General Recommended Actions
The information provided are just suggestions not regulations and only valid at the time of writing. Please stay in tune with your local and state authorities.
- Protect your most vulnerable employees: If you have any employees who are more susceptible to serious symptoms, namely the elderly, those with serious chronic medical conditions or pregnant women, assist them in making plans to stay healthy. Consider allowing them to work from home or granting time off without penalty so they can reduce their exposure. If you are considering this option, you should ask the employee if they would like a workplace accommodation, rather than insisting upon one for them and be sure to keep any medical information confidential.
- Advise sick employees to stay home: Make it clear to employees who experience symptoms (fever, deep cough, wheezing, and shortness of breath) and/or have been exposed to the coronavirus that they need to go home and stay out of the workplace until given the all-clear by their doctor or a public health authority. As an employer, in most circumstances you are within your rights to send a sick or potentially exposed employee home. While inconvenient, it is better to handle the absence of one employee than having several people out sick or, even worse, having your business shut down for 14 days or more for quarantine and deep-cleaning. If you are considering this option, know in advance if you will be paying them while on leave, requiring that they use their sick leave/PTO and what happens if their required leave extends beyond their amount of available paid leave.
- Understand the situation of your employees: If you have an employee whose child’s school is closed or who is put under quarantine while traveling or at home, offer whatever assistance you can. Perhaps extend leave time and/or allow them to work from home so they are not losing wages and you are not missing their productivity while keeping them from infecting your other employees.
- Provide tools for a more sanitary workplace: Implement strict cleaning procedures by requiring employees to clean their work stations and high-use areas such as the break room regularly with Company-provided disinfecting wipes. Make hand sanitizer readily available. Move meetings to larger rooms so employees are not sitting too close together and consider postponing large gatherings. Avoid mass gatherings of employees. Invest in technology to allow for video conferencing and virtual meetings. Eliminate handshakes and other unnecessary contact. Eliminate pot-lucks, birthday celebrations, etc. where people share food.
- Create, expand, or modify your paid-time-off policies: If you have paid-time-off (PTO) policies, consider relaxing them or providing extra days off to encourage employees to stay home when needed and help them compensate for lost wages. If you do not have PTO or sick leave policies, consider creating something for a special circumstance such as a state of emergency.
- Implement a PTO-sharing policy: Consider creating an option to allow employees to donate some of their PTO to employees who may be more at-risk for illness or may not have enough PTO to cover mandated time off. This can eliminate the added costs of giving additional paid days off and build a sense of community among the employees. No employee should be pressured so structuring the policy correctly is crucial. Contact Affinity HR Group (contact@affinityHRGroup.com) for assistance.
- Create a PTO borrowing or wage advance program: Consider implementing a limited-time program to allow employees to borrow from future wages and not-yet-accumulated PTO. Limits should be established and a detailed “Wage Advance” form should be used outlining amount borrowed, repayment plans, and how to recoup advanced but unearned wages (or unaccumulated PTO) if the employee does not work long enough to repay. Affinity HR Group (contact@affinityHRGroup.com) can help you research options allowed under federal and state law and/or draft a form for you to use.
- Institute work-from-home policy and procedures: Review your operations and determine if there are positions and duties that can be handled remotely. If so, develop policies and procedures to allow employees to work from home. Invest in the technology to share files, route calls, and video conference when necessary. Consider “practice“ work from home days to make sure your infrastructure is working prior to having to use it in an actual emergency.
- Review business travel policy: If you have employees who travel for business to visit clients or vendors or to attend conferences, balance each interaction to determine the value and need with the risk for exposure and workplace contamination. You also need to evaluate where and how the employee will be traveling as some areas and modes of transportation have higher incidents of exposure than others. Again, consider investing in readily-available technology to allow for video conferencing and virtual meetings to replace business travel and in-person meetings.
- Ensure continuity of work and information: Prepare your company for the long-term absence of one or more employees or the departure from regular procedures. Be sure everyone is backing up information and leaving necessary materials and files in the office unless they will be working remotely. Cross-train employees to cover if one person is absent. Use web conferencing or conference calls instead of in-person meetings.
Affinity HR Group is a national HR consulting firm. To learn more about Affinity’s services, visit www.AffinityHRGroup.com, or call them at 877-660-6400
Affinity HR Group Inc. and its consultants are not attorneys and cannot provide legal advice. Use of this document may or may not conform to legal standards. Please contact your legal counsel with any concerns related to this document or any advice/support provided by Affinity HR Group Inc.
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