't do a lot of in-person meetings anymore without masks, but we also have to continue to navigate all these challenges and help our clients through these ongoing scenarios. I mean, it's every single day, there's constant phone calls and questions about, you know, positive tests and leaves and layoffs and furloughs and all that. That's ongoing and I don't think that's ending anytime soon. So, we continue to do the best to support our clients. Well, here's a question I also wanted to ask you, and it's probably the toughest question of the day. And that is, you know, if you look through the tunnel here and you look for some light at the end of the tunnel, and maybe it's through the federal government, maybe the election will benefit business community in some way, hopefully, maybe Congress will get reformed in some way. Really, we need one or both of those things, or both of them, I should say. And there's some light at the end of the tunnel. When we come out on the other side, the business community that you deal with, that you talk to every day, that you support and counsel and give, you know, nutritious guidance and all that as an island in the storm, if you will, it's going to be different, Janina. But how? I mean, yes, we will have vaccine or not, probably not in the near term anyway. Yes, we will have plastic dividers. Yes, we will wear masks and divide by social distancing. But tell me how it looks to you down at the end of the tunnel, how will the business community in Hawaii and Honolulu do when we survive come out of this? So you're asking me last half full, last half empty. Now, you know, I think that what we are seeing is there are stories of businesses that are thriving. There are businesses that have now become more necessary than ever, right? When you think about things like medical testing and any kind of at home medical care, you know, there are industries that will continue to grow. Maybe that's not always a positive thing with the reason being because of a pandemic. But there will be new businesses that will pop up. There are, you know, all the just food delivery and online shopping and all those things that were popular before, I think are more popular than ever. And that is a rise in new jobs. So I think it will just look different. Yeah. So if I'm a young person, and I have my college degree, let's say I have a college degree in some business area, and I listen to the show and I listen to you. And I might be interested in actually finding a niche for myself in the new world, making a world for me, a business of some kind. What's your advice? Should I do that? Or should I not? Or should I get a visa to Tasmania and forget all about this? What do I do? Having not been to Tasmania, I couldn't guide you on that specific one. You know what I think, it's definitely hard to be a young person graduating at a time like this. But there are lots of stories of young people who graduated in 2009 that are highly successful individuals now. They are business owners. They are leaders. So I think there's still a world out there with lots of jobs. And I would certainly encourage young people not to give up. You know, looking for a job is a job in and of itself. So don't expect it to just come to you. And don't be afraid to try something new, because I do think that there's going to be a shift in the industries that we see that rise out of all of this. Yeah. And sometimes adversity brings opportunity and out of opportunity, great businesses are born, fresh start, new ideas. And you can really be proud of the creative spirit that makes that happen. And I feel that pro-service and you, Janita, you do have creative spirit. And we should be proud of you as our island in the storm. Anyway, thank you very much for coming around yet again. I hope we can check back with you as a few months go by because it'll be different. And we can have the same questions, but the answer to the election. Okay, after the election, that's a date. Janita, Billy's a pro-service. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me, Jay. Aloha.