After years of working from home because of the pandemic, employees are finally returning to the office as restrictions ease. More and more businesses are reopening and our daily activities pre-pandemic are now slowly getting back to normal. While companies and employees may feel a sense of urgency to return to the office, new rules and guidelines are being implemented by DOLE (Department of Labor and Employment) to ensure a safe workplace for all during the pandemic.
Let’s get you ready to return to the office with the best practices to prevent transmission of the COVID-19 virus in the workplace. Read further.
Role of Employers in Responding to COVID-19
When employees are in the office, they are under your responsibility as an employer. Their health and safety should be one of your top priorities, especially the breathing space. This pandemic made having proper ventilation and quality indoor air important to the point that DOLE created guidelines on ventilation for workplaces.
Also Read: 5 Tips to Get Your Business Ready to Regain Control of Air Quality
As an employer, you should play your role in helping prevent and slow down the spread of the virus within the workplace. You should have your own plan for preparedness, control, and response like creating your own extra guidelines and policies apart from the list of government-mandated actions.
As a company, it is also your role to coordinate with your local authorities and health officials to get accurate and timely information about COVID-19 updates. All employers are also tasked to implement and update their plan for a safe workplace to be:
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- Specific to your workplace considering the unique needs and requirements
- Includes measures to control, prevent, or reduce exposures of everyone in the workplace regardless of the role
- Identify all job areas, tasks, and roles with potential exposures to COVID-19.
- Collaborate and get the pulse of employees to effectively communicate important COVID-19 plans and updates.
Prevent Transmission in the Workplace
To safely and efficiently return to the office, all employers need to consider the best practices to prevent and reduce the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace. This will help not only to keep the trust of the employees in their employer but also to keep the business operations up and running.
Here are some tips to avoid exposure and transmission of viruses in the workplace:
1. Actively encourage employees with symptoms, regardless if mild or not, to stay home.
Some team members may not fully understand its importance and might even go to the office with obvious symptoms. This is why you should take extra efforts to educate everyone about the protocols for a safe workplace. It would also help to provide them with helpful tips and recommended steps to follow when they have symptoms such as isolation and foods and medicines to take.
2. Conduct daily in-person health checks.
This will help ensure that everyone in the workplace has no symptoms of COVID-19. You can implement some steps including the following:
- Place a temperature scanner at the entrance and make sure everyone who will enter the office will undergo temperature checking. All body temperatures above 37.5° C must not be allowed to enter the workplace.
- Have a health checklist form that everyone in the office will fill out daily. Advise everyone on the consequences one may face if an employee fails to be honest with their information in the form.
3. Implement physical distancing in all areas of the workplace.
Follow the guidelines on physical distancing of at least 1 meter away from the others. If an employee tested positive for COVID-19 or got any symptoms, it is important that he and all close contact should be isolated and be advised to stay at home. This will help prevent any more transmissions to occur in the workplace.
If you feel there’s a need to create barriers between workstations, you are very much welcome to do so as long as it can create a safe workplace for everyone.
4. Be strict in the proper wearing of face masks (or face shields if necessary).
Make sure everyone is properly wearing a personal protective barrier such as face masks when inside the office premises. Be clear with the exceptions like during meals, brushing of teeth, and if any health issues occur.
It would also help to provide them with PPEs that they can use. If it’s not within your budget, you can at least save some for emergency use like when the face mask of an employee breaks and he has no extra to use.
5. Use Efficient Air Purifiers for a Safe Workplace
The updated guidelines of DOLE on ventilations for workplaces focus mainly on reducing airborne particles in indoor spaces. Having air purifiers with the right air filter type in strategic workplace locations will efficiently help achieve this.
According to professionals, the COVID-19 virus can be spread in a closed area even without direct contact with an infected person. This means that the air quality in an enclosed room should be cleaned.
Air purifiers can help make a better indoor air quality by capturing air particulates including pollen, dust, mold, bacteria, and other fine pollutants. This will help ensure that employees and everyone in the office are breathing quality air, reducing the risk of potential transmission.
Also Read: Your Guide to Choosing an Office Air Purifier
Maintain a Healthy and Safe Workplace
The plans, actions, and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic are continuously evolving. This makes updating our health and safety protocols from time to time an important part of our return to office actions. The preventive measures above are just some of the basic steps you can do. You can implement other specific guidelines and protocols based on your unique business needs.
If you haven’t got an air purifier for your office, we have just the right solution for you. Our Filtro-Pure air purifiers utilize a HEPA filter that can capture up to 99.97% of air particles as tiny as 0.3 microns. To know more about our products and services, get in touch with us.
