COVID 19: Contact Tracing, Health & Safety and Your Company
In this time of COVID-19, Companies have set out to best support their employees with health and safety measures to mitigate the risk of contracting and transmitting COVID-19. From cleaning protocols to distancing and company-specific standards that are unique to maintain safety while fulfilling their task-specific job while at work, Companies have come to unite against COVID-19.
We at Timecloud are privileged to offer our new digital contact tracing tool to Companies. Our software tool helps you efficiently track and manage the attendance of visitors, employees, and contractors. You may be asking how you will be gathering information and contact tracing of your staff and visitors – we can help
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Prework Health Checks, personal and bubble related information must be collected so to ensure a single source of truth is easily accessible and further supports your employees’ safety. It is vital in this time that you’ll determine when and how you capture this information, who is the best person to oversee this, what reporting systems you would need to implement. Be sure to communicate to all staff before the commence with your health and safety plan and contact tracing solution so to ensure that your policy is swiftly underway from day one of recommencing work on site.
If you have a confirmed or suspected case ensure that all staff knows the process outlined so to ensure best that they and their colleagues are best kept safe.
All Onsite records for Employees, Contractors, and Visitors are to be easily accessible and neatly collected, ready for access. Training and re-induction of staff may be necessary and rather be sure to go over health and safety and contact tracing procedures again with a staff member who is returning to work after some time. Location records will be beneficial in keeping with where exactly various entries have been on site.
Additional Vital Health and Safety questions to think about:
- How will you manage Social/Worker distancing during arriving, during the work period, breaks and leaving?
- What cleaning or hygiene arrangements need to happen?
- What plant, machinery inspection, or maintenance is required.?
- If the job needs PPE, do you have enough for each person?
Here are some distance and hygiene top tips:
DISTANCING 
Create ‘Bubbles within Bubbles’
- Separating into smaller teams
- Create zones
- 2 metres uncontrolled
- 1 metre controlled (this is a must and how will you record this?)
- Morning tea/break rooms (1 in 1 out or 2m rule) Hallways etc
TOP TIPS
- Talk about physical distancing and hygiene in daily briefings.
- Staff feel valued and take more ownership when you are asking for their input around H&S.
- Review the Ministry of Health information weekly.
EXPECTATIONS
Worksafe NZ recommends that Companies keep a register of all people, both: workers and visitors, entering or leaving the workplace, all people that workers have contact with while conducting their work.
KEEPING RECORDS
You should keep the records for at least two months, in case the local Public Health Unit needs to access them.
WHAT DO WE NEED TO CAPTURE
At a minimum, you should collect the following information:
- Full name (not nickname)
- Contact telephone number
- Postal address ( for workers )or the name of the visitor’s Company
- Reason for visit
- Duration.
Lowering the Transmission Rate:
Keith Woodford is right in saying: ” Success against COVID-19 depends on driving down the transmission rate such that on average, each infected person infects less than one other person…” ( Click here to access the full article ). Social distancing by 2 metres is vital to be maintained in work situations, wash hands often, if sick, stay at home and call the COVID-19 hotline if you are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms.
COVID 19 is very contagious and can be transmitted via tiny water droplets from a person or can be present on a surface. Prevention is still the number one option, but what happens if someone contracts COVID-19 and does come in risk proximity to your business, your visitors, your clients?
If not picked up quickly and responded to fast enough, the infection can spread like wildfire and further negatively impact your visitors and employee health, resulting in a negative impact on your Company’s and extended community’s operations. It is essential to work with health and safety authorities around this time to ensure that an effective, accurate way of contact tracing is in place.
This means, monitoring and managing all your staff, visitors, and contractors attendance while your Company is in operation during COVID-19. Contact tracing is a useful measure taken, when someone has to have reported that they have contracted COVID-19, to effectively prevent the further spread of infection and trace their whereabouts. Remember that acting quickly and efficiently is vital in this time, our software tool has all the data of time and attendance readily available to best help support you and your team toward your health and safety.
Each person, community and Company, is not only helping flatten the curve of COVID-19 but is helping squash the curve, we at Timecloud are proud to offer our new digital contact tracing solution to play our part in best helping Companies #squashthecurve
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