Coronavirus, also called covid-19 is a destructive virus that continues to spread all over the world even in the third month of the year. Since the World Health Organization has declared the coronavirus outbreak as pandemic as it does not show any positive signs of slowing down. Many schools, colleges, and companies are temporarily closing down its functions because of the death fear that this virus has spread with its horrendous and ruthless nature of eating lives. 

Apart from people losing precious lives, the biggest losses are being faced by entrepreneurs, business owners of small and large organizations. Especially start-ups who had opened their operations recently are big-time sufferers because when the entire world has called it off for the time-being and available to do business anywhere – whom will they carry on their business with?

Certainly, the dread of losing employees because of the large number of deaths around the globe has become a huge matter of concern. Employers, as well as employees, must be prepared to tackle such a disastrous disease that has eaten more than 4600 lives as of 13 March 2020.  

Here are some of the key points that you could prepare in lieu of keeping your employees safe and take preventive measures more rigorously. Let us give succinct steps about how even a small effort can save you and your employees.  

Plan Ahead: Before Covid-19 Outbreak

• Plan and clearly define roles and responsibilities for each person to monitor if the crisis occurs at the workplace 
• Since many schools and offices are getting closed momentarily, develop super flexible policies so that infected individuals can stay away from the workplace and take rest to recover completely
• Employees who are in good health, encourage them to take participation remotely for any conference, official meeting (if any) for tackling the crisis. Avoid going to crowded places or in big gathering events or meetings
• Store plenty of soaps, hand sanitizers, and tissues at the workplace and at home. Carry sanitizers if you are going to a place where there would be no soap or water facility such as nearby streets, small stores, parks, et cetera
• At the workplace, plan several ways to isolate employees who by any chance got sick during an event, a meeting session or constantly not overcoming long illness symptoms such as cold, cough or fever. Get them immediately checked with the covid-19 test
• Update your staff timely with all the accurate information to the staff, customers, suppliers, vendors, et cetera 

Steps To Take: During an Outbreak 

• Encourage employees to regularly adapt healthy food habits and remain isolate so that others do not get infected from covid-19 
• Address the potential fear and anxiety that may result from rumors or misinformation.
• Keep the frequently touched surfaces and objects neat and clean for example, laptop, mobile phone, computer, glass, tables et cetera. Do not let any dirty clutter gather near your place. 
• Limit establishing contact with others. Avoid handshakes and stop having close face-to-face communication 
• Keep the stock of surgical face masks and if you see somebody at the workplace developing coronavirus symptoms, immediately isolate them and ask them to wear surgical face masks. 
• Consider alternatives for employees who are at high risk for developing flu complications especially if they are already having ongoing serious health conditions like asthma, diabetes, respiratory problems and so on 

Follow-Up: After an Outbreak 

• Check with employees’ family or relatives if they are showing signs of improvement
• Let other employees also take precautionary steps to safeguard themselves from this deadly disease 
• Discuss the plans to implement more stringent preventive measures to safeguard employees at large. Encourage everyone at the workplace to come up with ideas to tackle the situation. Improve preparedness plans accordingly.
• Participate in organizational emergency preparedness activities wherein all companies can actively participate online and seek advice from each other 

To combat the covid-19 outbreak, Nextbee offers a Ready for Corona platform that presents a turnkey customer and employee preparedness solutions through which organizations can even educate their remote employees at a single platform.  

The platform has a robust mechanism through which employees can follow the instructions and adhere to guidelines set by the company. They can easily access and watch important resources, coordinate among team members remotely that will help them to earn rewards, badges, et cetera.    

To know more about the employee preparedness solution, feel free to contact us today!