How should employers deal with Swine Flu?
Posted by John Park on Apr 30th, 2009
2009
Apr 30
I’ve been reading quite a bit lately about labor laws, compliance posters and OSHA standards. This is due to our newest client, AllInOnePosters.com, one of the nation’s leading manufacturers of HR Compliance Posters.
Along with that thought process, I started to investigate how business owners should be dealing with the current and possible Swine Flu pandemic. As employers or heads of companies, you have an obligation to make sure your workplace is properly and accurately dealing with this possible cause for great concern. At the end of the day, it’s all about being ready to protect your employees and being in compliance with any state or federal standards.
I came across this great article about the issue on OCRegister.com, our hometown newspaper. You might find it extremely informative about how to deal with the Swine Flu pandemic in the workplace. Here is an excerpt.
For most employers, protecting their employees during an influenza pandemic will depend on two basic approaches: emphasizing “common sense” hygiene (cleaning hands and decontaminating surfaces) and practicing “social distancing.” Social distancing means reducing the frequency, proximity, and duration of contact between people (both employees and customers) to reduce the chances of spreading pandemic influenza virus from person-to-person.
Employers may take additional protective measures, including engineering changes, procedure changes, and requiring the use of personal protective equipment, based upon the specific occupational exposure risk of their job tasks and work place. Use of respiratory protection (respirators) and barrier protection (facemasks) may be components of a comprehensive plan to prepare workplaces for an influenza pandemic, but employers must comply with applicable OSHA standards.
May 1st, 2009 at 6:35 am
Yesterday a client told us that two schools have already closed in her county and that she didn’t know what to do about the trial next week and I thought “What if they close the courthouses?”
May 19th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
During these times, we really have to take extra precautions to keep our workplaces safe. It’s better to take preventive measures than to address actual cases and even deal with shut downs due to this pandemic. Thanks for sharing this!