Case in point: Our industry-standard writing body, the Institute of Inspection Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC), currently has nearly 20 active consensus bodies updating, revising, and creating new standards—not just any standards, but those developed with the endorsement of the American National Standard Institute (ANSI). The next several months will see brand new standards in fire and smoke restoration, wildfire smoke restoration, HVAC system assessment, trauma and crime scene cleanup, drug use or lab cleanup, and microbial remediation, just to name a few!

With all that is coming from the standards world, a critical thought process should be undertaken by any and all professionals in these areas of service: How does the work I do measure up to these new standards?

Answering that question can be an intimidating endeavor. Honestly, the most common mistake many will make is believing the question can be answered definitively. In other words, answering this question isn’t a one-time event or even a process; it is a culture. The commitment to following and adopting standards must become a part of the organization’s DNA.

There are several ways to ensure your organization has a strong commitment to standards. The first is to ensure that you fully understand the intent and purpose of the standard. In the case of ANSI/IICRC, a standard is the embodiment of the standard of care—what is common among reasonably prudent members of the trade who are qualified to perform the work.

Why is this important to understand? Because this is the culture that must be set, a commitment to what is “reasonably prudent” in all that you do. Note this is not a commitment to what is “state of the art” or “best practice.”  These are often unattainable for consistent application, challenging to deploy in emergency situations, and can often increase overall restoration or remediation costs substantially.

Next, with an organizational commitment calibrated to a standard of care, begin to center your business systems and processes to train, reinforce, and measure accordingly.

Training to a standard of care

Begin by ensuring the organization understands how “standard of care” is defined. Then, empower front-line production to adhere to that standard. This means providing production workers access and dedicated time to understand the relevant standards that address their work.

This can be accomplished through weekly production meetings centered on revolving topics from appropriate standards, using field forms and tools that incorporate standards guidance, and creating a level of ownership at the production staff level to champion standards topics. Often, a combination of all the above will be the most impactful.

Reinforcing the standard of care

Recognition for wins and achievements is critical to fostering and growing any aspect of your culture. By recognizing specific and individual contributions, you are showing that your organization is paying attention. You are also significantly reducing the stigma that will likely exist if change is actually needed.

Resistance to adoption and change comes from several sources. One of the primary culprits is employees’ sense of ownership and comfort in “the way we’ve always done it.” Acknowledge, encourage, and actively seek out examples of employees owning change. Refocus the sense of ownership on identifying and implementing a standard of care by those who perform the work.

Measure the standard of care

It can be challenging to establish metrics that provide a good high-level overview of how well your organization is meeting industry standards. For that reason, one of the best measures to implement is the training and reinforcement process.

This should be done to ensure full participation throughout your production department; every element of the production group should be participating. The amount of participation should be directly related to the individual’s level of influence on the production output. The more likely the individual is to impact a standard of care element, the more participation they should have in the training and reinforcement.

In other words, it is easiest and most effective to measure the means in the case of implementing and adopting a culture of standard of care.

Standards update

As the IICRC continues to revise and develop standards, it’s important to keep a pulse on what is changing and when new standards will be available. There are many ways to stay current on standards. Most importantly, visit frequently—in particular, the standards page of their website. There you’ll find:

• All active standards
• Standards under revision
• Standards calling for volunteer consensus body members
• New standards under development.

Engaging in the standards review process is one of the best ways not only to become aware of what is changing, but also to impact those changes directly. Restoration-related standards that are currently or were very recently open for review include the ANSI/IICRC:

• S520 Standard for Professional Mold Remediation
• S540 Standard for Trauma and Crime Scene Cleanup
• S590 Standard for Assessing HVAC Systems Following a Water, Fire, or Mold Damage Event
• S700 Standard for Professional Fire and Smoke Damage Restoration
• S900 Standard for Professional Remediation of Precursors, Drug Residues, and Associated Chemical Waste.

With the volume of standards in revision that are nearing publication, it is paramount that your organization is actively building and sustaining a standard of care culture. Each of these documents is prepared to document and report what is common among reasonably prudent, qualified practitioners. Each document sets the baseline
for what should be performed, accomplished, or expected. They affirm and enable your organization to do what is right and to validate your services.

Well, they do if your organization has committed itself to a standard of care.

Documentation and standards

As mentioned earlier, a key to developing a strong standard of care culture is to equip your organization with tools that enable and facilitate that effort. This begins with production, where critical real-time decisions are ultimately made.

