COVID-19 Response
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Since then, the coronavirus disease has had profound impacts on the global economy and the daily lives of millions of people, including many whom we serve and with whom we do business.
Within two weeks of the pandemic declaration, Wisconsin’s governor issued a Safer at Home order, prohibiting nonessential travel and encouraging residents to stay home. Electric and gas utilities, however, were considered critical infrastructure and had an obligation to continue operations to ensure safe and reliable energy for our customers and communities, especially as many people sheltered at home.
As a utility, MGE prepares for the unexpected, proactively preparing and promptly activating our business continuity plans to provide for the safety and protection of our employees, customers and communities.
Continuing to provide safe and reliable service
Providing customers with safe and reliable energy is even more critical during a pandemic. Our Incident Command Structure (ICS), which is the basis for all responses under MGE’s All Hazards Response Plan, was activated early in our COVID-19 response. The ICS coordinated the diverse aspects of our response to ensure measures were in place to minimize COVID-19 exposure by MGE employees. Physical access to MGE facilities was restricted to ensure business continuity, additional daily cleaning occurred at all MGE facilities and all employees who were able to work remotely were instructed to work from home.
While we have made adjustments to work routines and schedules throughout the pandemic, we have continued to perform the work required to fulfill our obligation to ensure the operation of our electric and natural gas systems and to maintain safe and reliable service to our customers.
Employee safety
MGE continues to follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance and Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) recommendations. To ensure the health and safety of our employees, prior to the governor’s Safer at Home order, all employees who could work remotely were already working from home. Since certain job duties prevent some employees from working remotely, we have worked to ensure employee safety by:
- Following daily health screening guidelines.
- Providing personal protective equipment to field crews and other operations employees.
- Continuing to practice social distancing and adding multiple reporting sites to facilitate distancing of our operations employees.
- Helping employees understand when to wear face coverings.
- Restricting access to MGE facilities.
- Segmenting certain employees and using alternating schedules where appropriate.
- Encouraging virtual meetings.
- Performing extra cleaning and disinfecting of high-touch surfaces throughout our offices and reporting sites.
We also instituted safety guidelines for employees and contractors who might interact with customers in person and potentially enter customer homes while performing their job duties.
Ensuring reliability
While following the guidance of the governor’s Safer at Home order, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the CDC and the Wisconsin DHS, MGE developed a framework to guide our decisions regarding the criticality of operations work to be completed and the manner in which it would occur, ensuring the health and safety of our employees, customers and the community. The work was split into three categories.
Work required to maintain MGE’s system
MGE continued to perform work to fulfill our obligation to ensure the safe and reliable operation of our electric and natural gas systems and to meet all applicable rules and regulations to maintain safe and reliable service to our customers.
Work required to maintain other businesses and organizations
Crews also performed work to ensure customers identified by the governor’s order were able to continue providing their critical services to the public. Examples of businesses identified under the order included but were not limited to: hospitals and medical facilities, long-term care and assisted living facilities, food production, distribution and fulfillment centers, airport operations, critical trades (plumbers, electricians, HVAC, etc.) and public transportation. We performed this work as long as it could be done safely.
Deferred work
This was work that we determined was not needed to be done at the time and could be deferred until a future date.
Supporting our community
Message to our customers
Whether it is the diverse populations in the Madison area or our rural communities, we understand that our customers have varied backgrounds, experiences and needs. As your community energy company, we are committed to meeting our customers where they are, to providing safe and reliable service, and to ensuring they know MGE is here to help during challenging times.
Within days of the governor’s Safer at Home order, MGE Chairman, President and CEO Jeff Keebler sent an email message to our customers letting them know we would not be disconnecting them for nonpayment. This message was translated into Spanish and Hmong and posted on our corporate website, and a digital marketing campaign was created to connect with our customers during this time of crisis.
We used multiple channels including digital advertising, newsletters and social media to reach customers. An emergency resources page also was added to our corporate website to assist customers in identifying options and organizations for possible assistance.
Community stakeholders
MGE Residential and Community Services managers and commercial and multifamily account representatives also worked with customers and community partners to provide information and resources for saving energy and requesting economic relief. These communications were translated into Spanish and Hmong and shared by MGE representatives who partner with Latino and Hmong communities in our service territory.
MGE has been building relationships with community organizations and individuals for decades. That trust within the community is really essential, especially during a time of crisis. Because we had these trusted relationships in the community, we could work together with our network of community resources to share a message with our customers that we were here to work with them and we had put together resources to help.Joann Kelley, Director, Residential and Community Services
Community connections
With many community events cancelled due to the pandemic, MGE’s Residential and Community Services team continued to connect with our community partners through virtual meetings, newsletter articles and advertising, social media and with conversations. The team reached out proactively early in the pandemic, so our partners knew MGE was accessible and ready to share in the community’s response to COVID-19.
