ITPS LEISURE NEWS: Premier Rides Reaches 100% Vaccination Goal to Build Confidence, Comfort and Greater Service to Clients around the Globe
August 18, 2021
Premier Rides’ Sara Seay wears a “Jolene” shirt in honor of Dolly Parton who initially funded the Moderna vaccine. When Dolly got her shot, she broke into song, replacing “Jolene” in one of her best-known choruses with “vaccine”.
Premier Rides, a global supplier of high-tech ride attractions announced today that its entire organization is fully vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus. Additionally, all new positions will require successful candidates to verify full vaccination prior to starting employment.
At the onset of the pandemic when many businesses were forced to shutter, Premier Rides developed a strategy that safely allowed the company and its office to remain open for business and fully operational with a combination of in-person and short-term remote staff. COVID-19 protocols were set in place for in person workers while IT quickly set the team up to work from home as needed. The shift was seamless as much of the technology and collaborative software was already in place. Premier Rides was able to continue providing high level service by continuing to fabricate and ship product to clients around the world.
Premier Rides resumed the company-wide 100% in-person office environment by early June 2020 with COVID protocols in place including twice daily temperature checks, restricted access, installation of desk shield partitions, distancing of workstations, increased sanitization and hospital grade air filtration along with a strict mask policy. Team members became ambassadors of COVID Safety, sharing with the staff news reports and studies, the progress of the vaccine trials and the eventual availability of vaccines.
Jim Seay, President of Premier Rides commented, “Navigating our way through the pandemic was an unconventional way to celebrate Premier Rides 25th anniversary, but our ability to be nimble, to quickly pivot and ensure continued support to our valued clients demonstrates exactly the dedication we have to our clients and colleagues in our global industry. We made a very significant financial investment to make our office safe and with the fantastic staff support there were zero cases as a result of office operations. The natural next step was to become a fully vaccinated organization.”
The Premier team met together and discussed the importance of being a fully vaccinated team in order to continue to have a safe working environment with fewer of the in-place restrictions and protocols. Additionally, the Premier work environment is highly collaborative from a client standpoint and the team wanted clients to be comfortable whether visiting Premier facilities or having members of the Premier team working at their parks during new ride installations or while performing service.
Sara Seay, Director of Sales and Marketing added, “I am proud of our team, how they came together during such a difficult time, and I am impressed by their dedication to our clients. Knowing that the vaccine would allow for us to more easily work together and travel to support the projects, everyone at Premier set forth to get vaccinated.” Seay continued, “The moment an age group was announced to become available, they worked together to find and obtain appointments for each other. There was no question about if they would get it, only a matter of how soon they could get it.”
Premier Rides made it easy for the team to get vaccinated by accommodating schedules to make the appointments and by supporting each team member individually in the case of any side effects. Premier also rewarded each employee as a way of thanking them for stepping up to become vaccinated.
ITPS EDITORIAL
”It’s appropriate to vaccinate, vaccinations save lives, yours and mine, family and friends”. I ask you, if you were in a boat in the sea and it was taking on water and someone offered you a LIFE JACKET….. Wouldn’t you take it ?!?
Take the vaccine like the Premier team, it is the right thing to do.”
—Dennis Speigel, Founder & CEO of International Theme Park Services (ITPS)