What steps can be taken to protect the health & safety of returning employees?

Government Update: As of the 4th of July, 2020, the two metre social distancing rule has been replaced by a one metre social distancing rule. People are advised to keep a "one metre plus" distance rule in places where two-metres are not possible.

The impact that COVID-19 has had on the world has been unprecedented, and the research on how to limit the spread of the virus is still very much under development. This creates a hard task for employers when it comes to assessing and putting in place appropriate measures for stopping the spread of the virus.

However, regardless of the circumstances, it is still an employer’s responsibility under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 to conduct a suitable and sufficient risk assessment of all work activities that their employees are involved in. In a risk assessment, employers must identify hazards and assess their degree of risk.

As per government guidance, employers must carry out a COVID-19 Risk Assessment before any employee is to return so that they can take appropriate action to mitigate any risks that they identify. This must be reviewed regularly and revisited and amended where needed if there is a dramatic change in the workplace.

“You should share the results of your [Covid-19] risk assessment with your workforce. If possible, you should consider publishing the results on your website (and we would expect all employers with over 50 workers to do so).”

- UK Government

Legally, employers must provide their employees with specific details about the risks that they have identified and measures they are taking to prevent the risks. However, it is good for employees to also be offered a single point of contact to discuss any concerns that they have.

Here’s what employers are likely to have to consider when managing ongoing health and safety risks:

• Rearranging workstations to ensure that these are at least two metres as part of social distancing measures.
• Potentially purchasing perspex desk screens.
• Avoid staff sharing work equipment where possible.
• Limiting the number of people who are in the office at any one time.
• Providing face masks for employees to wear and providing information on how they should be used depending on Government guidance.
• Using floor markings to indicate two-meter distances in areas which employees use frequently.
• Allowing employees who travel to and from work on public transport to have more flexible start and finish times.
• Restricting employees from attending non-essential meetings.
• Providing an area for employees to go if they are presenting Coronavirus symptoms in the workplace and cannot leave immediately.
• Providing easy access to handwashing facilities and access to hand sanitisers.
• Temporarily closing any common areas where social distancing will be difficult to achieve.
• Increasing deep cleaning of the office and frequently cleaning surfaces and objects that are handled regularly

Another important area for employers to consider is how they will protect the mental wellbeing of their employees.

Employers should provide guidance to managers on how to assist their team should they have any concerns about their mental health.

We offer an online Mental Health Awareness Training for Managers course that is designed to make management teams aware of mental health issues and illnesses inside and outside the workplace. The course provides wellbeing-management techniques that aim to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health in the workplace.

How iHASCO can help

Here at iHASCO, we have been working hard to develop our Returning to Work Essentials Training bundle that incorporates a variety of courses that focus on areas that will be key upon returning to the workplace.

These courses are designed for organisations that want to implement training before they make the return to work, and after they have returned to work. This offers our clients flexibility to create a training plan that includes said topics and our other essential training courses like GDPR Essentials Training and Manual Handling Training, which will also be applicable to many organisations upon returning to work.

As well as creating courses to assist our clients with a safe and smooth return to work, we have been busy producing resources to help every UK organisation towards the same goal. One example of this is our newly-released free sample policies - you can check them out here!

If you’d like to see our training for yourself, you can claim a no-obligation free trial to any of our courses today! You’ll have over 100 accredited eLearning courses to pick from and you can witness first-hand how iHASCO makes training simple!