Tips To Keep Factory Employees Safe During COVID-19 Lockdown

While many factories across the globe have suspended operations or shut down due to the pandemic, many factories involved in manufacturing essentials like food and medicines continue to operate. If your operation is still running, then you need to take precautions to protect your workforce from coronavirus so that it will be back to its full potential when the lockdown ends. Precautions usually involve enforcing personal hygiene, social distancing, sanitizing equipment (like a used capsule filling machine), etc. You can refer to the guidelines set by the Center for Disease Control And Prevention (CDC) to set your guidelines.

Keeping Manufacturing Staff Safe From Coronavirus

Keep Non-Essential Staff Offsite

Some of your staff members like your in-house digital marketing team don’t need to be on the factory site and can work from home. Make a list of essential processes that can happen offsite and make sure that the people involved have the equipment required to work from home. If they don’t, make arrangements for them if necessary.

Only Keep Essential Staff Onsite

You should only keep the bare minimum staff that you need to run the factory onsite, like those running your used capsule filling machine or cleaning the area. Make a list of all the processes that you absolutely need to keep your operation running to identify who needs to be onsite at all times.

Make It Easier For Sick Employees Take Leave

Sick workers need to be put on leave to prevent them from infecting other workers and spreading the disease. But many workers turn up despite being sick due to various restrictions related to sick leaves. Allow employees to take sick leave without medical certificates, especially if they report respiratory illnesses. Also, allow them to take leave if they have to take care of a sick person at home to prevent the pathogen from spreading to the workplace. Check your state policy on paid leaves in view of the pandemic.

Check Temperatures

You should assign a person to check the temperature of every worker to check their body temperature before they enter the workplace. Allow only healthy workers to enter, send workers with a fever back home with sick leave. Ask them to consult a medical expert and go into self-isolation as recommended by the expert.

Maintain Workplace Cleanliness

Make sure that the cleaning staff cleans the workplace regularly before and after work hours. Discourage employees from littering the place. Sanitize the work area, equipment (like used Quadro Comil), toilet, cafeteria, etc. thoroughly. Notify your employees of these efforts to ease their worries.

Encourage Personal Hygiene

Encourage workers to wash their hands properly before entering/leaving the workplace, before/after eating lunch, etc. Provide as many hand sanitizers and hand washes to them as possible. Educate them about the proper steps to wash hands through demonstrations, videos and/or posters. Ensure that the staff wears personal protective equipment like masks, gloves, etc. at all times. Check the PPE or defects and replace them if necessary.

Educate And Communicate With Your Staff

CDC, state and local authorities have published several guidelines for workers involved in essential services. Distribute these guidelines to your workforce through social media, emails, lectures, etc. Also, inform them about the steps you have taken to ensure their safety and assign a manager with whom they can communicate their concerns.

Enforce Social Distancing

Make sure that every worker keeps a distance of six feet from each other at all times. Keep a gap of an hour between each shift to prevent crowding. Prohibit employees from eating at the workplace or near the equipment (like a used Quadro Mill). Leave gaps between seats in the cafeteria to prevent crowding. Set up cashless and cardless payment modes if feasible. 

These are some measures you can take to protect everyone involved in your factory's operation. This may reduce production to some extent but if your workforce remains healthy, then you can bounce back stronger. You should consider planning for future pandemics for better efficiency if they occur.