Training Communicates COVID-19 Safety and Security in the New Workplace

We’ve all become familiar with the term the “new normal” because of the impact COVID-19 has had on our society and on our businesses. As people gradually return to their workplaces, they will find many changes as organizations ask them to adjust their behavior and expectations—and patience—to ensure safety in the new work environment, built in response to the global health crisis.

So, how do you acclimate your employees to the new workplace? Training, the most proven and trusted methodology, serves as the primary instrument for communicating critical post-coronavirus workplace information, such as safety and security procedural changes, to your employees. Because this public health crisis is unprecedented, many workers are anxious about the future and concerned they or someone they care about will contract this disease. Training can inform employees about the preventative measures you’ve implemented to protect them, educate them about risks and how to improve their safety at work and home, and make them aware of resources available to support them.

As the crisis moves from the response to recovery phase, businesses need to prepare people for their return well before they take their first step back into the workplace. You can accomplish this by communicating your training, education, and awareness information through virtual forums like webinars and videos to educate your employees on preventative measures, including social distancing and sanitization, as well as reactive procedures, such as quarantining and contact tracing.

Because security is more important than ever in the post-pandemic workplace, you can protect your employees by responding to this emergency as you would other incidents—by maximizing your security protocols. You’ll create a safer and more secure workplace when you take special care to design your security environment using best practices in physical, procedural, technical, and personnel security—and incorporating the unique measures that COVID demands.

Organizations will need to adapt their workplace by identifying COVID-19 symptoms, requiring face coverings, implementing personal hygiene requirements, and ensuring proper social distancing. The new workplace will incorporate unprecedented practices including, among others, temperature screening, COVID-19 testing, antibody testing, health questionnaires, and barring people who have tested positive or who have come in contact with someone who tested positive from the workplace for 14 days. When you clearly and consistently communicate safety information, employees will feel safe, secure, informed, and prepared when they return to work—and you can thank your comprehensive training program for that.

Physical Security Measures
The new workplace will incorporate hand sanitizers, masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE), hand washing areas, and surface disinfectants. You can also consider physical modifications such as reducing the number of access points, increasing the distance between workspaces, communicating procedures with signage, instituting one-way directional paths, installing plexiglass, and limiting elevator occupancy.

Policy and Procedure Modifications
The safe and secure post-pandemic workplace will reflect procedural changes such as limiting on-site personnel to only essential individuals, staggering work shifts and days, prohibiting employees from sharing equipment like laptops and headsets, and decreasing occupancy capacities for workplaces.
You’ll also need to consider modifying current policies to communicate COVID-19 protocols to visitors, including clients, contractors, suppliers, vendors, and delivery personnel, such as limiting the number of visitors, controlling visitor access to restricted areas, and providing escorts for the duration of the visit. In addition, your policy should clearly state that employees have a responsibility for reporting concerns to management and maintaining compliance with company as well as local, state, and federal agency guidelines.

Technical Solutions
Security technologies will play an important role as organizations implement virtual training to educate the workforce on what to expect when they return. Your training can outline how your employees will enter the building using contactless biometric access control systems such as fingerprint matching, retina scanning, and facial recognition to help avoid bottle necking and maintain social distancing. Training will also educate them about how contact tracing technologies, such as Bluetooth devices, global positioning systems (GPS), and card readers, record location and proximity to trace infected personnel to further protect them. Organizations can also train their workforce regarding manual contact tracing that incorporates sign-in sheets, work schedules, shift logs, and time and attendance documents. Employees, security, and management all have a vital role to play in your safe and secure workplace.

As many organizations are operating with a combination of remote and on-site employees, your workforce must understand that the new workplace extends to the home. More people than ever before are working from their residences or quarantined, and employers need to prepare for an increase in mental health issues as well as domestic violence. Accordingly, employee assistance programs (EAPs) have seen a spike in requests for mental health resources and domestic violence hotlines have experienced an increase in calls. Virtual training allows employees to train from their homes and can increase awareness about COVID-19-related and workplace violence safety and security measures.

What does your training curriculum include? Do you offer virtual sessions to communicate the most critical information to your employees—namely how to keep them safe and secure so they can be happy and productive? You can also consider addressing these topics in your best-in-class curriculum: clinical and work-life support services for employees and their families, policies and procedures that address workplace violence and support victims of domestic violence, and enhanced new policies that focus on access control, work from home, and OSHA requirements such as Duty of Care. Your training curriculum can further protect your employees at home and at work by focusing on workplace violence mitigation, threat assessment, active shooter response, and return to work protocols.

We’re Here to Help
The Lake Forest Group is committed to protecting your employees. We can help you determine next steps to create or enhance your safe and secure workplace, especially as employees return to your businesses or continue to remain at home. Contact Mike Verden at [email protected] or 312.515.8747 to discuss whatever is on your mind in a free 30-minute consultation and together we can create a strategy that supports and prioritizes your employees.