Employees taking off more sick time than normal is something to be expected if your business is operating throughout a global pandemic. Thankfully, there are several things that you can do to keep your employees, clients and customers safe while COVID-19 still poses a real threat to our health and wellbeing. Whether you run an essential business that must remain open to customers during the pandemic or are able to operate most or all of your company remotely, here are some of the main things businesses have been doing to protect their employees and keep infection rates down.
Remote Working
Over the past year, more and more businesses have turned to remote working. For some businesses, the pandemic was the push that they needed to finally go fully remote and hope to allow their employees to work from home permanently or more often in the future. On the other hand, others were totally unprepared and have had to make a lot of changes to ensure that employees are able to continue working from home without problems. Either way, if you are able to let employees work from home throughout the pandemic, it is definitely the safest option.
Sneeze Guards
Of course, not all employees have been able to work from the safety of their homes throughout this pandemic. Many employees who work in customer-facing roles have had to continue going to work as normal and deal with the general public. If you run a business that is open to the public and your employees are dealing with people on a daily basis, plexiglass guards from sneezeguardez.com can help to reduce infection rates. These guards are placed at checkout areas, customer service desks, or bars and provide a safety barrier between your employees and the customers.
Social Distancing
Wherever possible, every business should be encouraging social distancing to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19 through close contact. Office-based businesses with employees who are still working from the premises might need to rearrange the furniture a little bit to give each employee more personal space while at work. In stores and other businesses that are open to the public, managing customer numbers and providing clear signage for queues and routes around the store will help to keep the customers at an appropriate distance from the employees.
Hygiene
No matter what kind of business you run or how your employees are working throughout the pandemic, good hand hygiene is crucial to preventing the spread of COVID-19, along with regular cleaning and disinfecting of the business premises. More focus needs to be placed on cleaning high-touch areas like door handles and light switches and employees should be provided with hand sanitizing and hand washing stations that they can use frequently throughout the working day. To prevent the spread of germs, you may want to consider only accepting contactless payment methods if your business normally accepts cash.
From working remotely to various measures put in place to encourage social distancing and good hygiene, there are several things that your business can do to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19 among employees.
