flexiblefullpage -
billboard - default
interstitial1 - interstitial
catfish1 - bottom
Currently Reading

A COVID-19 task force focuses on crisis communications

Coronavirus

A COVID-19 task force focuses on crisis communications

The Castle Group is partnering with leading health experts to help companies factor science and medicine into their response messaging and actions.


By John Caulfield, Senior Editor | April 19, 2020

Sandy Lish, principal of The Castle Group, a P.R. firm with expertise in helping companies formulate their internal and external messaging during stressful situations. Images: The Castle Group

As the construction industry tries to figure out how to start working again under pandemic conditions that are still prevalent in many parts of the country, companies are left to sort out evidence- and science-based facts and possible solutions from quick-fix remedies and instinctual responses that, in the long-rum, could do more harm than good.

To assist construction companies in these efforts, The Castle Group, a communications strategy firm, has created a COVID-19 Crisis Response Task Force, which provides medical expertise, alerts and analysis, weekly briefing calls, company specific projects, and business recovery planning and continuity.

In forming this task force, The Castle Group collaborated with Dr. David Shulkin, FACP, the former Secretary of the U.S. Department if Veterans Affairs, who is currently president of a consulting firm that works with healthcare organizations and companies to innovate and improve wellbeing for patients.

Its other partner in this endeavor is Dr. Michael R. Jaff, DO, the chief medical officer of a global medical device manufacturer, and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Sandy Lish, The Castle Group’s principal, notes that her firm can bring to the table expertise in crisis communications that, in the case of several construction firms she’s heard from, often lack reliable medical information. Castle’s areas of expertise touch on human resources, best practices, and employee re-assimilation.

 

Dr. Michael R. Jaff, one of the medical experts collaborating with The Castle Group on its COVID-19 Crisis Response Task Force.

 

Last month, The Castle Group sent out an email blast to its database about the task force’s services. Jaff says that its first client was an assisted-living facility that wasn’t satisfied with how it conveyed information to its customers. “We changed the course of their situation by encouraging them to change their strategy from reactive to proactive,” says Jaff.

Lish and Jaff point out that what’s also missing in many companies’ messaging is the “looking ahead” at what might happen medically, which is something the task force can also help its clients with. “Being able to anticipate shifts gives you the ability to be nimble” in response to those shifts, says Jaff.

He goes on to say there’s a “desperate need” for consistent information platforms, in terms of available testing, therapies, and so forth. “Otherwise, you end up with what we have now,” he says: an uncoordinated hodgepodge of public and private sector actions.

Over the next six to 12 months, Castle’s COVID-19 response team’s mission could broaden to include other diseases and ailments that employees might contract, regardless of how quickly a vaccine for COVID-19 emerges. “Companies need longer-term communications strategies,” says Lish.

Related Stories

Coronavirus | May 7, 2020

Architects release new resource for safer re-occupancy of buildings

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is releasing a new Re-occupancy Assessment Tool today that provides strategies for limiting exposure to COVID-19 in buildings.

Coronavirus | May 6, 2020

Reopening Main Street post-COVID-19 quarantine

Cities and communities will need to adjust public space to allow customers back in with distancing in mind.

Coronavirus | May 6, 2020

Making jobsites safer in the COVID-19 world

A leading construction manager and installer certification alliance share their insights.

Coronavirus | May 5, 2020

How will COVID-19 change the procurement of professional design services?

We can use this moment as a test-case to build greater flexibility into how we pursue, win and deliver capital projects, better preparing the industry to meet the next disruption.

Coronavirus | May 4, 2020

Design steps for reopening embattled hotels

TPG Architecture recommends post-coronavirus changes in three stages.

Coronavirus | Apr 30, 2020

Gilbane shares supply-chain status of products affected by coronavirus

Imported products seem more susceptible to delays

Coronavirus | Apr 26, 2020

PCL Construction rolls out portable coronavirus testing centers

The prefabricated boxes offer walk-up and drive-thru options.

Coronavirus | Apr 23, 2020

It's time to make your back-to-the-office plan

Here are some practical, tactical considerations for reuniting.

boombox1 - default
boombox2 -
native1 -

More In Category




halfpage1 -

Most Popular Content

  1. 2021 Giants 400 Report
  2. Top 150 Architecture Firms for 2019
  3. 13 projects that represent the future of affordable housing
  4. Sagrada Familia completion date pushed back due to coronavirus
  5. Top 160 Architecture Firms 2021