Now that businesses are re-opening, there is an increased need to keep employees safe. Please explore our resources below for guidance:
Article: How to Prepare for Possible Viral Outbreaks Within Your Workforce
CDC Social Distancing Guidelines
Share with us! What are your biggest challenges so far?
We have struggled a bit with directing employees around the shop floor and maintaining the minimum 6' social distancing requirement. Any tips on how to accomplish this and keep a safer work environment for all in our facility?
Hi there!
Clearly identifying lanes, material holding spaces and hazard areas to help keep a handle on social distancing requirements in your work environment is certainly a good intial step to take or improve upon.
Check out some of these solutions from 3M (or download the PDF):
Also, visit our 3M marking solutions for Social Distancing for all the products to help you in your efforts to clearly equip your workplace for social distancing efforts.
When it comes to helping employees adhere to social distancing rules, establishing administrative and work practice controls--procedures, plans and policies--is a necessary step and even more so when aided by accountability. For instance, to paraphrase from this article:
"The COVID-19 safety procedures at Joe Gibbs Racing include several administrative controls and every employee has to sign off on this guidance before being allowed back to work.
For example, to get into the building, employees must be listed on the schedule. Then they must go through a screening process, have their temperature taken, and answer questions about their health and exposure to the virus. None of the break rooms, conference rooms or workout rooms are open, and employees are urged to bring in their lunch and eat at their workstations or outside (but within the fence)."
Another good resource to take a look at is OSHA's 3 lines of Defense:
You can download this helpful OSHA pdf for your facility here.
Also, here are some best practices to check out from our Better MRO site, which has multiple articles on how to keep your business functioning in this new normal. Be sure to have a look around the site and see what it has to offer. And for even more resources, be sure to visit our COVID Resources hub on mscdirect.
Hope that helps!
Absolutely, one of the trickier issues companies are dealing with is the 6-foot social distancing recommendation by the CDC.
Companies that typically only run day shifts may want to add another shift to spread the workload. By doing that, production is going to be slower, but when you have half as many people working at a time, you can social distance a lot better.
In some cases, some companies have also put up plexiglass to divide workstations where people sit close together while assembling parts.
The real challenge to distancing is around the time clock, the break room, restrooms and the daily standup meeting at the start of the shift. Some companies have even created enclosures around seats in the breakroom to separate employees during lunch.
Another potentially useful approach to workplace safety is to develop a heat map of your office or shop areas to determine locations of high traffic. This can inform you of the most effective social distancing approaches to ensure a 6-foot distance between workstations and individuals moving through the space. To mitigate problem locations you may then decide to move workstations or stagger workers into multiple shifts and introduce thorough cleaning sessions in between those shifts, while asking some employees to work from home in order to ensure there’s enough space for workers to circulate at a safe distance.