Republic Services launches "Committed to Serve" in your community (and other news you can use!) - Tualatin Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Info

I want to assure you Republic Services has taken many steps to maintain the health and productivity of its workforce, and to continue to provide steady, reliable service to your community.

Here are some measures we have undertaken during the pandemic:

• Transitioned any employees that are not essential to the frontline home with the equipment they need to do their jobs effectively. This includes our customer service representatives.
• Staggered starts for our frontline employees and siting tailgates outside to maintain social distancing.
• Created a systematic disinfecting of all office areas and vehicles.
• Instituted a policy to provide an extra ten days paid time off for any employee who is diagnosed with COVID19, or has to care for a family member who has fallen ill.
• Implemented eight weeks paid family leave for new parents – two weeks for secondary providers. This is a permanent change in policy.
• Provided 100% reimbursement for co-pays for any COVID19-related healthcare costs.
• Temporarily suspended bulky waste pickup and asked customers to bag any extra waste to improve route completion.
• Had a little fun with some “Republic Challenges” that our teams have submitted every day.

To support our communities and customers, we have:
• Communicated with customers through eblasts, phone blasts, Facebook and Instagram advertising, newspaper ads and changes to our web site.
• Purchased meals for our frontline workers from locally-owned restaurants twice a week – one breakfast/lunch, one meal for the family which workers take home
• Launched a new program called Committed to Serve: frontline employees will receive $100/every other week for the next two months in gift cards to spend at a locally-owned business in communities we serve (See announcement here). This will result in over $200k put back into the businesses for the State of Oregon by our own employees on behalf of the company. I reached out to the Chambers to help me put a list of open businesses in our community this past week and distributed the info to our teams. This is pretty exciting!

See also:

Governing Magazine has assembled resources, most of them free, for leaders. Maybe you will find something useful on this link.

The Guardian news (UK) published an article Monday about “horrible hybrids” and their effect on recycling.

Check out the City of Tualatin about their innovative “Gift Cards for Good” program, where citizens can buy gift cards from local restaurants, then drop the cards at the library book drop. The Chamber picks up the cards once a week and gives them to the Food Pantry for distribution. Such a great idea!

For educators, or parents that now find themselves searching for something educational for their kids to do, check out these Recycling Center and Landfill Virtual Tours! Organized for Grade 3 – 12 learners, they are pretty neat! Feel free to share with anyone!

Customers have been amazing! See the “thank you” one of our drivers in Silverton happened upon this week. This is only one example. We have seen this on all our routes! One of our Wilsonville drivers also got a handwritten card. Pretty sweet. Our drivers are really feeling the love!

Lastly, my husband’s childhood best friend has a brother some of you may know. Jack Ohman is a Pulitzer Prize – winning editorial cartoonist formerly at the Oregonian and now at the Sacramento Bee. We are friends on Facebook and he put out a call for suggestions of “Unsung Heroes.” Can you guess what I suggested? Jack is encouraging people to print it and put in a window as a poster.