Do your staff need to be in the office?
Warwickshire County Council is encouraging local businesses to look at their risk assessments to ensure that all is being done to address the spread of the Coronavirus through the workplace.
With national guidance stating that people need to work from home if they can, the county council is asking businesses to challenge themselves as to whether the staff they currently have working in the office need to be in.
The challenge comes from Warwickshire County Council following several visits made by Trading Standards to businesses where staff who could work from home were still working on site.
Workplaces have been the source of an increasing rate of infections recently, prompting the Government to reintroduce the ‘work from home’ guidance.
Director of Public Health Warwickshire, Shade Agboola said: “With workplace infections of Covid-19 on the increase, now is the time to ensure that everyone who can work from home remains doing so. This will help to ensure that those who need to work on site have less people to interact with, which in turn means that less people will need to self-isolate, should a member of staff test positive for Covid-19. It will hopefully also mean that businesses can remain operational if fewer staff are required to isolate.
"Businesses have an essential role to play in keeping communities moving and we want to support them every step of the way, but even the smallest of changes, such as encouraging those who can work from home to do so, can make a big impact on keeping premises Covid secure and reducing the risk of transmission which is so critical to coming out of the recently imposed restrictions.
“Only by working together can we make a real change, so we are urging businesses to look at their risk assessment and challenge whether all those who are working on site really need to be there.”
More information on essential support and guidance for businesses can be found at: https://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/coronavirusbusinesssupport