How to protect your workers from COVID-19

The global COVID-19 epidemic is presenting a mounting challenge for industries worldwide. Companies that can support remote work are pushing forward with this policy to stem the spread of the virus amongst their employees. Unsurprisingly, these companies are largely software companies. However, companies with manufacturing facilities, construction sites, or those operating critical infrastructures cannot offer the same remote working flexibility to their industrial workers because downtime is non-negotiable.

At Intenseye, our mission is to ensure the health and safety of workers in the industrial workplace. Here are some suggestions for health and safety teams to keep your employees safe during this epidemic.

Reminder: Wash your hands!

We must remind our workers to wash their hands several times a day, not just after using the bathroom. To build this habit, it is important to add signage around the workplace to remind your team to wash their hands often.

Hand sanitizers everywhere!

Given that your facilities can cover large surface areas, it might not be practical to direct employees to the bathroom each time they need to wash their hands. As an added safety and convenience measure, we recommend that place hand sanitizers in shift areas. Make sure they are filled and accessible all the times.

Clean more often

Clean offices, tables, and office equipment is a must to prevent the virus from spreading. However, workers are interacting in many different ways in production facilities. They are sharing tools, machines, vehicles, and even personal protective tools. Cleaning these components is more critical than ever! Adding extra shifts to make these processes more often makes a big difference to prevent contagion.

Handout masks

Masks as PPE is a must for many industries. Workers are using industrial masks to protect themself from many hazardous conditions. Moreover, you should consider handing out medical face masks to protect workers even further within shared spaces.

Check your AC

Research indicates that COVID-19 requires more substantial, heavier droplets to survive outside the body. However, the virus can also survive on smaller, lighter droplets similar to seasonal influenza. This makes it more contagious. Make sure your AC system is not recirculating the air inside the building and using an outside source to refresh the air.

Conclusion

While the necessary precautionary measures that we should use are similar, each of your facilities has its own unique operating conditions. What we have mentioned above is the most common practices for the manufacturing industry. We suggest that your facility’s HSE manager should adapt and expand these actions to fit your operating conditions. We hope that the World will swiftly recover from this epidemic and that manufacturing continues safer than ever!