TSA Insight Magazine Issue 7 - Magazine - Page 21
WHY RETURNING
TO WORK UNDER
COVID-19 WILL BE
CHALLENGING
Ian Travers Limited
www.iantravers.co.uk
ith so much uncertainty over risk and safety lots of people are asking ‘will it be safe for me to
W
return to work’? Safety is, of course, a relative concept. For lots of reasons, beyond Covid-19,
you are much safer staying at home rather than venturing out, travelling, or going to work.
I was asked by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to prepare occupational
health and safety guidelines to help businesses in northern Italy to get back to work. I published my free
guidelines at: www.covid19ohsguidance.com. The guidance sets out the seven main control measures
available to combat the spread of the virus in the workplace together with rational explanations of what
each measure achieves, where its best applied and who should adopt the measure. They are set out in
the diagramme enclosed [Figure 1: Covid-19 control measures based on their relative effectiveness in
preventing the spread of infection in the workplace, p.20], based on their relative effectiveness. These are
the only real options available and apart from working at home, employers have to select combinations of
these control measures based on an assessment of the risks of their work activities and workplaces.
So, it is clear there is no one size fits all solution and I recently developed individual risk assessment
templates for employers to use for the eight sectors outlined in the UK Government’s guidelines. But there
also some other challenges associated with managing occupational health and safety, OHS, risks.
To begin with the hazard, unlike conventional OHS risks, is not from a work activity but from the people at
work and with whom workers come into contact with. Then there is considerable uncertainty about the
effectiveness of the control measures available. Hence to move by default, to familiar controls such as PPE
and yet using face masks at work provides little protection to the person at risk. Instead wearing of face
masks should be considered as community protection equipment, CPE, as only when a large percentage
(90-95%) of people within a work area or space wear once is there a reduced chance of the spread from
an infected person. But, above all, control of Covid-19 is by far the largest workplace behavioural safety
programme we have seen. Changing behaviours takes time and commitment and above all involves
understanding and acceptance by everyone of the reasons why the desired behaviour is necessary.
People returning to work will be anxious and sceptical about their safety.
So, my conclusion in this is that the most effective control measure is not listed above but is actual effective
communication and engagement. We need to constantly remind people of the need for the precautions
and support them where they are struggling to adapt. Employers should share their risk assessments with
employees and discuss and explain their control decisions.
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