Information and statistics on the Novel Coronavirus are changing every hour, spreading worry and chaos along with the illness. In order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus as well as misinformation associated with it, employers need to have an open dialogue with the employees about the spread of the disease. It becomes a moral responsibility of every organization to discuss the potential impact of the virus and what precautionary measures to be taken to prevent the spread of the disease.
As it is said, “prevention is better than cure”, here, in this article, we are sharing the top tips to safeguard your workplace from getting hit by Corona.
Let’s dive in:
1. Encourage Frequent Hand-Washing for Employees and Visitors:
The best way to prevent the spread of the illness is to keep your hands clean and avoid touching your nose, eyes and mouth. Wash hands with soap and water for 20 seconds properly by rubbing and lathering the backs of the hands, cleaning between fingers and nails as well. To remind employees that they wash their hands regularly, please put signs around the building, especially in public areas such as the pantry and washroom.
2. Use Alcohol-based Sanitizer:
Keep alcohol-based sanitizers at multiple places, depending upon the strength of your workplace and ask employees to use it before returning to the desk after tea and lunch breaks.
3. Routine Environment Cleaning:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended to routinely clean and disinfect all the frequently touched surfaces in the workplaces such as countertops, doorknobs and workstations. Workplaces should be cleaned regularly and using top-notch cleaning agents.
Also, it is suggested to provide employees with disposable wipes so that commonly used surfaces can be wiped down frequently and the risk of virus spread can be reduced further.
4. Encourage Sick Employees to Stay Home:
It is recommended by health professionals that employees who are showing symptoms of acute respiratory illness stay home and not come to work until there are no more signs of fever or for at least 24 hours.
It is suggested to employers to encourage the sick employees for staying at home by offering them paid sick leaves. Sick leave policy should be flexible and align with public health guidance. A sick employee with symptoms of cold and cough could infect other healthy counterparts, which is why it is better to promote social distancing in case someone is sick.
5. Know the Travel Plans of your Employees:
It is recommended to cancel all the upcoming work-related travel plans, especially to countries like China, the UK, and Europe, which have the maximum number of reported cases.
Moreover, if your employees are visiting any of the heavily affected countries due to personal reasons, strongly suggest them to cancel plans. Employees who have a recent international travel history should be given work from home and should be directed for self-quarantine for 14 days.
6. Encourage Work from Home:
Encouraging employees to work from home has become quintessential as there is an exponential rise in the COVID-19 cases around the world. Sick employees coming to office/ workplace for jobs may impose a major risk on the health of others working with them. Hence, it is crucial for employers to consider how to decrease the impact of the spread of acute respiratory illness in the workplace and encourage employees to work from their homes.
Read More: Here are 6 tools that help you manage work from home without any inconvenience
7. Consider Hiring Additional Resources:
If you have a certain project which is needed to be completed on deadline and that is the reason why you are unable to provide sick leaves, then you should consider hiring freelance developers. Hiring additional resources would ensure that you can meet up the client’s deadlines without taking any chances on the health of your employees.
8. Switch to Remote Developers:
Several countries around the world have been shut down to curb the spread of the pandemic. Such a scenario of the complete shutdown is greatly impacting productivity. Business owners and project managers are finding it difficult to get the project completed in a committed period.
Under such a situation, a remote development team can be your saviour. Setting up remote development in countries like India where the spread of the virus is highly under control can help you in meeting the deadlines of the project.
Although hiring freelancers can also be the option to get your development project completed on time. However, freelancers can disappear at any point in time and show a lack of commitment towards the project, which makes it daunting to work with freelancers.
In contrast to this, hiring remote developers simply means reducing the burden from your shoulder. Hiring a remote development team provide you with an opportunity to choose from a wide international talent pool of coders. They will be working just like your in-house team; the only difference would be they will be operating from a safe working environment and at cheaper prices.
This was all about the tips to reduce the risk of the Coronavirus at your workplace. Also, we have provided you with safe and cheap alternatives to your in-house team that will help you in meeting the project deadlines in the present situation of work-from-home and quarantine.
If you enjoyed this article, please do let us know by sharing your valuable comments.
Stay tuned as soon we will be coming up with an answer to the question that you already have or might be coming to your mind, i.e. How to Make a Smooth Transition to Remote Development Team.
Till then, make sure you are safe and preventing the spread of Corona at your workplace.
