I. Posting & Policies
- Post the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) poster in a visible place. Where employees will remain working from home, send by email or post to Company website.
- Review and revise hiring practices and policies:
- Have staffing needs changed?
- Do you need to change benefits or pay to become more competitive?
- Use remote interviewing techniques as much as possible.
- Update onboarding practices
- If you are recalling only some workers that were laid-off or furloughed, ensure your practice for determining who to recall do not discriminate against any group of employees.
- Review and revise leave policies:
- Know how the FFCRA affects your previous policies and practices.
- Consider implementing PTO/vacation rollovers, grace periods, and revise guidelines for usage if vacation is forfeited if not used by year end.
- Consider implementing or revising bereavement leave policies.
- Ensure that all employees have access to and an understanding of all leave policies that may apply to them.
- Review and revise work from home and child-care policies.
- Update work travel policies in light of any new orders in your state and any new practices being implemented in the workplace to keep employees/customers safe.
- Review rehire/reinstate provisions for your benefit policies (eligibility/waiting periods).
- Distribute all new or revised policies to all employees.
II. Health & Safety
- Explain the company polices and procedures related to illness, cleaning, and disinfecting, and work meeting and travel.
- Educated employees on how to reduce the spread of COVID-19 at home and at work (follow Centers for Disease Control Prevention recommendation).
- For employees returning to a worksite, make sure they understand what’s expected of them in the workplace. For example:
- Must they wear face masks or face coverings?
- Will protective items and hand sanitizer be provided?
- Are workplace hours different?
- Will you be taking employees temperatures each day when they arrive?
- Is teleworking or staggered shift work allowed/encouraged?
- Ensure that all employees who are currently ill or have contract with an ill family member stay home (follow CDC recommendations for length of time.)
- If an employee becomes sick at work, sent them home
- Promote safe social distancing in the workplace by encouraging employees to:
- Remain at least 6 feet from each other
- Email, message, call or video call rather meet face to face
- Clean computer equipment, desktops, phones and workstations often
- Provide hand sanitizer, cleaning supplies, face masks or face coverings and no-touch or disposal receptacles.
- Discourage handshaking
- Place posters throughout the business to encourage social distancing and hand hygiene
III. Best Practices
- Be aware of any local public health or other orders related to COVID-19 that may affect your business.
- Ensure your workplace cleaning company is up to date on current methods of safely removing COVID-19 hazards
- Communicate frequently and as transparently as possible with employees
- Train managers on dealing with employees that may face increased personal challenges during this time, such as bereavement and loss, childcare and school-cancellation challenges, financial stress, and other dependent care and support needs.
- Offer flexibility wherever possible and adjust workloads to be reasonable
- Be prepared to quickly investigate and stop discriminatory speech or acts in the workplace
- Consider contracting with an employee assistance program EAP if you do not currently have one
- Designate a workplace coordinator who will be responsible for COVID-19 issues and their impact at the workplace
- Develop a plan to operate if absenteeism spikes or another shelter-in-place or stay home order occurs in the future:
- Implement a plan to continue essential business functions
- Implement flexible work schedules and leave policies
- Cross-train employees on performing essential business functions
- Develop emergency communication plans, including a way to answer workers’ concerns
- Communicate your appreciation and welcome employees back to work
– THOMAS SANDS
