During the pandemic, Haughton Law, LLC has fielded calls from a number of business owners asking how they should handle sick or exposed employees. While it is possible to handle each situation on a case-by-case basis, it’s a much better business practice to think ahead about common issues that may arise and draft a COVID-19 safety plan, so that employees can be reassured that potential health issues will be handled equitably and reasonably.
What goes into a COVID-19 safety plan? Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer, as a variety of factors, such as your location, the size of your business, the type of workplace you have, the general hazard exposure level for your industry and region, etc., must be considered. A thorough safety plan should include discussion of workplace mitigation tactics, such as spacing employees’ workstations further apart, installing barriers between employees and the public, using heightened filtration systems in your HVAC system, and any other concerns that you think apply to your business workspace and are comfortable implementing.
In addition, you need to think about whether you are going to allow employees to telework, whether paid or unpaid sick leave will be offered to employees who are showing signs of illness and for how long it will last, whether you will have pre-work health screening protocols, such as taking employees temperatures, etc. In addition, if you do have an employee test positive or report close exposure (like a family member in the employee’s home) to someone who’s received a positive test result, your plan should include the actions that you’ll take in response, such as removing the employee from the workplace, conducting contact tracing, and communicating the news to other employees.
As you can see, there is a lot to think about when you’re preparing a COVID-19 safety plan. We at Haughton Law, LLC are happy to help you walk through your safety plan and ensure it not only includes contingency plans for common occurrences but is also compliant with all federal, state, and local laws.