When creating an infection control strategy, it’s important to consider what happens before your employees enter the workplace. Based on business guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), the following best practices will help you to keep COVID-19 and other virus infections out of the building.
When sick: encourage employees to stay home
With highly infectious diseases like coronavirus, it’s critical that an infected individual remains isolated from others. Educate your employees to recognize the symptoms early and proactively stay home to protect their coworkers.
- Ask employees who have coronavirus symptoms to notify their supervisor and stay home.
- Refer sick employees to guidelines for self-care at home.
- Require that employees only return to work when the criteria to discontinue home isolation are met (in consultation with healthcare providers).
- When caring for a sick family member, ask employees to notify their supervisor and follow caregiving precautions.
Consider what more your business can do:
- Evaluate your attendance policy — if it incentivizes employees for showing up to work when sick, this can work against your efforts to control infection.
Before arrival at work: practice infection control at home
The coronavirus pandemic prompted new infection control guidelines for many aspects of daily life. Amplify recommended prevention measures by encouraging your employees to protect themselves while at home and in their community.
- Maintain social distancing and wear cloth face coverings when outside the home.
- Wash hands frequently with soap and water, or if not available, use hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol.
- Avoid touching eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands.
- When coughing or sneezing, cover the nose and mouth with a tissue or inside of the elbow. Immediately dispose of the tissue and wash hands.
Consider what more your business can do
- Chemical distributor Brenntag Southwest gave all on-site employees pint bottles of hand sanitizer to take home. Read more about Brenntag’s infection control strategy.
On the way to work: maintain awareness while in public spaces
When employees take public transportation, they are potentially exposing themselves to the risk of infection. As a follow on to at-home practices, reinforce transportation guidelines for infection control during the daily commute.
- Wear a mask in public settings, such as in buses, trains, and taxis.
- Maintain social distancing at all times, including while waiting for transport and on board.
- Use hand sanitizer after touching frequently used surfaces, such as ticket machines, handrails, benches, and elevator buttons.
- Practice good hygiene and respiratory etiquette at all times while in public.
- Clean hands with soap and water or hand sanitizer immediately before and after the commute.
Consider what more your business can do
- Offer employees incentives to use forms of transportation that minimize close contact with others, such as biking, walking, or driving (alone or with household members).
- Allow employees to shift their hours so they can commute during less busy times.
At the front door: screen everyone for elevated temperatures
One of the most effective ways to prevent outbreaks in the workplace is to make sure that no one enters the building with a fever. Use a self-service welloStationX kiosk to conduct fast, accurate, and efficient temperature screening of every employee and visitor, every day.
- Set staggered shift start times so that fewer employees arrive at the building at any one time.
- Establish a protocol to screen everyone who arrives at the workplace: employees, visitors, suppliers, delivery service personnel, and others.
- Install a Wello kiosk wherever people enter your building, such as at the main reception lobby and employee entrance.
- Set up social distancing markers to enforce a six foot distance between people waiting to be screened.
- Use barriers or partitions to make screening as private as possible.
- Require everyone to wear an “I’m Wello” sticker to indicate to coworkers and building management that they have passed temperature screening that day.