COVID-19 update

Basic reopening guidance for employers

As we slowly, safely start to reopen our businesses, we compiled this basic planning guide, condensed from information found on federal and provincial government websites. The four basic steps to reduce the spread of COVID-19 among your employees, customers and the public are:

Basic re-opening strategies

• Reduce exposure. Physical distancing is the most effective method of mitigating the spreading of COVID-19. Examples include providing online services and virtual meetings, cancelling group events, closing or limiting use of shared spaces, and ensuring people remain at least two metres apart. • Engineering controls. Structural modifications to your workspace or equipment can minimize contact among people. This includes using additional rooms, partitions as barriers, and removing or re-arranging furniture. • Administrative controls. These modifications to business processes and behaviours reduce the number of contacts or contact intensity (distance or duration) among people. Examples include working in shifts, using curbside pick-up, and utilizing verbal or visual cues instead of close contact.

• Safe work hygiene practices are on-thejob activities that reduce the potential for exposure. Providing training in hand hygiene and reminding staff and customers to stay home if they’re ill are two of the most important.

• Personal protective equipment (PPE)

such as facemasks, clear plastic face shields, rubber gloves, etc. can reduce exposure but must be used properly to be effective – and should complement, not replace, other prevention strategies. Other common sense suggestions

• Establish clear policies to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in your workplace and make sure these are communicated and fully understood by all workers. • Tell staffers and clients about the measures you’re taking to reduce the spread. • Post signs asking ill customers to stay away from your workplace. • Post signs encouraging good respiratory hygiene, frequent hand washing, social distancing and other healthy practices. • Adjust procedures to reduce social contact – such as teleworking, more flexible hours, staggered employee start times, use of email, teleconferencing, etc. • Cancel or postpone all non-essential meetings or travel. • Evaluate workplace areas where people have frequent contact with each other and share spaces and/or objects. Then increase the frequency of cleaning in these areas.

• Consider ways that employees can practice physical distancing – such as increasing distance between desks, people in line-ups and workstations. • Limit the number of customers permitted in your print shop. Ideally, a two metre separation should be maintained, unless there’s a physical barrier present such as a cubicle, partition or Plexiglas window. • Provide the necessary facilities and cleaning products to maintain a clean and safe workplace so employees can clean and disinfect their workspaces. • Put hand-sanitizing dispensers in easyto-access locations.

• Disinfect high-traffic work areas or frequently touched surfaces more often. 1. Stay informed about how COVID-19 spreads 2. Assess the risks of spread in your workplace 3. Modify your workplace to lower that risk 4. Seek advice from healthcare experts or government agencies as needed

• Provide staff with PPE and train them to use it correctly. • Consider relaxing sick-leave policies, including not requiring notes from a doctor to return to work.

• If employees use public transportation to come to and from work, consider flexible hours to allow them to avoid peak travel periods. • Have a plan in place to return employees home without using public transit if they develop symptoms at work. • Prepare for increases in absenteeism due to illness among employees and their families, as well as possible school closures.

• Non-essential travel should not occur. If essential travel across borders is necessary, you must self-isolate for 14 days upon returning to Canada. Latest employee assistance packages

After the federal government announced that the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) will be extended into late September (bringing the maximum payment period to 28 weeks), on September 27, recipients still out of work can transition to the employment insurance (EI) program – or three new benefit programs for (1) self-employed workers not eligible for EI, (2) those who are ill or self-isolating due to COVID-19, and (3) those caring for a child, dependent or family member because schools, daycares or care facilities are closed. For payments details affecting your employees’ specific situation, please ask them to visit the CERB website.