Workplace Safety Reality – Talking with Your Employees

What happens OUTside the workplace ends up INside the workplace

As we continue to navigate the continuance or reopening of our businesses, new challenges are popping up in many businesses. Primarily these new challenges are related to employees either coming into close contact with someone who has been diagnosed with COVID-19 outside the workplace or has contracted the virus themselves from activities outside the workplace.

We can’t dictate what our employees do off the job, but we can help them understand their impact in the workplace. Because we spend so much time together, employees need to understand their responsibility to ensure that their choices and daily activities, whether at work or at home, are made with the safety and health of themselves and their co-workers in mind. If you’re an essential business, or a restaurant, medical facility, or other sensitive workplace, this is even more important.

To assist you with managing this new challenge, we have compiled a quick list of important topics you can speak to your employees about so that their activities on and off the job don’t negatively impact your workplace.

Additionally, here is a great resource from the CDC on dealing with Suspected or Confirmed Cases of COVID-19 in the Workplace.

Here are 4 areas you can discuss with your employees:

• Avoiding Highly Congested areas: As much as possible, try to avoid going to densely populated venues/events where safety protocols are not a high priority.
• Travel: If you plan to travel internationally or into a known “hot zone” it is important to advise management in advance so appropriate precautions can be taken.
• Illness: If you are feeling ill or experiencing symptoms that are consistent with COVID-19, please isolate at home or leave the workplace, contact your medical provider and follow the protocol provided. In addition, notify management as soon as possible so that appropriate action can be executed immediately ensuring the health and safety of others.
• Exposure: If you knowingly have been in contact with anyone who has been diagnosed with COVID-19, first and foremost self-isolate. Secondly, inform management directly, so that necessary safety protocols can be executed.

As part of the business community, what happens in our workplaces impacts everyone around us. And what our employees do outside the workplace affects all the employees and customers that come in contact with your business.

We all need to be accountable in our everyday lives whether at work, at home or in our community and need to do our best to show our respect for one another while ensuring our best efforts to protect each other from this virus.

If you need additional tips or advice, please contact the HR team at Infinium HR at info@infiniumhr.com.