Ongoing safety training will be the key to keeping teams and communities safe after returning to work after the pandemic. Good construction leadership will focus on improving employee well-being programs and internal communication policies. Here are some tips to develop effective safety protocols for your team.
Ongoing Training
Return to work training plans will be important to ensure that all of your employees know the safety requirements and expectations going forward. The following two-pronged training approach is being recommended to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 in workplaces.
- Pre-return to work training – Start with office employees who are working remotely and cover an overview of the company’s COVID-19 response protocols and resources. Disinfection team training should include a general disinfection measures presentation along with information regarding personal protective equipment and deep cleaning procedures. Provide employees with an in-depth review of updated attendance policies regarding isolation and quarantining.
- First day training – Schedule training on the first day of the firm’s reopening. All staff should be invited, but the meeting space has to accommodate social distancing protocol. The content that should be covered should include: the firm’s COVID-19 response, signs and symptoms of COVID-19, daily self-screening for symptoms, isolation protocol for symptomatic employees, social distancing measures, personal hygiene and disinfection measures.
Employee Well-Being and Hope
There is a close connection between improved productivity and employees having a sense of hope. Employees who have been furloughed because of the pandemic are going to have more stress and anxiety than usual. It’s important for leaders to promote positivity, because a hopeful workplace is also a healthy one. Here are some ways to cultivate well-being:
- Listen to their concerns – An effective way to get through uncertain times is by encouraging open communication and discussing all of the new possibilities.
- Update goals – Organizational goals might be different in the post COVID-19 world.
- Empower employees – Make sure that they have all of the tools they need to succeed and feel safe.
- Prepare workers – Have several contingency plans in place moving forward.
Clear Internal Communication
There are always improvements that can be made to internal communication. The last thing that you want is to create more confusion after a pandemic, so you will want to implement an effective project management system to ensure that updates and decisions are clearly understood by your pandemic response team. Communication should be in an easy-to-access format on a platform that enables topic grouping and controlled notifications.
Safe work playbooks like this can help companies keep their employees, customers and suppliers protected. It’s up to respective construction leaders regarding how to implement these protocols while following federal and state laws.
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