Taking Care of Your Staff Properly

Right now, many people’s work situations are changing radically. The coronavirus and Covid-19 pandemic have caused countless changes in the workplace and it can often feel pretty difficult to keep up with the regular changes to rules and guidelines. If you’re an employer, however, you really do need to take this responsibility seriously. Keeping your staff safe and taking proper care of them should be top of your list of priorities at any time – never mind in the midst of a worldwide pandemic. If you fail to look after your staff, you aren’t only likely to end up with a moral burden on your hands, but you could face compensation cases and other legal cases, which could result in expenses and a damaged reputation that your business might not be able to survive during these already difficult times. So, where can you start? Here are a few suggestions that should help you out!

Basic Health and Safety

Let’s start with some basic health and safety advice. As an employer, it is your duty and responsibility to make sure that every single one of your staff members is safe at work. This means that you need to provide them with a safe working environment to operate within and that you need to make sure that they are fully trained and competent in any task you’re asking them to carry out. These tasks need to be risk assessed to ensure that they are reasonable and as safe as possible. There are countless health and safety rules, guidelines and measures in place to make sure that you are definitely doing this. Make sure to eliminate as many risks as possible in the workplace. If there are any risks that are permanent and can’t really be changed (such as low ceilings or sudden steps), you need to highlight the potential hazards with signs. You also need to highlight temporary risks (like a wet floor) with temporary signs (such as a wet floor sign). Conduct risk assessments wherever necessary and provide all protective equipment needed for staff to safely complete the tasks you are asking of them. If any of your staff experience an injury, make sure that they know they need to file an incident report form within seven days for workers comp.

Pandemic Health and Safety

Of course, there are going to be some more pandemic-specific aspects of health and safety that you’ll need to explore right now too. Here are some steps you can take to slow and minimise the spread of the virus within your workplace.

• Provide hand sanitiser
• Provide face masks
• Implement social distancing stickers on the floor
• Ensure staff can operate two metres apart
• Install plastic barriers between staff members where necessary

It may feel difficult to protect your staff right now. But where it is possible, the above pieces of information could really help!