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WorkSafeNZ has produced a template to help permitted businesses get back up and running under level 3.
The key measures outlined by WorkSafe include supporting people with flu-like symptoms to self-isolate, ensuring separation distances, disinfecting surfaces, maintaining good hygiene, particularly hand hygiene and good cough/sneeze etiquette, and keeping records to facilitate contact tracing.
More information can be found here.
Meanwhile, Warkworth human resources consultant fears permitted businesses are woefully under-prepared to get back to work next week.
Tanya Gray, of Consulting HQ, was talking to a business owner this week who when asked if he had a plan in place to operate under alert level 3 said, ‘Oh, everybody will just keep two metres apart from each other’.”
Ms Gray says such an approach is hopelessly inadequate and businesses need to apply considerably more thought to the practical implications of trading at level 3.
She says the first thing businesses have to do is formulate a workplace safety plan.
The plan outlines how to break a business up into separate bubbles and then into larger units or zones, and how to avoid each contaminating the other.
Ms Gray says this may be relatively simple in an office, where an office team forms a single bubble. A two-person team that performs work outside the office may constitute another bubble. “This team must carefully manage their distancing from other workers operating at the same site in their respective bubbles and be sure they are not carelessly sharing the same tools and equipment,” she says. “Should another team member be assigned to the same job, they would need to travel in a separate vehicle to avoid breaching the two-metre rule.”
Before staff start arriving back at work, businesses need to do a risk assessment on each staff member assessing their vulnerability to Covid-19 and whether they are likely to have been exposed to it, with a view to protecting those most at risk and isolating those who may be liable to transmit the virus.
Other things businesses should consider include securing personal protective equipment, disinfectant and other cleaning materials, and portable toilets if necessary.
Adds that a business must keep a register of everyone who enters a business, including customers and couriers, to facilitate contact tracing, and businesses need to work out how to process payments and transfer of documents entirely electronically rather than relying on paper.
“If a business suffers an outbreak of Covid-19, WorkSafe will look into this and if the director has not ultimately fulfilled their obligations under the new protocols, then they are going to get into trouble,” Ms Gray says.
“Not to mention that the incidence of Covid-19 could pop back up again, and we will all have to go back to level 4.”
