Keep Employees Safe: Keeping employees safe while working outside the office or headquarters especially during these difficult times will require a lot of effort and planning for employers and business owners. Not only are they integral at ensuring the smooth operation of the business, but ensuring their safety also puts confidence in the company that they know how to take care of their employees.
Preparation is crucial. Whether your employees are traveling for a work convention or as part of their job, it is important that they know the standard protocol aimed at ensuring they are safe during this pandemic. Before the trip, take the time to review safety precautions with them and ensure that they have a copy should they need to use it during the trip as a reference. The guideline should include all possible scenarios they might face while traveling and how best to respond to crisis situations.
Safety briefing. A safety briefing can be held before a work trip or before an employee leaves the headquarters. Ensure that everyone is familiar with the safety precautions they need to do on every leg of the trip such as when they are in the bus/car, airports, hotels, and in their rooms. Also, make sure they know what to do should any health crisis arise during the trip such as contacting healthy officials or the company’s designated health officer.
Safety guide for employees. Traveling is a tricky subject especially during these times. As such, should the need to travel becomes necessary, it falls on the shoulders of employers to craft a travel safety guide for employees to follow. This guide should be made in reference to what is mandated by the governing bodies such as the World Health Organization or the CDC. This safety guide can be in digital format to be sent out as email before a trip or in printed form that employees should carry with them during a work trip.
Personal risk assessment. Guidelines should be in place for workers to use in order to determine personal risk throughout the trip. This may include tips for employees to follow when they arrive at the airport, on the plane, and at their destination. It should also include guidelines on safety precautions when it comes to handling currencies, taking public transportation, and ways to contact their embassy or consulate should an emergency arise.
Arrange safe travel arrangement. If it is possible, employers should handle travel arrangements for their employees. It is best to do research on available options that offer the safest possible transit. Company vehicles to be used for the travel should be regularly sanitized prior to the trip besides the regular maintenance that should be done. For longer trips that require traveling by air, it is best the companies select to travel on a carrier that has impeccable safety standards in place to ensure all passengers are not exposed and put at risk.
Have emergency numbers handy. On a work trip, it is helpful to keep a list of emergency contacts handy for all workers on that trip. Include it in their travel safety guidelines so they know where to look for it should the need arises. The list could include contact numbers for emergency services in their destination, local heavy towing service, and the company’s insurance representative.
When to raise a distress call. And finally, before a work trip, employees should be well-trained and informed on when and how to raise a distress call should they need any help. In such cases, mobile phones are often the best way to raise an alarm but in the event that mobile phones are unavailable, secondary and tertiary options should be in place. There are apps available that can work offline in pinpointing the GPS coordinates of the device when a distress call is made.
