While no system is foolproof, among the best practices businesses are adopting are routine daily screenings of your workforce at time of business entry. Amazon hired an army of personnel whose sole responsibility was to take temperatures and survey staff about symptoms. Short of hiring staff for this hopefully short-term requirement, how should savvy business owners prepare?
It is commonly accepted that there are three simple questions to address each individual:
- Do you have a fever?
- Are you exhibiting any of a short list of symptoms associated with the virus?
- Have you been exposed to anyone who has tested positive?
How you extend those questions can take a myriad of formats from something as simple as assigning the daily “survey” duty to a trusted office staff (because there is some HIPAA compliancy requirement associated with their response) to something more sophisticated like integrating the questionnaire with your online timekeeping systems or integrating the questionnaire with your network login. Already, companies like Microsoft and United Healthcare are launching free symptom checker apps, such as ProtectWell, that allow employers to not only evaluate the status of individual workers but aggregate the results in a dashboard view valuable for larger or multi-site employers needing easy access to the readiness of their workforce. Please contact our office if you’d like help setting up a suitable system for your business.