Frederica Freyberg:

Wisconsin’s political infighting has businesses and customers alike confused about how to handle the pandemic as we head into the holiday weekend. Tourism areas are preparing for an influx of crowds and tourists from Illinois and Minnesota will join Wisconsin residents heading to cabin properties. Lake Geneva has seen an uptick in business as the summer tourism season launches and yet social distancing is not always observed. The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation offers advice and guidance to business owners on how to reopen with safety in mind. Secretary-designee and CEO of the WEDC, Missy Hughes, joined us earlier from Viroqua, and thanks very much for doing so.

Missy Hughes:

Good morning.

Frederica Freyberg:

So, even as Wisconsin starts to reopen, how bad is it out there for businesses and their workers across Wisconsin economically?

Missy Hughes:

You know, it’s been a real struggle for many businesses. Whether the businesses were considered essential or non-essential, managing this new normal that we’re all facing of keeping your customers and your employees safe has created challenges across the board. And then, of course, the economic impact of either having to close your doors or to have to reduce your operations has been really challenging for businesses.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, in fact, the WEDC created a kind of comprehensive reopen guidelines. This is kind of a cover sheet of your best practices for businesses. What are you hearing from them about whether they’re using your guides and taking them seriously?

Missy Hughes:

We’ve actually had a really fantastic response to the guidelines. We started creating those with the governor’s Badger Bounce Back plan, in order to help businesses be ready when the time came to open. I could only imagine how hard it is as a small business to be standing inside your baby that you’ve created and thinking about ‘how do I change my tables?’ if I’m a restaurant or I’m a retail shop, and I’ve arranged it all beautifully, and I need to be thinking about, ‘can I do social distance and how will that all work?’ and so, the guidelines were meant to really help businesses be ready when that time came to open. Businesses had to ask themselves hard questions about how to operate. The guidelines were meant to help, kind of, walk through that process. Because of the Supreme Court’s ruling with safer-at-home, we needed to, you know, speed that process up and I’m glad the guidelines were there to help businesses.

Frederica Freyberg:

You have specific guidelines across industries, but you also have kind of a set of general guidelines. What are those?

Missy Hughes:

The general guidelines are really kind of your first foray into how to address your business. So, thinking about social distancing, cleaning and disinfecting on a regular basis. What are those high-touch areas that need to be taken care of? Should my employees be wearing masks? What– you know, how do you work through all of that? And then, questions like, ‘What happens if one of my employees get sick? What should I do about that?’ and so, the general guidelines are really meant to help you kind of approach that initial set of questions and then for specific businesses like hairstylist, or restaurants, construction, we have other ideas and thoughts that you might want to consider.

Frederica Freyberg:

So, you just mentioned that employee– employers are encouraged to tell employees who are sick to stay home, but are employers required to provide sick leave?

Missy Hughes:

You know, one of the things that started just as we entered into this process was paid leave for employees, and so a lot of employers have taken that up because they want to make sure they have a plan in place. So, they want to encourage their employees to, you know, say, “Hey, I’m not feeling well,” so that their employees stay home.

Frederica Freyberg:

And employers are also encouraged under the guidelines to provide a personal protective equipment to their workers. But are there enough stocks of those out there right now for employers to provide that?

Missy Hughes:

Yeah, one of the things that we have heard from employers is challenges in finding the right equipment, whether it’s masks or gloves or Plexiglas. So, one of the things that we’ve done at WEDC is stand up our Wisconsin supplier network to be a location where you can resource PPE. So, we’ve had the Wisconsin Supplier Network for a number of years to connect businesses to businesses along the supply chain and we’ve added a feature where if you’re looking for PPE, you can go to the Wisconsin Supplier Network, which is wisconsinsuppliernetwork.com and find sources of PPE. Or, if you’re a provider of PPE, you can list yourself on there to help businesses find you.

Frederica Freyberg:

What in your mind is the best way for retailers or restaurants or bars to engender consumer confidence, which is obviously key to getting people back into businesses?

Missy Hughes

You know, I think really important is to be communicating with your consumers and your customers that you’ve taken into consideration their safety. So, whether it’s through signage or making sure that your employees are trained up and are communicating the steps that they’re taking, and just being really accountable and transparent about it is the best way. I came– before I came to WEDC, Organic Valley is an incredibly consumer-focused business, and that’s one thing that hasn’t changed through all of COVID: “the customers is right.” And so, thinking about your business from the customer’s perspective as they walk in through your doors, what do you want them to experience? And what do you want them to know that you’re thinking about?

Frederica Freyberg:

Secretary-designee and CEO of WEDC, Missy Hughes, thanks very much.

Missy Hughes:

Thank you.