RETURN TO WORK GUIDANCE FOR DIFFERENT SECTORS
The Government’s long-awaited guidance on how to return to work safely as lockdown restrictions are eased provides 8 papers, each covering a specific sector, brief summaries are provided below:
Construction and outdoor work; Factories, plants and warehouses; Labs and research facilities; Offices and contact centres; Other people’s homes; Restaurants offering takeaway or delivery; Shops and branches; Vehicles
Common to all sectors is the guidance that most workers will not need additional protective equipment, but it stresses the importance of carrying out #Covid19 risk assessments, robust cleaning processes and redesigning workplaces to ensure employees stay two metres apart where possible to ensure a safe return to work.
It also says all employers should carry out risk assessments for returning to work, in consultation with workers or trade unions. Where possible, these should be published on company websites and organisations with more than 50 employees are expected to publish their risk assessments.
CONSTRUCTION AND OUTDOOR WORK
Employers should stagger arrival times, provide multiple entrances to construction sites and use screen barriers to separate workers. Employees should have fixed teams or partners and be allocated a single ‘zone’ within a site to reduce the number of people they come into contact with. Employers should reduce job rotation – so workers have a single task for the day – to limit the number of tools they touch, and employees should not make non-essential trips to other buildings or worksites. Where social distancing is not possible, workers should work back to back or side by side, as opposed to face to face.
FACTORIES, PLANTS AND WAREHOUSES
Similarly to the construction sector, employers should stagger arrival times, reduce movement within factories, work in fixed teams and reduce job and tool rotation. They should review the layout of factories to allow people to work further apart from each other and mark out areas to help with this. Break times should be staggered to reduce the number of people in break rooms, and where possible breaks should be taken outside or in separate parts of the worksite.
LABS AND RESEARCH FACILITIES
As well as staggering work times and looking at the layout of workspaces, employers should limit the number of employees in labs to help maintain social distancing and try to reduce the use of ‘high touch’ items – for example, test equipment – and other shared office equipment. In areas where there is a high risk of airborne particles, employers should ensure access to air handling and filtering systems.
OFFICES AND CONTACT CENTRES
Employers should rethink the layout of offices – moving workstations apart and introducing one-way systems – to reduce the number of people coming into contact with one another. Screens should only be used where it is not possible to move workstations apart. Hot desking should be avoided where possible. Where not possible, workstations should be cleaned between use by different occupants. Employees should attend meetings only when absolutely necessary, and should maintain social distancing throughout. Ideally meetings should be held in well-ventilated rooms or, if possible, outside.
OTHER PEOPLE’S HOMES
Ahead of visiting someone’s home, workers should discuss with that household whether social distancing is possible and ask that all internal doors are left open to minimise contact. They should identify busy areas in the household and try to minimise movement here. Workers should wash their hands on arrival and maintain social distancing where possible. Where jobs are repetitive, the same workers should be assigned to the same households. Where possible, they should travel alone and use their own means of transport. If not possible – for example, for delivery teams – shared journeys should be made by the same individuals each time and good ventilation maintained in vehicles.
RESTAURANTS OFFERING TAKEAWAY OR DELIVERY
Kitchen access should be limited to as few people as possible and interaction between kitchen staff and other workers minimised – including during breaks. Contact at handover points when food is given to waiting staff should also be minimised. The guidance recognised it can be difficult in kitchens to rearrange workstations such as sinks, hobs and ovens, but employers should consider installing cleanable panels to separate them in larger kitchens. Access to walk-in freezers and pantries should be limited to one person at a time.
SHOPS AND BRANCHES
Shops should limit the number of customers who can enter at once so they can reasonably practice social distancing – taking into account floor space and pinch points. Employers should consider limiting the customer service they provide to services that can be offered safely, with clearly designated positions that maintain social distancing. All payments should be made contactless where possible.
VEHICLES
Vehicles should be cleaned regularly and have a sufficient supply of hand sanitiser and cleaning products. Where there is more than one person working in the same vehicle, they should work in fixed teams and if possible be separated by screens. Contact should be kept to a minimum with customers by minimising in-person payment and signing of packages, and pre-arranging areas for goods to be dropped off at.
Full guidance on the return to work, published by the Government can be found here
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