The past fortnight has seen a swathe of return to work initiatives across the United States, Europe and Asia brought to a halt or slowed by new cases of Covid-19 that have caused spikes in communities.
Businesses have been at the center of these spikes or closely connected to them in a number of cases.
We've identified some of the clear themes developing for businesses and some of the important cases that business leaders should be aware of as we learn more about the challenges of returning to work during the covid-19 pandemic:
- Business activity that is poorly controlled is leading to new cases of Covid-19 and even large clusters that are behind new community spikes. This is resulting in renewed closures and significant financial impact to the businesses involved.
- In a notable case in Germany a large meat company (Tönnies) is facing customer boycotts, plus threats from the German Government that it will seek damages after poor practices led to development of a huge cluster of cases in its workforce. This cluster has driven a renewed spike in the virus in the nation.
- In Italy, where the situation had been improving, a cluster of new coronavirus cases has emerged at a warehouse in the city of Bologna.
- In Florida, a number of businesses that had reopened have now had Covid-19 cases and been forced to completely close down as they didn’t know how broad the exposure to other employees was.
- Another sobering update from the WHO (World Health Organization) suggests a vaccine for the virus is at least a year away, but it could be two and a half years before it is available to everyone.
What does all this mean for business?
The return to work failures have highlighted the importance of a stringent return to work programme that includes contact tracing and daily wellbeing checks.
There are many factors to be included in your return to work plan, depending on your setting. These will likely include:
- Social distancing protocols
- Team and shift separation
- Increased hygiene procedures
- Automated contact tracing
- Wellbeing checks
- Contactless work and delivery processes
- Work from home initiatives
SaferMe is helping businesses around the world - of all sizes - with automated contact tracing and daily wellbeing checks. We can roll-out to your business quickly with no new infrastructure required.
Book a meeting with one of our international account managers today to see how SaferMe can help your organization return to work safely.
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