“The governor has declared delivered foods or curbside pickup essential businesses,” said Mike LaRosa, CEO of the family-owned company with 65 restaurants. “The operation of this call center is essential to processing orders at LaRosa’s.” But that doesn’t mean the company will compromise on safety. The “guest service center,” as LaRosa calls it, is equipped with 150 work stations. But it’s now operating at 50% capacity so operators can stay at least six feet from their co-workers. Plexiglas separates supervisors from staff. Door handles and work surfaces are sanitized six times daily. Cubicles are cleaned at the start and end of every shift.

CINCINNATI — Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine says non-essential businesses should close.

Here’s why Mike LaRosa says that edict doesn’t apply to his pizza chain’s call center in Westwood.

“The governor has declared delivered foods or curbside pickup essential businesses,” said LaRosa, CEO of the family-owned company with 65 restaurants. “The operation of this call center is essential to processing orders at LaRosa’s.”

But that doesn’t mean the company will compromise on safety.

The “guest service center,” as LaRosa calls it, is equipped with 150 work stations. But it’s now operating at 50% capacity so operators can stay at least six feet from their co-workers. Plexiglas separates supervisors from staff. Door handles and work surfaces are sanitized six times daily. Cubicles are cleaned at the start and end of every shift.

“We text everybody every day and remind them to take their temperature at home and not to come to work if they have a fever above whatever the guidelines recommend,” LaRosa said. “No one has been sick here at the call center.”

Not every local call center can make that claim.

Call center cases rising

Citigroup Inc. sent its call center employees home Wednesday after four employees tested positive for COVID-19.

“As the health and safety of our colleagues are our top priority, Citi has accelerated plans to move our colleagues at the Florence site to ‘work from home,’” said Citi spokesman Drew Benson. “After learning of the first confirmed case on Saturday, March 21, the premises were disinfected and deep cleaned. The colleagues were last at the site on March 11, 12, 13 and 16, respectively. We expect virtually all colleagues to transition to work from home by (Wednesday) afternoon.”

U.S. Bank told its employees on March 18 that 11 workers were placed on 14-day quarantines after an employee in its Wooster Pike “contact center” tested positive for coronavirus. The bank wouldn’t confirm the positive COVID-19 test but provided a statement on its handling of the virus.

“Our front-line employees in call centers, branches and operations facilities continue to play a vital role in ensuring we can keep providing essential banking services to our customers,” U.S. Bank spokesman Greg Vadala wrote in an email to WCPO. “Across the entire operation, U.S. Bank is continuing to take steps to further protect the safety of employees and customers, in accordance with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. This includes implementing staff rotation and social distancing, increasing cleaning, temporarily adjusting hours of operation, decreasing lobby usage, encouraging drive through use and consolidating operations. We have been enabling employees to work from home where possible and are continuing to expand these capabilities for front-line employees.”

Fifth Third Bank confirmed Saturday that an employee in its Madisonville Operations Center tested positive for coronavirus last week. The bank won’t say if that employee worked in the call center. Nevertheless, Fifth Third is following CDC guidelines to make its call centers safer, spokesman Ed Loyd told WCPO via email.

“We have relocated our call center employees into three different physical locations in the Cincinnati area, and two locations in Grand Rapids to be in accord with CDC guidelines, using spaces where other teams have departed to work remotely — and skipping desks between employees. This has even included some physical redesign to be socially spaced and that took several days to complete,” Loyd wrote. “We will continue to evaluate this and are proactively making additional modifications to care for our employees who aren’t able to work remotely due to the nature of their service to our customers.”