Coronavirus and the challenges facing business owners

Since its emergence back at the start of 2020, Coronavirus has transformed all aspects of our lives – from how we travel to how we socialize and shop. The world changed significantly over the last year, but perhaps the biggest reverberations came in business and the changes to how we work. 

Photo by Ivan Samkov from Pexels

Now, as we enter the fourth quarter of the year (and despite months of lockdown and social distancing) many experts predict the virus may be entering a second wave. Just as confidence was rising and business owners had begun slowly welcoming their employees back to the workplace, it seems we may need to return to the draconian measures seen earlier in the year. 

Employers are responsible for the safety of their staff

Even through normal times, employers have a duty of care to their staff – to allow them to execute their duties in the safest environment possible. Clearly some jobs carry more risk than others (e.g. working in the emergency services, army or construction industry), but even in seemingly more sedate or innocuous roles, employers still have an obligation to ensure employee safety. Coronavirus has the potential to make any job dangerous.

Finding a successful balancing between COVID safety and productivity

Unfortunately, many experts suggest the development of a vaccine to COVID could be a long way off. Similar-type vaccines have taken upwards of ten years in the past. However, it’s clear the world can’t continue as it is and a huge number of companies are facing hardship (and, in some cases, collapse) through the lack of output caused by distancing and isolation. 

Consequently, business owners are being put in an impossible position, trying to find a balance between restarting productivity and maintaining employee safety. 

Finding a successful answer to return to work policies

While home-working has proved successful in some traditionally office-based roles, a high percentage of vocations rely on human contact, the use of tools or group activity – tasks that simply cannot be done at home (e.g. the manufacturing and retail sectors).

To counter this, employers have been forced to adopt many of the measures we’ve seen in general society into their workplaces to allow the return to work to continue. With a few simple precautions taken on the part of employees and employers, the dangers of COVID can be mitigated – however it’s going to take effort on the part of all concerned. 

Steps you can take to make a safer working environment

As a first step, employers should perform a full risk assessment and analysis of their work environment, to identify problem areas or procedures which might present a hazard. Also, business owners are suggested to:

  • Insist on regular handwashing and disinfection of shared tools or spaces
  • Force the wearing masks at all times when distancing isn’t possible
  • Encourage respiratory hygiene including maintaining distancing and covering coughs
  • Force the wearing masks in situations when distancing isn’t possible
  • Perform environmental cleaning of the workplace at regular intervals
  • Increase COVID awareness and provide extra training where appropriate
  • Insist unwell employees stay home and isolate if they’re showing COVID-like symptoms
  • You can also consider to buy a few coronavirus antigen test kits that you can give to your employees, if they think they may have contracted the virus.

As we struggle through Coronavirus and try to find signs of our previous normality returning, work can be one of the best ways to maintain overall morale and positivity. Only time will tell how long we’ll have to adopt these additional measures; however, most would agree the benefits gained from returning to work and restarting the economy far outweigh the potential inconveniences. 

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