Documentation tools have vastly matured over the last decade and continue to develop. Initially, many of these tools were structured to serve the end documentation, with little consideration given to the true user of those tools: the technician. This has begun to change in the most recent manifestation of documentation tools.

One primary area of improvement has been a stronger integration of the rapidly growing technologies available on mobile devices into the documentation workflow, especially in the water damage restoration space. Autofilling addresses using GPS data, integrating weather service data for outdoor conditions, and leveraging LiDAR (light detection and ranging technology) for real-time scanning of a property to generate accurate and instantaneous floor plans are just a few of these recent enhancements.

Ultimately, a strong solution for documentation will ensure that each documentation element required by industry standards can be filled and completed as efficiently and accurately as technology allows, while minimizing the time needed for the technician to capture it. This has been the primary difference in recent iterations of digital documentation tools, with a focus on:

• A significant reduction in the technical burden on the technician
• Optimization of workflows to match the real-world restoration environment
• Leveraging technology to speed and enhance data capture.

Make the organizational commitment to a standard of care. Reinforce the commitment through front-line production ownership and recognition. Enable the delivery of the commitment with the right tools and resources.

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Restorers must approach each project with a flexible, adaptable mindset as information materializes, often after already committing to a project. This nature, however, presents significant risk on many fronts, especially when contingencies for key potential variables are not considered by the contractor ahead of time.

Although the sources of risk and related variables vary greatly, one contributor is significant for restoration contractors to consider proactively: Project size and complexity. More extensive projects tend to multiply risk factors, in some cases, by order of magnitude. Depending upon the project type, the nature of insurance can be dramatically different, regulatory requirements can become more challenging, environmental control can be substantially more complex, and even primary customer drivers and objectives can substantially change how decisions should be made.

Understanding if a restoration firm is truly prepared to expand from a position of single-family residential restoration to tackle larger and more complex projects must begin with an assessment of the organization’s acumen for these additional challenges. This is best approached by separating and defining the exact types of larger projects the organization is targeting.

No two projects are the same. This is especially true when considering large restoration projects. Responding to a significant property loss event in a hospital, for example, is markedly different than dealing with a similar size loss in a commercial warehouse. It is often not the size of the project that is used to define large or complex projects, but rather the complexity of the structure, ownership, and even the diversity of other materially interested parties.

The best approach for a restoration firm when considering growth through project size is to make an honest assessment of the company’s strengths and weaknesses in several key areas. Taking on large, complex projects without first considering these factors can lead to disaster:

• Project management expertise
• Financial reserves
• Equipment and tools
• Documentation instruments
• Business management systems
• Knowledge in related fields.

The management of large restoration projects will require a more complex and involved resource. The extent of this expertise will depend upon the structure type, scope of restoration, the scale of damage, and the nature of the financial and contractual conditions related to the property.  Learning to manage larger and more complex projects should begin with selective and measured decisions for the types of structures and damage sources that relate best to the organization’s current skillsets.

In addition, the organization should never overextend its financial reserves. A strong controller or financial resource is key to understanding the monetary exposure your organization can withstand. With an increase in the complexity of the project and materially interested parties, the volume and duration of accounts receivable can inflate substantially.

Equipment and tools used in varying structure types are also often different, with higher demands for systems with greater capacity. Additionally, resources for safe power and energy management are often required, which are not typically necessary for smaller projects.

Greater diversity in materially interested parties will necessitate changes to the type and structure of project documents and the number of parties that should be engaged in authorizations, communications, transaction instruments, and signoffs.

These points all culminate in the need for solid business management systems to allow for the coordination of these assets and resources. The system should be scalable to allow for the tracking, allocation, and reporting against the scope of the types of projects your organization decides to tackle.

Finally, it is also important to consider the intellectual assets of your organization. Knowledge related to the industries and materially interested parties associated with the specific types of structures your organization will restore must be considered. These dynamics are unique between sectors such as manufacturing, retail, healthcare, housing, warehousing, government, and so on. Each sector brings with it unique challenges that, when proactively considered, can be accounted for.

Ultimately, the restoration industry will always throw unexpected twists and turns in many projects. However, with proper (and constant) assessments of our strengths and weaknesses, organizationally, we can be much more strategic and purposeful with the measured risk our organizations are willing and able to withstand. It is, after all, risk management, not risk elimination!

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