Coronavirus outbreak has shaken everyone. Olympics have to be postponed, offices have to be shut making losses spike for private companies. Thus as an HR your workplace is impacted. Researchers worldwide have manifest that offices are hot beds for infections and contamination due to open office setup, sealed ventilation system, and employees coming in contact with people in packed public transportation while coming to offices.
Your CEO and employees will look upto you as the Coronavirus crisis grow and lockdown continues.
Here is how you can make a detail Coronavirus HR response Plan
Be compliant
It is a known fact that Coronavirus originated from China's Wuhan, however, it this shall not give any right to any of your employees in the office to name it Chinese Virus as this violates Human rights.
This could create a discriminatory behaviour for Chinese people working from your offices in India and hence when dealing with such issues you shall look at The Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 so it never becomes a complaint issue for you.
Work from Home and Sick Policies
Work from home became a household name specifically after the lockdown. Since offices are shut to contain the spread of Coronavirus, govt made it a mandate for employees to work from home. So have a Work from Home policy if you don't have one still yet.
Once normalcy is back, and your employee come to office feeling sick like:
- Coughing
- Sneezing
- Fever
Ask them to go home and work from home until they are not well. Ensure that all the area is sanitised and disinfected. Educate your employees and make sure they do not come office feeling sick, this could spread the virus in the entire office within few hours.
Eliminate Travel
Travel elimination across the world should be limited and only employees on an extremely urgent plan shall be allowed to travel with precautionary measures. Employees have to travel for sales, conferences and for other business requirements and hence their safety is also important. To the maximum possible ask them to do digital meetings.
Suspend Technology System
Researchers have found that in a matter of few hours a virus can infect the entire office. This kudos to touch based systems employed at offices, typical touch based systems are:
- Biometric Attendance System
- iPad based Visitor Management System
- Touch based Coffee Machines
Precaution is better than cure and hence update your office with non human touch systems.
Office Hygiene
Take the right step to fight the spread of viruses in office. Every day clean all desks, laptops, PC's, door knobs and all the commonly touched places in the office. Get disposable wipes for employees so they cleaning their hands every now and then. Hand sanitisers shall be placed on all doors so employees can keep cleaning their hands whenever door knobs are touched.
Employee Education
Educate employees that at the end of the day, the fight against all viruses depends upon the measure they take. Educate them to speak with a colleague to not put hands inside the cookie jar, inform them to inform you when they fall sick from the infection. Have a session on workplace hygiene and tell them to keep washing hands after every 20 mins for 20 seconds.
Taking these measures would help you keep your office safe and employees would be able to work more thus bringing you more hygiene.
