BUSINESS:
Safety is a priority as small and midsize businesses rehire laid-off employees and get back to work, but many staffers are anxious about increased contact with others, making them at higher risk of catching the virus — feelings owners see they’ll need to consider.
NEW YORK — Employee safety is a priority as small and midsize businesses rehire laid-off employees and get back to work and many owners realize that supplying masks and gloves won’t be enough.
Many staffers are anxious about increased contact with others that could make them more vulnerable to catching the virus — feelings that many owners say they understand they need to consider. They’re staggering work hours and shifts to cut the number of people onsite. They’re also redoing floor plans and operations to minimize contact — a step that also helps keep customers safe.
Georgia has already allowed businesses such as hair and nail salons, restaurants and gyms to open with social distancing restrictions. Alabama has allowed some limited openings, and Texas and Colorado permitted many companies to reopen Friday. Around the country, owners are recalling laidoff workers although they can’t resume full operations yet; with government loan money arriving, companies can pay their workers again.
The steps businesses are taking are in line with recent guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including reduced staffing, providing masks and gloves, requiring employees to maintain social distancing and limiting contact between workers and customers.
Atrend, an audio equipment manufacturer that’s now producing protective gear for health workers, has spread its 22 employees across its 50,000-foot warehouse in Chicago — they’re no longer working side by side. And while they used to take coffee and lunch breaks together, those traditions are on hold.
“They’re in the break room by themselves — their breaks are all staggered,” CEO Kevin Hundal says.
Monitoring employees’ symptoms, which can include taking temperatures, is something the CDC is also encouraging employers to do. But as owners take on that new routine, they may find themselves dealing with confidentiality issues, says Hagood Tighe, a labor law attorney with Fisher Phillips in Columbia, South Carolina.
“If employers are doing that, they need to be doing it in such a way that an employee’s privacy is protected,” Tighe said. That means testing in a private area, something that may be difficult in a business with close quarters.
Staffers’ anxiety is as important a concern for owners as their physical safety. As Front Burner Group’s 20 Texas restaurants serve sit-down diners again, in addition to the masks and gloves employees will wear, one staffer will be sanitizing surfaces throughout the establishments — and wearing a white coat so everyone can see the disinfecting process.
Schweig, the Sunnyland Outdoor vice president, was himself nervous about one staffer who wanted to come back to work; she’s in her late 70s, the age group believed to be most vulnerable to the virus. Schweig told her he will pay her to stay home.
“It’s not worth risking her health to come back now,” he says.