Working Together, Six Feet Apart: Copyright Material IEEE Paper No. ESW2020-03

The electrical industry has greatly evolved over the past several decades. Originally, there was no such thing as a “safety culture”. Now, hundreds of the industry's leading minds show up annually for a full week to learn, listen, and exchange ideas for stopping electrical incidents and injuries in the workplace. Under normal operations, most companies have adopted the “Safety First” mantra. In 2020, the world was faced with something it had never seen before; a modern-day pandemic. This completely changed the way that we here in the United States were able to conduct business. When circumstances change so rapidly even on a day to day basis and people's businesses and the ability to support their families are put on the line, is safety still first? In this paper, we will discuss the struggles of operating a business and keeping employees as safe as possible during the 2020 SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) (COVID-19) Pandemic. We linked with other professionals and centers of excellence from around the world in the electrical sector to advance our mission of a Safety-First culture. The innovations required involved human performance best practices to overcome these substantial barriers to everyday work tasks. The US Department of Homeland Security deemed the Energy Sector as critically essential. They stated, “The U.S. energy infrastructure fuels the economy of the 21st century. Without a stable energy supply, health and welfare are threatened, and the U.S. economy cannot function [1].” The electrical industry could not shut down in this crisis. Our industry needed to adapt, in real-time, to the environments they were in. Engineers, technicians, and electricians dealt daily with this new hazard that they could not see, interestingly not unlike electricity. The ongoing respect for electricity that our employees have always had, along with the ability to adapt quickly in innovative ways made it possible to still provide this essential work to keep the country moving.