Inquiring minds not only want to know, but they need to know: How did the Huntsville and Madison County infrastructure perform in supporting and responding to the COVID-19 pandemic last year?

The Huntsville-Madison County Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with the City of Huntsville, and Mayor Tommy Battle’s technology initiatives: GEO Huntsville, Energy Huntsville, Cyber Huntsville, and BioHuntsville, took the question to local business leaders in the form of a survey.

The COVID-19 survey focused on how area businesses were impacted with respect to a remote working environment, their plans for bringing workers back into their offices, and how the area’s infrastructure supported their ability to sustain operations.

It also asked what the regional government and supporting agencies could have done better.

“We needed to hear from our members what the city’s infrastructure meant for their success,” said Lucia Cape, senior vice president of economic development for the Huntsville-Madison County Chamber of Commerce. “We needed to identify what was in place ahead of time that helped Huntsville come through the pandemic, as well as what our members think we can do to improve on that infrastructure in the case of future events of this nature.”

In collaboration with Exemplar City, a local 501c3 non-profit organization focused on educating local governments on how technology can be used effectively, the chamber conducted a 12-question survey from late March through April 15 this year with approximately 170 companies; 150 companies responded.

While 10 of the 12 questions asked about the companies’ demographics and status in the steadily evolving aftermath of the pandemic, the final two questions dug deeply into whether Huntsville’s community and government organizations, such as the Chamber, the business community, and volunteer organizations, did the right or wrong thing in support of their business during the pandemic.

Overall, respondents said those entities did provide timely and updated information as it related to the virus, and its impact on the population.

When asked whether the area’s infrastructure such as fiber, telecommunications, transportation, and hospitals contributed to their success during the pandemic, 68.4 percent said yes.

The Huntsville City COVID briefings and the Huntsville Chamber COVID Check-in Zoom calls were deemed extremely beneficial in helping form relevant policies and procedures.

There was also praise for the Chamber’s promotion of local businesses offering take-out food and for creating a platform for buying gift cards to support local businesses. Also, their guidance on how to apply and acquire PPP loans was called out as exceptional.

Other comments were directed at the hospital system in our area as being helpful in offering remote flu and fever clinics for testing and weekly updates; for improving access to childcare so the workforce was able to work; and most said the messaging on face masks and social distancing was important, while a few felt there should have been more enforcement of mask wearing.

Other notable results show that nearly 55 percent of area employers currently have all employees back working on site, or they are rotating between onsite and remote working. Manufacturing employees have been working consistently onsite throughout the pandemic, while office workers have been rotating between on-site and remote.

Many said they were still implementing a Flexible Work Option based on an employee’s preference for schedule/location.

Nearly 84 percent of respondents said they are not planning to reduce office space here because of the pandemic, and just over 66 percent will not mandate vaccinations as a requisite for returning to work.

When asked what protocols they put in place in March last year to sustain business continuity:

Just over 77 percent said they implemented PPE and CDC safety protocols.
Nearly 74 percent began working remotely.
Over 54 percent said they implemented flexible office hours.

Many of the survey questions allowed for companies to add their personal comments to the questions. Of note:

Companies said they had to reduce or furlough staff to accommodate the vast decline in business, but then had to hire more staff than usual to keep up with demand.
Most companies applied for and received PPP and SBA/EIDL loans
Six weeks seemed to be the most common amount of time companies “went dark”.
Many companies implemented new policies like allowing employees to bring their kids to work and were given paid time off during quarantine.
Many said they saw a significant increase in online sales.

“The city of Huntsville worked to stay on site, on task, and in business for our community during the pandemic,” said Mayor Tommy Battle. “It was a tough year, and we are proud to have served our citizens with the services they needed to help get to the other side of COVID-19.”

Of the companies that responded, 21 percent were private sector and federal government contractors; 13.5 percent were nonprofits; 5.3 percent worked in the defense industry or DoD; nearly 5 percent worked in the commercial private sector; just under 2 percent work in state and local government; 1.2 percent work for other federal agencies such as NASA; and 8.8 percent identified as “other”.

Companies with 10 or less employees comprised 27.5 percent of the respondents, and 9.4 percent were 500 employees or more. The rest qualify as small to medium sized businesses or SMBs.

“The survey helped to validate some of the information we suspected anecdotally about how businesses fared during the pandemic, and now we have excellent feedback that will support the city in future planning,” said Cape. “These survey results give us insight into how our companies were able to keep working and why we have so quickly rebounded economically.”