A year later: how a grocery store adapted to Covid, while the rest of the world stayed home
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BETTENDORF, Iowa (WQAD) — Masking up, social distancing, and curbside pickups may all seem like normal pandemic routines to us now – but when Covid-19 first hit our region, mangers at Hy-Vee had to think fast.
There wasn’t a guidebook, on how to safely keep a business open, while many others were shutting down. For grocery stores, work from home wasn’t an option.
“The most important thing was how do we keep the customers and our employees safe. That was really the everyday conversations that we had,” explained Tim Cernin, District Store Director for Hy-Vee. “We just didn’t know what we didn’t know at the time.”
Immediately the store put up plexiglass, laid out social distance stickers, implemented face masks, installed a cart sanitation machine, and ramped up their curbside delivery.
“The best part was the employees of all of our stores really just dug in and they knew we needed to take care of our customers. Everyone was stepping up. People were doing different jobs than they typically had because we had to just move people,” said Cernin. “It was about taking care of our communities and that’s really what we believe and really how we worked through the many months.”
As online shopping exploded, the first few weeks of the pandemic saw a demand for toilet paper, disinfectants, and paper towels far outpace their supply.
“We’ll sit and tell stories about, ‘Hey do you remember the day that all the toilet paper was flying off the shelves,'” laughed Cernin.
Still, he says all of the chaos couldn’t hide one terrifying truth: employees still had to show up, in-person, and provide for a community where so many people were able to hunker down and stay home.
“They’re doing the best they could. They have everything that was going on at the store plus everything that was going on in their lives,” said Cernin. It’s something he, and the rest of the community, is extremely grateful for. “We had so many customers come in and say thank you. Comments like thanks for being here, thanks for taking care of us, thanks for supporting us, meant the world.”
Now a year on, looking back, Cernin says if his stores had to sum up the past twelve months in one word, it would be autonomous.
“We had the ability and the opportunity to make decisions that would take care of our employees and customers really without anyone telling you what you can’t,” he said.”
Providing for a community, while the rest of the world stood still.
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