As we responded to the pandemic, it also was important that we continued, through our strong partnerships, to reinforce with our community and our employees MGE’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. MGE teams provided support to local organizations assisting communities of color and limited-income customers to address pandemic-related challenges and matters of racial equity.
Customer support
In addition to letting all our customers know we would maintain safe and reliable service throughout the public health emergency, we widely communicated a number of other policies that were in place to help customers who were experiencing hardship, including:
- Continuing to work out deferred payment agreements with customers who request them.
- Not assessing late fees to customer accounts.
- Not requiring deposits from customer accounts seeking to reconnect services previously disconnected for nonpayment.
- Waiving credit card, debit card and retail payment processing fees.
MGE also heavily promoted scam awareness messages on digital and social media channels and proactively reached out to local media in an effort to stop scammers who were active during the pandemic. Video messages were translated into Spanish and Hmong and distributed on social media.
Charitable contributions
Our charitable arm, the MGE Foundation, contributed $200,000 to the United Way of Dane County COVID-19 Emergency and Recovery Fund and other community partners, including the Latino Consortium for Action, a social services provider for Latinos in Dane County, and Energy Services, Inc., which provides energy-assistance services to limited-income households.
During the first phase of the pandemic, the United Way of Dane County reported a 400% increase in calls to its 211 line, which connects people with local programs and services 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The Foundation also provided support to the City of Madison, the Madison Metropolitan School District and the United Way of Dane County for a Child Care Scholarship Fund to provide child care for limited-income families with elementary school children. MGE and the MGE Foundation are proud to support many organizations that provided increased services to community members during the pandemic, positively impacting thousands across our community in different ways.
At the beginning of the pandemic, personal protective equipment shortages impacted many essential businesses, including health care organizations in Madison. MGE employees worked to get needed supplies to local hospitals with donations of 500 N95 respirator masks, 150 Tyvek suits and 2,900 pairs of medical gloves.
Caring for our employees
The well-being of our employees is a top priority. The ICS Team has worked to ensure employees continue to get the care and resources needed from MGE during the pandemic.
All employees have continued to work and perform their job duties throughout our COVID-19 response, many remotely. No MGE employees were laid off or furloughed during our COVID-19 response. Additional leave programs, specific to circumstances related to COVID-19, were created to enable employees to take care of themselves or family members without using their own personal or vacation time.
Leading with communication
From the beginning of the pandemic and throughout the public health emergency, MGE Chairman, President and CEO Jeff Keebler made it a priority to connect with all MGE employees by delivering weekly video messages and inviting anyone with questions or concerns to reach out to him, their manager or Human Resources. These communications focused on safety and important company updates, as well as wellness information and work-life balance during extraordinary times.
Health and wellness
One way for MGE to try to keep things as close to normal as possible was to provide virtually many of the same opportunities that existed at MGE facilities before the pandemic.
For example, several of our weekly wellness and fitness classes moved online, giving employees the option to participate from their home. Employees also have been able to bring certain equipment home from their workstations, such as computer monitors and chairs, to set up ergonomically appropriate workspaces at home.
Employees still have access to our team of trainers from our workplace injury prevention sports medicine partners. Our trainers continue to hold virtual sessions with employees during weekly office hours that used to take place on-site.
Mental well-being
We realize the pandemic created new personal and work-related challenges and impacts. From information on our employee intranet and in our monthly employee newsletter, to training and development, to our Employee Assistance Program, we provide employees with tips to help them stay sharp while working remotely or under new conditions in the field.
The Learning Center is an online resource available to all MGE employees. This cloud-based tool contains a vast library with thousands of online courses available on a wide variety of topics. As many employees transitioned to working remotely, it was critical to help them adjust to working in a new way while also balancing kids and homeschooling, pets and household duties, and sharing the new home office with other members of their household. There also were adjustments for employees who continued reporting to MGE facilities. Human Resources developed additional content for The Learning Center on topics such as mindfulness, stress management, wellness, balancing the demands of work and home, how to handle isolation, being an effective remote leader and leveraging technology to stay connected.
Remote Work Community
To help keep employees and teams connected, we launched our first online employee community. The Remote Work Community, available in The Learning Center, serves as a place for all employees to connect with colleagues. Employees share tips such as how to keep kids busy while staying at home, quarantine recipes, the best staycation options for getting away online and much more.
