The CDC issued updated guidance for employers, including a user-friendly checklist for employers to prepare workplaces for return to work. Among the recommendations:
- Encourage employees to stay home when sick; provide flexible sick leave
- Physically ensure separation among employees
- Promote hygiene – frequent hand washing and sanitizing
- Post CDC posters on hand hygiene and coughing and sneezing etiquette
- Encourage employees to wear cloth face coverings when social distancing is difficult to maintain
- Consider daily in-person health screenings
- Increase cleaning, especially frequently touched surfaces
- Provide incentives for employees to use other forms of public transportation that allow for single-occupancy rides
- Allow workers to request new hours to commute when it is less busy
- Support and encourage telework for employees who have serious underlying medical conditions making them high-risk for severe illness from COVID-19
- Make plans to continue operations in the event of a spike in absenteeism due to COVID-19, including cross training and identifying essential functions
- Social distancing
- Flexible worksites and hours
- Increase physical space between employees and employees and customers through moving work stations or physical barriers
- Close or limit access to common areas
- Prohibit handshaking
- Limit the number of people on elevators
- Implement flexible meeting and travel options
- Minimize work-related travel
- Encourage telework following travel
- Use video and teleconferencing when possible for meetings and travel
- Hold essential meetings in open, well-ventilated meeting spaces and follow social distancing and/or have employees wear face coverings
- Improve ventilation