Corona Virus / COVID-19: 3 Actions for When you get into Work Monday Morning!
Justin C McCarthy PRM, ORM
Chief Executive Officer at Professional Risk Managers' International Association (PRMIA)
Right... I am in Ireland, I am not sure where you are, but the Corona Virus seems to be having it first cases and as terrible as it is to say, first deaths in many countries in the last few days... later I will pass on some advice on what to do as an individual, but as you arrive into work - possibly to a management or risk committee meeting - what are 3 actions that can help you decide how your workplace should respond to this event.
3 Actions
In the last week several of my clients have asked for the Corona Virus / COVID-19 to be added to their risk registers... once that is done, the next thing I will be telling them to consider is:
1.How will your workplace respond if there is a large-scale curtailment of social interaction?
Very simple - whether it is a directive from the government or because of one staff member having been in contact with the virus, what would you do if your place of work is put off limits? Think about what staff would be allowed to work from home... are there other staff who will not be required in the office for one to two weeks... do you pay them even if they are not working? What is someone "Self Quarantines"?
You need to have answers to these questions... do staff work on at your workplace? Will some staff be given unpaid leave? Will other staff be asked to work from home?
2.Would some staff be allowed to work remotely?
I have some clients that are financial services providers with several branches open to the public... do they continue to provide a public service to their members? Will back office staff and management be allowed work from home? Can you do this if you ask counter staff to continue to work with the public...
Do you allow some staff to work from home even if some are asked to keep interacting with the public?
3.Do you have the technology to facilitate this?
Now's the tough part... do you have the technology to facilitate remote work? Do you have remote access technology to allow staff to work from home? Do your staff have the right PCs or devices at home to allow this? It's even as simple as to whether you have enough licences for the majority of your staff to work from home... call your Head of IT / IT provider in right now and ask...
"What if 100 of our staff had to work from home from Wednesday for 2 weeks... can we do this?"
With That Done... What Can you Do for Yourself?
Now... I am sticking my neck out here... but I think there is a lot of panic and disinformation about the Corona Virus / COVID-19. I think this will pass and we will move on with our lives... but I fear being reminded of this statement in a few months if a young, old or infirm friend or relative dies... so for now, I will give you all the best advice I can:
For individuals, techniques to prevent infection spread include regular hand washing, covering mouth and nose when coughing and sneezing, not touching the face and avoiding close contact with anyone showing symptoms of respiratory illness such as coughing and sneezing.
I have to say I am amazed at how much I touch my face... in the last 48 hours I have been trying to avoid this and I think I must touch my face too much!
Also have a look at the below which my sister-in-law Susan sent out on Facebook earlier - it seems to have good facts and advice for the individual...
Stay safe all!
Chief Executive Officer at Professional Risk Managers' International Association (PRMIA)
5 年https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2020/0302/1119791-google/
Operational Risk | Enterprise Risk | GRC | Information Architecture | Data Governance | Business Transformation | Policy Management
5 年Justin, that's an excellent clear and succinct summary. The point you make about the technology infrastructure for an entire workforce working from home for an extended period is very important. The infrastructure for most institutions for remote work is not normally scaled to support the entire workforce or even a majority of the workforce. The normal assumption for a contingency invocation is that most people will work for extended periods from contingency locations and the remote access capacity is scaled to support the remainder. This assumption doesn't hold if you are trying to prevent contagion by keeping everyone away from each other. It is very important that to review capacity now and take steps to scale up remote access capacity now if it’s needed. One thing you may want to add to the steps you can take for yourself is that to be effective washing hands should last at least 20 seconds and soap should be used. (You would imagine that this is implicit in saying people should wash their hands but it’s worth reinforcing). It is amazing how many times you touch your face. I’m trying to develop a habit to use the small bottles of hand sanitizer that I’m now carrying in my pockets every time I touch an object touched by other people (e.g. door handles). The funny thing about the face masks that are now hard to find in a lot of the world is that they’re useless to prevent infection from other people. However they do provide a barrier between your hand and your face and it’s just possible that they can help people who can’t stop themselves touching their faces before washing their hands to stop them infecting themselves.
Collaborator, Enabler, Co-founder of Maclear, Entrepreneur, Investor, Realtor, Non-Exec-Director (NED)
5 年Very succinctly summarised Justin!
Manager @ Drumshanbo Credit Union | Accounting, Financial Management
5 年Thanks Justin. Very practical.