Ensuring the Safety of Your Workers During the Coronavirus Crisis

With cases of Coronavirus (COVID-19) exponentially increasing worldwide, the risk of infection is becoming a progressively serious concern for all. For organisations, who have a travelling workforce, or workers operating alone, journey management or worker monitoring solutions must be considered. Many of the worst affected regions are economic business hubs and travelling and lone workers in these places are common.  

SafetyIQ Journey Management Technology can effectively tell you where your workers are, so you are aware if there are any immediate risks, but more importantly in the current climate, it can also tell you where they have been.  This allows you to make educated and timely decisions around the need for quarantining staff.  As COVID-19 has been observed to be highly infectious, necessary safety precautions must be implemented by businesses to ensure the safety of their workers.   SafetyIQ is more than just Journey Management. 

SafetyIQ allows employees who are working from home to complete a risk assessment of their working environment and gives employers peace of mind knowing their employees are safe no matter where they are.

As of March 2020, the global infection toll is well over 100,000, with cases spread across more than 100 countries. New cases of Coronavirus are spread through the contact of droplets from coughing and contaminated hands or surfaces. While most of the time symptoms will resolve on their own, people with existing respiratory illnesses are at a much higher risk of serious health concerns. 

Below are some tips to help organisations minimise the risks of a travelling workforce: 

Eliminate or Minimise International Travel

Although cases of Coronavirus are present in many countries, greater precautions should be considered when travelling to high-risk locations including Italy, China, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Iran. It’s highly recommended that travellers avoid non-essential travel to these areas. If it is absolutely necessary however, travellers need to stay home for 14 days on return to self-quarantine. Businesses can implement a range of actions to ensure safe travel, such as:

• Frequently checking with the Smartraveller website to minimise or completely avoid travel to high risk locations.
• If travelling to these locations, businesses should enforce the 14-day self-quarantine advice put forward by the Australian Government.
• Educate and provide information to workers on how to minimise the risk of infection when travelling to a different country

Workers Duty of Care

Workers must be educated about how they can take care of their own health, as well as the health of others around them. Hygiene practices can be encouraged in the workplace through the provision of sanitary products and guidelines. This can include:

• 60-95% Alcohol-based hand sanitiser stations around the office
• Utilise disinfectants and household cleaning sprays to wipe down often-touched areas (door handles, elevator buttons, etc.)
• Encourage workers to frequently wash their hands for at least 20 seconds using alcohol-based hand-wash/soap
• Cover mouth when coughing, but use inside of elbow rather than hands
• Avoid contact with others if feeling unwell. Rather, stay home and seek professional medical advice

Follow Up Government Regulations

Businesses must be able to effectively comply with the latest regulations put forward by government services. With very limited time to prepare for the Coronavirus outbreak, organisations should continue to keep track of the latest regulations to plan ahead and formulate strategies that allow continued productivity, while ensuring sufficient compliance. These strategies may be as simple as reviewing HR policies to give greater flexibility to normal working arrangements, to enable employees to continue working productively without endangering them. Keep your workers safe during these unstable situations.

For more information on how journey management systems can help protect your workers, speak to the team at SafetyIQ.