Intro
It’s no secret that COVID-19 has made safely operating businesses in all industries a challenge. However, it’s not impossible. With a few precautions, you can keep your staff and customers safe and help prevent the virus from spreading. Here are five safety measures that businesses in Los Angeles should take during COVID-19.
- Reorganize your workplace into one that is compliant with social-distancing recommendations
The CDC recommends putting social distancing best practices into place to help reduce the chance of virus transmission. One of the easiest measures you can take is to ensure that there is at least 6 feet (2 meters) between employees and customers. You can do this by rearranging your workspace.
- For restaurants, you can remove tables from the dining room and place markers on the ground to help customers know where to stand.
- For office spaces, you may need to remove desks or move people
- For warehouses and other types of businesses that typically operate in close quarters, you may need to space your employees out.
- Provide safety equipment for your staff
Social distancing is one great step to help your business operate safely during the pandemic. Safety equipment such as masks, gloves, and face shields are another way to help keep your staff and customers healthy.
Encourage your staff to bring their own safety equipment to work, such as personal masks and hand sanitizer. However, you should also provide safety equipment for your staff. Having supplies such as hand sanitizer, masks, gloves, and cleaning supplies available for use will ensure that everyone always has access to protective equipment throughout their work shift.
- Encourage your staff to work from home where possible
If your place of business is one that can transition to a remote workspace, encourage your staff to work from home. This minimizes the potential spread of the virus by minimizing the number of nonessential staff on site. For companies where collaboration and meetings are a daily occurrence, consider switching to Zoom or Google Meetings unless meeting in-person is absolutely necessary.
In addition, encourage your employees to stay home when they show any signs of illness and find coverage for them while they are out. This is especially important since COVID-19 and the flu often have very similar symptoms.
- Have your place of business deep-cleaned daily
In addition to spreading through the air, you can catch COVID-19 from contaminated surfaces. Regularly deep-cleaning your place of business with a professional cleaning service can help keep your workplace as clean and virus-free as possible.
Professional cleaning services use disinfecting misters (also known as ‘electrostatic sprayers’) to sanitize shared workspaces. They may also use antimicrobial products that are designed to prevent pathogens from being able to proliferate on surfaces. Training, certification, and experience with sanitation best practices will help ensure that your place of business stays a clean and healthy place to work.
If your staff takes care of the cleaning in your business, update your cleaning guidelines with the building disinfecting guidance as outlined by the CDC, which you can read here.
- Get pop-up COVID-19 testing for your staff
COVID-19 testing is the most important thing you can do to help protect your staff and your customers. Tests help identify who’s sick so you can quickly make adjustments to your operations and prevent further spread.
However, the demand for testing in Los Angeles means that clinics and hospitals are swamped. It also means that the lines at drive-in testing centers are often hours-long. Instead of relying on your employees to self-certify that they’ve tested negative, you can always get a pop-up COVID-19 test at your place of business.
Workplace COVID-19 testing is an important part of building a testing plan, where employees are regularly tested on an ongoing basis. This helps catch early cases before they spread throughout the staff, helping you not only resume normal operations but also providing a safe place for your staff to work. Services such as Concierge MD LA come directly to your workplace to administer tests, saving you and your staff the time and hassle of waiting at community testing centers.
Conclusion
Operating a business during the COVID-19 pandemic is challenging but manageable with precautions such as the ones we’ve listed above. In addition, you can find plenty of business guidance resources from the CDC, such as the General Business Operations Guidelines and the Resuming Business Toolkit, to help you keep your staff and customers as safe and healthy as possible throughout the pandemic.