05/04/2020
To protect customers and employees alike, it’s important for organizations to do their due diligence before opening their business back up to the public following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Determining When to Reopen
We are at or nearing a time when stay-at-home regulations are scaled back and all businesses are allowed to resume. The question then is: How will business owners know it is acceptable to reopen? Remember that just because you MAY reopen doesn't mean you MUST reopen. And you should not reopen until you have a plan for how to do it safely.
The following are some best practices to keep in mind:
Review guidance from state and local governments—The COVID-19 pandemic impacts states and regions in different ways.
Understand the risks—When the government allows all businesses to reopen, that doesn’t mean COVID-19 is no longer a threat to your operations. What’s more, some businesses may have greater COVID-19 exposures than others, underscoring the importance of performing a thorough risk assessment before reopening. Prior to conducting a risk assessment, it’s important to review guidance from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), state and local agencies, industry associations as well as your local health department. Also before reopening, it’s important to seek the expertise of legal, insurance and other professionals.
Conducting a Risk Assessment
Before reopening, businesses should perform a risk assessment to determine what steps must be taken. While the complexity of risk assessments will differ from business to business, they typically involve the following steps:
Identifying the hazards—When it comes to COVID-19, businesses need to think critically about their exposures, particularly if an infected person entered their facilities. When identifying hazards, it’s a good idea to perform a walk-through of the premises and consider high-risk areas (e.g., break rooms and other areas where people may congregate). It’s also important to consider what tasks employees are performing and whether or not they are especially exposed to COVID-19 risks when performing their duties.
Deciding who may be harmed and how—Once you’ve identified hazards to your business, you need to determine what populations of your workforce are exposed to COVID-19 risks. When performing this evaluation, you will need to make note of high-risk individuals (e.g., staff members who meet with customers or individuals with preexisting medical conditions).
Assessing risks—Once you have identified the risks facing your business, you must analyze them to determine their potential consequences. For each risk facing your business, you’ll want to determine:
How likely is this particular risk to occur?
What are the ramifications should this risk occur?
When analyzing your risks, consider potential financial losses, compliance requirements, employee safety, business disruptions, reputational harm and other consequences.
Controlling risks—There are a variety of methods businesses can use to manage their risks, including:
Risk avoidance—Risk avoidance is when a business eliminates certain hazards, activities and exposures from their operations altogether.
Risk control—Risk control involves preventive action.
Risk transfer—Risk transfer is when a business transfers their exposures to a third party.
For COVID-19, control measures could include cleaning protocols, work from home orders and mandated personal protective equipment (PPE) usage. Additional workplace considerations can be found below.
Monitoring the results—Risk management is an evolving, continuous process. Once you’ve implemented a risk management solution, you’ll want to monitor its effectiveness and reassess. Remember, COVID-19 risks facing your business can change over time.
Maintaining Workplace Safety Using OSHA and CDC Guidance
Once you conduct a risk assessment, you will need to act to control COVID-19 risks. Again, risks and the corrective steps that organizations take to address those risks will vary by business and industry.
There are a number of OSHA and Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) workplace controls to consider if your risk assessment determines that COVID-19 poses a threat to your employees or customers.
Consider engineering controls—Protect workers and customers by removing hazardous conditions or by placing a barrier between the worker and the hazard. For COVID-19, engineering controls can include installing high-efficiency air filters, increasing ventilation rates in the work environment, installing physical barriers, such as clear plastic sneeze guards between workers or between workers and customers.
Implement administrative controls—Changes in work policies or procedures that reduce or minimize an individual’s exposure to a hazard. An example of an administrative control for COVID-19 is establishing alternating days or extra shifts that reduce the total number of employees in a facility at a given time, do virtual meetings, limit the number of customers in the facility at a time, social distancing, and a regular disinfecting routine of commonly touched surfaces (like keyboards, switches office equipment, doorknobs and so forth).
Utilize Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)— PPE is equipment worn by individuals to reduce exposure to a hazard, in this case, CVOID-19. Businesses should focus on training workers on and proper PPE best practices. Employees should understand how to properly put on, take off and care for PPE. Training material should be easy to understand and must be available in the appropriate language and literacy level for all workers.
Be adaptable—You should be prepared to change your business practices if needed to maintain critical operations. This could involve identifying alternative suppliers, prioritizing existing customers or suspending portions of your operations.
Create a dialogue with vendors and partners—Talk with business partners about your response plans. Share best practices with other businesses in your communities, and especially those in your supply chain.
Discourage workers from using other workers’ phones, desks, offices, or other tools and equipment, when possible. If necessary, clean and disinfect them before and after use.
Providing disposable wipes so that commonly used surfaces can be wiped down by employees before each use.
Continued Safety
While resuming operations following the COVID-19 pandemic may seem like a daunting task, businesses don’t have to go it alone. To help with this process, organizations can seek the help of professionals regarding what actions they need to take to ensure their business reopens smoothly.
