Plan your exposure response
How will you handle a COVID-19 positive case or potential outbreak?
Plan ahead to minimize the risk to your employees and your business
It’s easy to lose sight of how to treat people in times of stress, and how you treat them through those really, really challenging times will dictate how you get through future challenges. ~ Chris Inkster, Freeport Industries in a June executive panel on Leading the Recovery
How are you supporting your team to operate effectively under your COVID-19 safety plan?
Ensuring employees understand how to work effectively and protect each other is critical to navigating the new normal work environment.Communicate clearly and often with employees and encourage empathy, recognizing the impact of a heightened state of anxiety and uncertainty on your team. Recognizing that workers are experiencing a mix of anxiety and concerns about the virus, their families, and their jobs, manufacturers and food processors around the province have responded with new mental health supports.
Regular check-ins to see how workers are feeling are a great start.
If staff are eligible for an employee assistance program, make sure they know what support is available and how to get it. Beyond that, encouraging staff to eat well, get regular exercise and good sleep—and showing you care for their wellness—can go a long way towards easing anxiety and building a culture of resilience and trust.
With the basic controls becoming old hat in many essential businesses, complacency looms as a new risk.
Consider your strategy to maintain healthy and safety vigilance against COVID-19 in the workplace. Incorporate inspection processes than include observations of behaviors. And design communications that include two-way dialogue with workers and effective processes for collecting and addressing feedback.
Review your plans and consider options to strengthen controls before the flu season.
Include your COVID-19 safety plan and related information as a standing item on the Joint Health and Safety Committee agenda. Make time to review local and global trends to determine where more effective controls may be needed.
Our last toolbox talk was about crisis fatigue… People are starting to lose some patience as they are yearning to get back to a new normal, so we have to keep being diligent—amping up our commitment and our diligence in preparation for what could be a second wave. ~ Nick Reiach, Great Little Box Company in a June executive panel on Leading the Recovery
A. If an employee tests positive for COVID-19, your local health authority will work with you and the employee to trace contacts with your staff.
Typically, “contacts” include anyone who has spent more than 15 minutes within 2 metres of the sick employee. If possible, provide a list of who was at work with the employee to public health.
Take steps to identify the extent of potential exposure at your worksite and ensure that proper infection control cleaning protocols are implemented to clean and sterilize and potentially contaminated work areas.
Communicate clearly and report if required.
