The safety of your employees is paramount to ensuring that your company operates at maximum effectiveness. With COVID-19 sweeping across the United States, it is becoming common for business owners to think about new ways to protect their employees from getting infected. Rather than have to deal with sick-offs and the subsequent loss of manhours, a smart business owner is likely to implement the following steps to ensure that he or she has a healthy and secure workforce.
Remote Offices
When it comes to ensuring that employees maintain social distancing, employers are encouraged to get their staff to work from home as much as possible. This means that setting up systems and processes to ensure that workers can work from home with as near-efficiency as they would achieve if they were in the office. Some of the areas that business owners need to be careful about when implementing this are issues such as email security. This is because employees will be sharing files across private Wi-Fi networks of varying security integrity. Many employers are training staff on email security, among other measures to overcome such problems.
Minimizing Physical Contact
Not all employees can work from home and, inevitably, employers will also have to put certain protocols within their workplaces to ensure social distancing and minimal contact. Apart from creating space and putting screens around the office, there are other ways that you can promote social distancing. For example, investing in a more automated office can help make this possible. A networked office means that workers can share files, carry out activities such as printing and faxing with minimal to no contact.
In line with this, a smart business owner will also ensure that the staff wears protective masks at all times. These should be made available where possible and should also be available to customers who may visit the premises.
Cleanliness and Sanitization
Sanitizing your office including your office equipment is a great way of securing your workforce from COVID-19. This means ensuring that commonly used spaces such as cafeterias, lounges, and the general work are kept germ-free. You must not forget to clean areas such as stair rails, door handles, and other spots that are likely to be touched by many people. In line with this, a company should aim to set up hand-washing booths in as many places as feasible. These hand-washing booths should come with soap and disposable paper towels to prevent cross-contamination between employees.
Staggered Work Schedules
Another easy way of enforcing social distance between workers is to stagger work schedules. For example, if you have two or three shifts in a day, you can create a time gap between when one shift ends and when the other starts. This reduces contact between the two groups. One can also stagger lunch breaks as well, especially if staff eat out of a cafeteria within the premises. This also reduces contact between employees and ensures better social distancing.
if you are a business owner seeking to secure his or her workforce and not sure how you can re-design your IT infrastructure to aid this process, Ameritechnology can help. We offer IT products and services to meet all your business needs. From managed IT security to network-capable office equipment, we are a one-stop-shop for all your office equipment and IT needs.
