Want to know what workplace health and safety measures to put in place post-lockdown? You came to the right place…
The time has officially come for employers to start bringing their employees back into the workplace. But, with COVID-19 still the looming, dark cloud above us, there’s more to it than simply opening your doors and ushering everyone back through them. The biggest of these changes? Health and safety.
Implementing the correct measures to create a safe environment for all is paramount, perhaps even to the survival of your business! After all, if your employees refuse to return to work due to the lack of health and safety measures, they may decide they can’t return. This may force you to negotiate a settlement agreement with them, to avoid any further legal disputes.
Ultimately, this is far too much trouble, and there are better ways to cope. It’s all down to how you handle the situation, and the best way is to simply abide by health and safety legislation. To discover how to do this, and the pitfalls you may face along the way, read on…
The Three Key Questions Employers Should be Asking Post-Lockdown…
Before even thinking about preparing your office for your employees to return after lockdown, there three questions you must ask yourself. These questions have been suggested by a number of professional bodies, and are as follows:
1. Is the Return of Employees Essential?
Whether your team returns really depends on the type of business you run, and how well you’ve faired throughout this tough time. Will the business suffer if return isn’t imminent? Does the job require hands-on skills in a warehouse or through customer service? Are there people who can’t work from home, but you require their skills right away?
These are the sorts of questions you need to be thinking about before beginning the return process. Ultimately, if you’ve had your whole team working from home successfully during this time, do they really need to return? If work can continue productively as it is, then perhaps the return of everyone to the workplace can wait.
2. Have Your Employees Agreed to Return?
It’s not all about what’s best for the business, but also what’s best for your employees. So, being sure to communicate with your team, and receive their consent to head back to work, is really important.
This goes especially for people whose mode of transport into work revolves around the public transport system. Not only will this put them at risk, but it’ll also put other staff members at risk too.
It’s not even just about your employees, but also about the people they live with. If their return to work may put someone they love at risk, this needs to be assessed.
You can’t know any of this without properly communicating your intentions, and gleaning your team’s response. So, being sure to listen to everyone before making any decisions is crucial. Otherwise, coming to a compromise may be the only option.
3. Will it be Safe for Employees to Return?
Your employees have to make a return, but what now? Well, if their return is essential, you need to be sure that no one will be in any danger on the premises. So, being sure to follow all the government guidelines, and going above and beyond to ensure everyone’s safety, is paramount.
If you want to know more about the specific ways in ways in which you can prepare your workplace, don’t go anywhere. We’ll be discussing this right here…
10 Health and Safety Measures for the Workplace Post-Lockdown
Now we know what questions we must ask ourselves before admitting everyone back into the workplace, health and safety regulations must be put in place. This way, you can ensure that every one of your staff members and their family can remain as safe as possible. Some of the main implementations you should put in place are…
1. Conduct a Risk Assessment
First and foremost, conducting a risk assessment is the best way for you to assess the potential risk factors. This way, you can make an informed decision about what your next steps will be. Your risk assessment should take into account a number of factors, including:
- What workplace situations and activities may transmit the virus
- The individual staff members who are more at risk
- If it’s likely that someone on your team has been exposed
- What actions you will implement to control the spread of the virus
2. Install Temperature Sensors
The government have been working on non-contact methods of assessing symptoms of the virus to protect us all. One of the best ways for this is to install temperature sensors in the workplace. These thermal imaging systems can detect a person’ temperature to notice if it’s out of the ordinary.
Although an individual with COVID-19 may not necessarily have a temperature, this is a good preventative measure, if used alongside other health and safety measures.
3. Implement Proper Ventilation
It’s thought that air conditioning may be a cause factor for the spread of Coronavirus, and many other illnesses in the past. With this in mind, what alternative methods of ventilation can be used to reduce the recycling of air?
It’s pretty simple really; put a focus on fresh air. So, start by cracking open some of the windows, and use electric ceiling or desk fans to circulate this air throughout the workplace.
