Creating a Safe Workplace
Here at Proxxi workplace safety is our business. Our company started with Voltage, our wristband for electrical safety, and early in 2020 we grew to include Contact, our social distancing and contact tracing wristband.
With our products, our goal is to make workplaces safer for employees and for organizations. With many of us back to working on-site, we wanted to create a list of different ways that you can keep your workplace safe during the Covid-19 pandemic. Some of the items on this list may not be required by your local health authority, but could potentially help in reducing the risk of spreading Covid-19.
Beyond keeping employees safe, there’s an additional financial incentive for businesses to ensure that their safety measures are taken seriously enough. In some places, businesses can be subject to a $10-million fine for corporations and up to $100,000 for individuals if found sufficiently liable for carelessness towards Covid-19.
If you have workers back on site, we recommend reviewing this list and seeing if your organization may be able to implement additional measures. Although some of the items on the list require more time and planning to execute, some of the options are fast and easy to enact in your workplace.
Employee Actions:
Social distancing - Staying 6 feet apart from others can help prevent spread by lowering the chances of respiratory droplets spreading from one person to another through speaking, breathing, sneezing, coughing, or other means. Social distancing can be encouraged and monitored through manual or technological means.
Masks - Wearing masks also lowers the chance of spreading respiratory droplets. Mask-wearing is most effective when widely used by people in public settings. By opting to make masks mandatory in your workspace, you can help reduce spread by people who do not know they have Covid-19. Masks are also most effective when worn properly, covering both the mouth and nose.
Environmental Changes:
Air filters - Improvements to your building’s HVAC system, such as introducing a HEPA filter, is shown to reduce concentration of virus particles. One of our customers recently completed redoing his organization’s air filtration system following CDC guidelines and informed by conversations with medical professionals. In tandem with distancing and use of masks when walking around, his team has not had any incident of Covid-19 transmission on-site, since completing the project.
Adjustments to the workplace layout - Changing the workplace layout can help employees keep the 6ft/2m physical distancing recommendations more easily. By moving workstations further apart, making hallways and other walkways single-direction, and limiting other interactions where possible you can reduce likelihood of spread by lowering the number of people employees interact with and how close they get to each other.
Addition of dividers or screens - Adding a physical barrier between workstations or other interaction points can help prevent the spread of aerosolized droplets, as well as naturally encourage people to distance themselves from one another.
Increasing availability of hand sanitizer and/or hand washing stations - Making hand sanitizer or hand washing stations accessible this will encourage employees to use it. The easier it is to follow protocols, the more likely it is that people will do so.
Increased frequency of cleaning - Covid-19 can live on surfaces such for hours or even days, depending on factors like the material of the surface and sunlight. By ensuring that high-touch items, such as door knobs and railings, are frequently sanitized this can help prevent transmission through surfaces.
Organizational Policies:
Changes to scheduling - By adjusting workplace schedules, organizations can reduce the number of staff on-site at any given time. An organization can also opt to always schedule the same staff together. Both of these processes help reduce the number of people each individual is coming into contact with while on-site.
Work from home where possible - Depending on an employee’s role and responsibilities, working from home can be an option for many people. This helps decrease the number of people on-site, lowering the risk of people getting sick, as well as reducing the impact of potential site closures.
Prohibit or limit visitors to your workplace - Limiting visitor access has two major impacts. First, it lowers the number of people on site, reducing the total number of contacts any given person has. Second, it also avoids introducing an “outsider” to your workplace bubble, which effectively expands your workplace’s bubble to include the bubble of each outsider. reducing cross-bubble contact.
Contact logs - By recording contact information along the way, workplaces can greatly improve the contact tracing time and experience in the event of a confirmed or suspected case or contact for Covid-19. This contact log can be a manual log that is recorded by employees, or it can be a tech-based solution that automatically records and stores contact interactions.
Daily health checks - Many organizations have implemented a daily health check, including procedures such as questionnaires, temperature checks, and other screening measures. These checks can help ensure that people who are showing symptoms do not enter the premises and risk infecting others.
Contact tracing procedure plans - Planning in advance for how you will perform contact tracing can help with speed and comfort in the event you do have to complete contact tracing in the event of a confirmed or suspected case or contact for Covid-19. Like contact logs, this can be a manual process, or can leverage the use of contact tracing technologies and automation.
Vaccinations - With vaccines available in many countries around the world, there is a lot of speculation many people have already been fully vaccinated. Some organizations are mandating vaccinations as a return-to-office requirement. Implementing this kind of regulation will be highly dependent on location and local policies.
Safety in the workplace leads to better business, including economic and social returns. By ensuring your organization is running as safely as possible, you can improve employee perceptions, operational efficiency, and business value. This list of possible safety improvements is by no means exhaustive, and we always recommend checking with your local health authority to ensure that your business is following the required protocols.
This article includes information and policies from:
These policies may be similar to those in your jurisdiction. Always follow your local health authorities recommendations when implementing procedures.