Employee safeguards

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A safe workplace is a productive workplace. Doing business in the time of COVID-19 presents many challenges, but there are steps to take to reduce the threat of spreading the disease and losing precious production time.

Here are some guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to maintain healthy business operations.

Consider identifying a workplace coordinator who will be responsible for COVID-19 issues and their impact at the workplace. Meet with that person or team (based on the size of your operation) weekly.

Implement flexible sick leave and supportive policies and practices.

• Ensure that sick leave policies are flexible and consistent with public health guidance and that employees are aware of and understand these policies.
• Maintain flexible policies that permit employees to stay home to care for a sick family member or take care of children due to school and childcare closures. Additional flexibilities might include giving advances on future sick leave and allowing employees to donate sick leave to each other.
• The Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA or Act) requires certain employers to provide their employees with paid sick leave or expanded family and medical leave for specified reasons related to COVID-19.
• Employers with fewer than 500 employees are eligible for 100% tax credits for Families First Coronavirus Response Act COVID-19 paid leave provided through December 31, 2020, up to certain limits.
• Employers that do not currently offer sick leave to some or all of their employees should consider drafting non-punitive “emergency sick leave” policies.
• Employers should not require a COVID-19 test result or a healthcare provider’s note for employees who are sick to validate their illness, qualify for sick leave, or to return to work.
• Under the American’s with Disabilities Act, employers are permitted to require a doctor’s note from your employees to verify that they are healthy and able to return to work. However, as a practical matter, be aware that healthcare provider offices and medical facilities may be extremely busy and not able to provide such documentation in a timely manner. Most people with COVID-19 have mild illness and can recover at home without medical care and can follow CDC recommendations to determine when to discontinue home isolation and return to work.
• The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has established guidance regarding Pandemic Preparedness in the Workplace and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The guidance enables employers to take steps to protect workers consistent with CDC guidance, including requiring workers to stay home when necessary to address the direct threat of spreading COVID-19 to others.
• Review human resources policies to make sure that your policies and practices are consistent with public health recommendations and with existing state and federal workplace laws (for more information on employer responsibilities, visit the Department of Labor’s and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s websites).
• Connect employees to employee assistance program (EAP) resources, if available, and community resources as needed. Employees may need additional social, behavioral, and other services, for example, to help them manage stress and cope.

Communicate supportive workplace polices clearly, frequently, and via multiple methods.

Employers may need to communicate with non-English speakers in their preferred languages.

• Train workers on how implementing any new policies to reduce the spread of COVID-19 may affect existing health and safety practices.
• Communicate to any contractors or on-site visitors about changes that have been made to help control the spread of COVID-19. Ensure that they have the information and capability to comply with those policies.
• Create and test communication systems that employees can use to self-report if they are sick and that you can use to notify employees of exposures and closures.
• Consider using a hotline or another method for employees to voice concerns anonymously.

Assess your essential functions and the reliance that others and the community have on your services or products.

• Be prepared to change your business practices, if needed, to maintain critical operations (e.g., identify alternative suppliers, prioritize existing customers or temporarily suspend some of your operations).
• Talk with business partners about your response efforts. Share best practices with other businesses in your communities (especially those in your supply chain), chambers of commerce, and associations to improve community response efforts.
• When resuming onsite business operations, identify and prioritize job functions for continuous operations. Minimize the number of workers present at worksites by resuming business operations in phases, balancing the need to protect workers with support for continuing operations.

Determine how you will operate if absenteeism spikes.

These spikes may come from increases in sick employees, those who stay home to care for sick family members, and those who must stay home to watch their children until childcare programs and K-12 schools resume.

• Plan to monitor and respond to absenteeism at the workplace.
• Implement plans to continue your essential business functions in case you experience higher-than-usual absenteeism.
• Prepare to institute flexible workplace and leave policies.
• Cross-train employees to perform essential functions so the workplace can operate even if key employees are absent.

Establish policies and practices for social distancing.

Alter your workspace to help workers and customers maintain social distancing and physically separate employees from each other and from customers, when possible. Here are some strategies that businesses can use:

• Implement flexible worksites (e.g., telework).
• Implement flexible work hours (e.g., rotate or stagger shifts to limit the number of employees in the workplace at the same time).
• Increase physical space between employees at the worksite by modifying the workspace.
• Increase physical space between employees and customers (e.g., drive-through service, physical barriers such as partitions).
• Use signs, tape marks, or other visual cues such as decals or colored tape on the floor, placed 6 feet apart, to indicate where to stand when physical barriers are not possible.
• Implement flexible meeting and travel options (e.g., postpone non-essential meetings or events in accordance with state and local regulations and guidance).
• Close or limit access to common areas where employees are likely to congregate and interact.
• Prohibit handshaking.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC.gov/coronavirus