4. Ensure to Enforce Social Distancing Measures
Despite the easing of lockdown, strict social distancing measures are still expected, and the same goes for within the office. Now, we are expected to maintain a distance of a metre or more, so you need to be asking yourself these questions:
- Can your office accommodate for this, in terms of space?
- Can you implement signs throughout the office to remind people to distance themselves?
- Do you have the space to create a one-way system?
- Can you limit group activity?
If the answer to any of these is “no”, perhaps you need to rethink the return of your employees.
5. Enforce Regular Cleaning
Science dictates that cleaning using disinfectant products will help to reduce the spread of the virus. So, you firstly need to make hand sanitizer and other cleaning products, like wipes, readily available. This doesn’t just mean having some in the kitchen; everyone should have some at their desk, and it should be accessible near as many doorways as possible.
Then, it’s a question of what needs regularly cleaning. Well, this is any surface that is handled often, and may be talked or spat on at any point during the day. So, this includes:
- Desks
- Tables
- Computer screens
- Phones
- Door handles
- Cooking utensils
- Microwave doors
- Hands
6. Provide PPE, Where Necessary
This doesn’t go for every workplace, however, this may be necessary for any customer facing work or production line work, for example. The need for PPE will be ascertained via the risk assessment, described above. It should include gloves, masks, aprons, and anything else you deem necessary.
7. Be Sure to Implement Health and Safety Training for All Staff
There’s no point in implementing a new health and safety policy if no one knows how to utilise it. Be it the application of hand sanitizer, desk wipes, PPE, or using the temperature sensors, everything must be discussed in a meeting prior to everyone’s return.
8. Appoint a Health and Safety Executive
It may also be sensible to set up a logging system to be sure that everyone is making sure they do their bit. This could be as simple as ensuring that everyone submits a tick box list for wiping down the services each day. This way, as an employer, you can keep on top of everything, and make sure it’s all going ahead.
In order to keep on top of this, you may need to hire – or implement from your current staff pool – a health and safety executive. After all, health and safety in the workplace can’t be achieved properly without a leader to see it through.
9. Communicate with Your Team
As we’ve seen, being sure to talk to your employees before coming to any decisions is crucial. Not only do you need to ascertain peoples’ methods of commute, and theirs or their household’s vulnerability, you also need to be sure they will feel happy and safe on returning. Maintaining an open and honest workplace is all part of a healthy work culture that creates productivity, and this communication will help.
10. Don’t Bring Everyone Back Immediately
Finally, the key is to bring everyone back bit by bit; don’t bring everyone back immediately. You may think your workspace can accommodate for everyone social distancing etc., but you won’t know until you try. It may do more harm than good to expect a full return immediately.
Settlement Agreements During COVID-19
You might think that, just because you’ve implemented all these health and safety measures, your team will be happy and excited to return. It’s important to bear in mind that this might not be the case for everyone; many may still be anxious to return.
With this in mind, be aware that your employees may try and avoid doing so. To do this, they will need to prove that there is a genuine danger to them, or someone they love, on their return. If this threat can be proven, and you – the employer – refuse to address it, the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 means they can’t be penalised for this.
In other cases, where the individual has caring responsibilities they can’t get out of post-Coronavirus, it’s not so cut and dry. In examples like this, where a compromise can’t be come to and a dispute arises, a settlement agreement may be forged. This is usually a last resort, though, so it’s best to address your employee’s concerns before resorting to this.
Ready to Invite Your Employees Back to Work?
So, there we have it; the three questions you must ask yourself before asking your staff to return, and the 10 health and safety measures you should be implementing. Not only that, but we’ve given you a little insight into the consequences of not abiding by these new government recommendations.
We hope you’ve found this article useful, and you now feel more confident to bring your employees back to the workplace safely. If you have any questions, comments, or additional tips or insights, be sure to get involved in the comments down below!
