With many businesses having re-opened or planning to re-open shortly, employers will need to consider how to keep staff and customers and clients safe and put certain measures in place.
Risk Assessments
It is important to remember that businesses have a legal obligation to protect employees and visitors to their workplace. Employers should carry out a Risk Assessment and make sensible adjustments where necessary.
If an employer refuses to carry out a Risk Assessment, the Health and Safety Executive or local council can issue an enforcement notice.
Employers can visit https://bit.ly/31mmi6u to carry out a Risk Assessment.
Social Distancing
Two-metre social distancing will still be required, albeit that the Prime Minister has stated that where it is not possible to stay two-metres apart, guidance will allow people to keep a distance of ‘one-metre plus’, meaning people should stay one-metre apart, and also take other precautions to reduce the risk of transmission.
To help staff and customers to adhere to the social distancing rules, employers should: –
- Put up signs to remind staff and visitors of social distancing guidance;
- Avoid sharing workstations;
- Use floor tape or paint to mark areas to help people keep to a two-metre distance;
- Arrange a one-way traffic system around the workplace.
If it isn’t possible for staff and visitors to keep two-metres apart, employers need to think about how they can be kept safe. Employers should, therefore, consider the following: –
- Does an activity need to be carried out in order for your business to be able to operate?
- Keep the time required for an activity as short as possible;
- Use screens or barriers to separate people from each other;
- Stagger arrival and departure times of staff and visitors.
Hygiene Procedures
It is extremely important that staff and visitors carry out good hand-washing, cleaning and hygiene procedures.
The frequency of surface-cleaning and hand-washing should be increased: –
- Encourage everyone to follow the guidance on hand-washing and hygiene;
- Provide hand sanitiser around the workplace;
- Regularly clean and disinfect surfaces which are used and touched regularly.
Home Working
Many businesses have decided that their staff will not return to their workplaces until January 2021, with staff continuing to work from home. If this is the case for your business, it is important that staff continue to be consulted and feel valued.
- Make sure that staff have access to all remote working systems;
- Communicate regularly with all staff, both as part of team-meetings (via video conference) as well as individually;
- Ensure that staff have the right home insurances in place.
Employers are also still responsible for the health and safety of staff who are working from home, so you should ensure that staff complete a DSE risk assessment (https://bit.ly/3eJQ88S). This will need to be completed each time a staff member moves their workstation (from one room to another, for example) and also when they return to their workplace.
Staff morale is likely to be low and people will be missing their colleagues. It is extremely important to ensure that staff are looking after their own physical and mental well-being.
Further Guidance
The Government has produced guidance for different sectors to help employers, as well as employees and the self-employed, to understand how to work safely during the coronavirus pandemic. You can find this here https://bit.ly/3g81GTv
Remember that your staff are likely to be nervous about returning to the workplace. You should talk to your staff and ask them if they have any concerns, and reassure them of the measures that you have put in place to keep them safe.
If you would like any more advice, please email us at [email protected] or call us on 01634 564 136.