As business leaders seek solutions to safely re-open, the present pandemic highlights a need to think differently about day to day operations. As of August 2020, there were no overarching guidelines from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to help leadership prepare for a safe return to the workplace. These considerations are further complicated by the fact that safety guidelines tend to differ from state to state. Since the beginning of this pandemic, experts have been contemplating what the mid and long-term effects will be. With many thought leaders comparing this pandemic to the Spanish Flu outbreak of 1918, a century of technological and sociological change leaves considerable variables in how this pandemic will play out. One fact we can be sure of, is that the onus is on business leadership to take appropriate measures to protect their people, their operations, and their companies.
With such ambiguity surrounding the responsibility of businesses to protect their workforce from outbreaks, the world is encountering an era of unprecedented legal liability and risk. Workers’ compensation provides coverage in some situations, but without being able to provide proof that your business has taken steps to preemptively reduce risk of exposure, your business may be liable to cover innumerable employee claims.
Privacy controls surrounding collection and use of personal medical data also being a legally protected right of employees, how carefully must an enterprise walk the line between protecting the business and respecting the rights of the individual? According to Travis Vance a Charlotte, North Carolina-based partner and chair of the Covid-19 Task Force at the labor and employment law firm Fisher and Phillips, it would be safest for a company to “collect as little data as you can”. What does that look like for your business? Will you have security at your front desk collecting temperature data as each employee files in one-by-one for their work day? How much productivity is anticipated to be lost in that process? Doesn’t it seem like there should be an easier way?
What is your company’s pandemic response plan? Is your management organizing a pandemic response team? Are your leaders asking “should we hire a COVID-19 Compliance officer? IS a pandemic response provision developing as part of your overall business continuity plan? Synnergie works with a variety of technologies to anonymize data collection, providing identification only for the purposes of addressing contact tracing in the event of a confirmed positive case. We understand the imperative for business leaders to look at the specifics of their operations and implement a seamless and unique solution to protect employees, suppliers, partners, visitors and therefore profits.
