Post COVID-19 Vigilance
This past year has changed operations for all companies as we all deal with a public health crisis. Life, as we knew it, changed drastically; this isn’t news to anyone.
If you’re waiting for the new normal, you can stop, because we’re in it. As William Gibson famously said it “The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.”
Today, we have multiple vaccines in full production, which is prematurely allowing people to let their guard down. This is problematic as the more the virus spreads, the more likely it is to mutate and cause a strain that is not affected by the vaccine.
As vaccinations continue to be delivered, governments will inevitably claim that the public health emergency is no longer in critical status, and lockdowns will begin to lift. While this is excellent news to the public health crisis, it is not a clear signal to business owners and management that the pandemic is over.
The reason for this is that while there may be a low risk for community transmission, if a flare-up of COVID-19 occurs in your workplace, it poses a dangerously high risk to your organization’s revenue and ability to operate.
COVID-19 within your workplace is here to stay until we are stable enough as a society to have regular vaccinations rolled out every flu season to boost our COVID-19 immunity for all the new strains that will show up regularly.
So, who do we operate? We ensure that we have standard operating procedures (SOP) to mitigate any risk of our workers contracting the virus at work. We ensure that the direction is to stay home if you display any symptoms of COVID-19. Every organization should be thinking about a work from home policy to ensure that they stay home and stay productive if people can. If their job just can’t be completed at home, work in isolation if they can, along with the proper PPE and sanitization protocols, they should be able to do this without risking anyone else’s health at the same time, while maintaining their earning potential.
Here are action items that you should consider putting in place:
- Clear instructions regarding public and internal principles
- Dial-in on local implementation of the layers of protection like sanitization, social distancing, and mask-wearing while ensuring frequent and transparent communications to re-enforce this policy directly from the top leadership levels.
- Detail how the organization will respond to a team member who contracts the COVID-19.
- There should also be clear direction given for when it is safe to re-enter the workplace.
For more details on these actions, see SafetyTek article what post COVID-19 vigilance should look like.
If your organization can confidently respond to all of the above, then you are well on your way to continue operating in a post-COVID-19 world. Stay resilient and vigilant because as we let our guard down, COVID will step in.
If we can use the world of sports as an example, the winning teams are not the ones with the best players or the top coaches; they are the ones that can keep their players active in the roster. The same sentiment will apply to you and your competitors.
You may be struggling with COVID-19 employee self-assessments or questionnaires as required for compliance in most states. It’s difficult to determine a proper best practice between local, municipal, state, and federal guidelines.
If you’re collecting information manually or without immediate symptom notifications, there’s a much better way. We’ve helped thousands of companies; let us help you. Get in touch to find I can help you today.
