How To Ensure Employee Safety During Pandemic In Your Business?

Tips To Keep Your Business Alive

If you are a business owner, you must be wondering how to ensure employee safety during a pandemic. Only by ensuring employee safety, can you help your business stay intact. This pandemic has threatened almost everyone, from medical workers to the common public. This has been emotionally stressful for everyone equally. Guiding your workplace and making it COVID-19 ready will not only help you protect your employees from the virus but also will keep your business up and running. If you are still serving customers during this pandemic, you need a comprehensive strategy to maintain your employees’ safety and security without dismantling your business plans into pieces. It is not a surprise that many of your initial practices and guidelines have changed. Based on your country’s progression and response, start replanning. In this blog, we have listed out certain employee safety tips. You can adopt these practices to run a productive business in a covid 19 struck world.

COVID-19 is a highly contagious respiratory illness. As of May 16th, more than 16 Crore cases have been registered worldwide and this number will only keep on increasing. As a business owner,  you might be in a frantic state, but you need to stay put and organised to get your business used to this routine. We have listed out five points to ensure the health and safety of our employees. Read through and stay safe!

1. Health First, Wealth Next

Your employees’ safety is of utmost priority and you need to provide them with every possible help regarding this. If you are able to shift your work to a virtual workplace, you can avoid most of the risks. If you cannot, to ensure worker health and awareness, encourage the usage of masks, sanitisers, and a clean working environment.

2. Mental Health Matters

Unfortunately, the importance of mental health is still a debate today. Any unpleasant and stressful situations can trigger mental health issues, including anxiety, depression, and insomnia. A viral infection going around affecting millions, causing governments and hospitals to get overwhelmed, is potentially the biggest stress anyone could have. It is not surprising that many of your employees’ families could have been affected mentally and physically as well. Good mental health will make work more productive and will also set the seal on employee health and safety. If you are an employer, try being more understanding if one of your employees are underachieving due to any health-related family emergency issues.

3. Assist Your Employees

If any of your employees are working on-site, find ways to keep them supported by promoting worker health and safety awareness. You can try keeping a flexible schedule or extending leave options. If your employees are at risk of contracting the virus, such as those with a weakened immune system, pregnant women, or those who are quite elderly, consider giving them options including work-from-home and paid sick leave. If any of your employees have been tested positive for COVID-19 and are in really bad shape, try helping them out with financial assistance if you can. But mostly, be empathetic. We already have a stressful pandemic. We don’t need to create a stressful work culture as well.

4. Safe Work Space

Maintaining a healthy and clean workspace should be preached and practised throughout the year and not just during the pandemic. But with a contagious virus on the loose, you might want to keep it mandatory through certain employee safety tips. If you have a janitor on the rounds, then make sure everything is being sterilised. Tell your employees to keep their desks clean. As a responsible employer and also a citizen, you need to enforce wearing masks and maintaining six feet distance to promote worker health and safety.  If you are compelled to keep your office open, try dividing your employees into groups and make them work in the office in shifts. This can somewhat curb the spread. Also, keep in mind that their health is more important and encourage more virtual working environments. If any of your employees fall sick, give them a paid sick leave, ask them to get themselves tested, and if they test positive, encourage them to quarantine. Right after which, sanitise the entire workplace and get your other employees tested.

5. Sick Employees Are Humans Too

If any of your employees fall sick, identifying the infection should be the most critical step. Using thermometers and monitoring employees for symptoms such as fever and cold is essential. Reporting if sick should be a practised routine during the pandemic to prioritise the safety and security of employees. Try maintaining specific rooms to move potentially infectious employees away from others. If you want to encourage your sick employees to stay home, ideate new plans to make work flexible, including paid sick leaves and work from home policies. Your doubt or work should not risk your employees’ life and health. If your workers have sick family members, take them out of operations’ roles and give them work-from-home roles.

2020 has been traumatising enough, and panicking is not going to take you and your business anywhere. Apart from following the above points to ensure employee safety, as a leader, practice the art of compassion. The world right now is already scary and the last thing one might need is a scary boss. If you are not sure how to run a business during the pandemic, start educating yourself.

OkCredit Blogs will help you stay prepared if you own a business during the pandemic. Our blogs are available in several languages including English, Hindi, Malayalam, Marathi and other regional languages. The website is quite versatile and will have content that is perfect for anyone, whether you are a reader or a business owner. You can download OkCredit now and keep reading.

Also read:

1) The impact of Covid-19 on Small Businesses. How bad this has been?
2) Best COVID-19 Lessons For Small Business Sectors of India
3) How To Manage Investment During Covid-19 Pandemic?
4) Best investment ideas during the COVID-19 pandemic
5) OkCredit: Simple, Paperless & Secure solution for businesses

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FAQs

Q. What are some safe work practices you need to do as an employer?

Ans. To ensure employee health and safety, you need to provide tissues, no-touch garbage cans, sanitisers with at least 60% alcohol, and disinfectants. You should also provide your sanitary workers with PPE kits, disposable towels, and disinfectants.

Q. What to do when you own a very high exposure risk business?

Ans. If you own a very high exposure risk business, including clinics and labs, and your employees are first-line workers including doctors, nurses, and paramedics, follow safety standards that are put in place by the government. This will help you put employee health and safety as a priority.

Q. How to work with your team during a lockdown?

Ans. If you are under a complete lockdown, do not worry. You can keep the work going while ensuring the safety and security of employees by working with your team virtually. Try reducing operations and diverting your work to something that can be done from home. It is okay to put certain plans at a halt when the world is met with such a horrible crisis.

Q. How can you promote a no-touch working environment?

Ans. If you want to ensure the safety and security of employees, you can try updating a door access control system with a hands-free option. You can also fix automatic door openers to let your employees enter and exit without touching handles as they could have been soiled. Also, do not forget to set social distancing policies and increase the frequency of cleaning high touch surfaces including keyboards, telephones, etc.

Q. How to keep your employees educated about COVID-19?

Ans. It is true that some of your employees could be ignorant. Being in a leadership role, take the stand and educate them. You can do this by having frequent emails about sanitary protocols sent or even having one or two responsible for monitoring the usage of face masks. You can also keep signs that will remind them to stay clean.