Hint – hoarding toilet paper is not the answer
In January 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 to be a global health emergency. On March 11th, it was officially recognized as a pandemic.
As this disease, originally known as Coronavirus, continues to spread across North America, it has the potential to significantly impact thousands of Canadian organizations. As the Optimax team was preparing this blog, it became clear that information was changing daily, sometimes hourly. We wanted to provide you with practical, common sense direction and essential links to help you stay informed.
Educate your employees
Make sure your staff knows what COVID-19 is and how to prevent contracting it. Common signs of COVID-19 include respiratory symptoms, cough, fever, shortness of breath and difficulty breathing. Severe cases can result in pneumonia, acute respiratory syndrome, kidney failure and even death.
COVID-19 can be spread through close contact, particularly if an affected person coughs or exhales within a metre of another person. The healthy person could become ill by breathing in droplets of infected fluid. It can also be caught by touching contaminated objects or surfaces, which could remain infectious for hours or days, depending on the heat and humidity in the room. Most infected people will exhibit mild symptoms and recover, while others become quite sick and require hospital care. Individuals with weakened immune systems or health conditions such as diabetes, heart and lung disease, as well as those over 40, could also be more vulnerable. COVID-19 has an incubation period between two and 14 days. Signs you may be infected include a cough, difficulty in breathing and a fever.
Keep your workplace clean
It starts with clean hands. Put up sign up on every washroom door and over every sink, instructing employees to wash their hands thoroughly, with soap, for twenty seconds.
Provide hand sanitizer and sanitized wipes so each employee can clean his or her work station at least once a day – along with keyboard, remember drawer handles, office door handle, telephone and cell phone.
Promote a culture of understanding
Employees often feel obligated to come into the office and ‘work through’ a cold. Be sure your message is clearly communicated to your staff – if you are exhibiting signs of COVID-19, which are similar to signs of a common cold, stay home. If it turns out to be just a cold, it is still better for one person to lose a few days productivity than to infect multiple employees. If it turns out to be COVID-19, the decision to stay home may save the life of older coworkers who may be more susceptible to the disease, or vulnerable coworkers who have a pre-existing condition like diabetes, asthma or heart condition.
Minimize risk by avoiding unnecessary encounters
This might include encouraging staff to: work from home when possible, use video conferencing rather than organize a group meeting and avoid or postpone business travel.
Also make staff aware of avoiding COVID-19 hot spots when choosing vacation destinations. You may want to consider incentives for ‘staycations’. Staff should be made aware of the company HR policies regarding sick leave if they knowingly visit a global hot spot and are required to self-isolate for 14 days upon arrival to Canada. If they understand they may not be paid for that time, they may want to reconsider their destination.
Create a contingency plan
If you haven’t already completed one, you should create a comprehensive contingency plan. Set up a dedicated team that reports directly to senior management. The team should include members from HR, IT, legal and operations.
The contingency team may be responsible for everything we’ve already discussed in this article, as well as managing contractual risks, dealing with potential insurance claims, maintaining appropriate data and documents, preparing for insolvency risks, managing contractual risks and more. A comprehensive list you can use as a starting point can be found here.
Stay informed
Follow your favourite news source for updates, but be prepared to confirm stories by going directly to the source of information.
Stay current with the situation in Canada with the Public Health Agency of Canada or call their hotline at 1-833-784-4397
Find the most up to date global information from the World Health Organization.
Read the latest information on a local level at the Alberta Government Coronavirus site, or contact Alberta Health Services Health Link across the province by dialing 811
