With coronavirus still very much a presence in our lives, staying safe and healthy has never been more important – particularly in a work environment where contact with others is inevitable. Keeping employees as safe and risk-free as possible should therefore be your top priority as a business, both for the health of your staff, and the health and success of your organisation as a whole.

Simple workplace prevention measures

In order to ensure your business is as safe as possible when it comes to the spread of COVID-19, there are a number of simple prevention measures you can take:

• Keep your workplace clean and hygienic by wiping surfaces regularly with an alcohol-based sanitiser.
• Encourage employees to wash their hands regularly by placing hand sanitiser in convenient locations.
• Make sure soap and water is freely available to employees, as well as to any third parties who may need to enter your place of work.
• Ensure your employees have access to face masks, and encourage social distancing of 1.5 to 2m between staff members wherever possible.
• Encourage any employees with cold symptoms, coughs or low-grade fevers to stay at home or work from home, rather than come into the office while sick.

In this way, you can help prevent contamination, and the potential spread of the virus between your employees, customers and suppliers.

South African government guidelines

When preparing your workplace for the prevention of COVID-19, it’s also worth bearing official South African gazetted guidelines in mind. According to the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA):

• All employers are responsible for maintaining a safe, risk-free work environment
• All employers must ensure that employees remain safe, and are not exposed to any potential hazards that may compromise their health.
• All employers must take any and all necessary steps possible to eliminate potential hazards from the workplace.

In addition, there are also numerous procedures that need to be put into place, including administrative measures, social distancing, health and safety measures such as symptom screening, sanitisers and disinfectants, as well as the wearing of masks, public access, ventilation, PPE and more.

NOSA – your guide to workplace safety and compliance

With so many guidelines to follow, preparing your workplace for COVID-19 compliance can seem a complicated and stressful affair. It’s for this reason that NOSA has put together a simple, convenient webinar to help make coronavirus prevention measures that much easier to navigate.

Over the course of a single day, you and your employees will learn all you need to know about COVID-19 workplace safety regulations and processes, all delivered in way that’s easy to understand and remember. In addition, our workplace safety implementation training programme will also cover OHS Act sections 8, 9, 13 and 14; RHBA; COIDA; NEM: WA, as well as COVID-19 guidelines developed by NOSA, giving you all the information and the tools you need to ensure you, your employees and your business remain safe and risk-free at all times.

To register for our next webinar taking place on 12 February 2021, simply click here, or contact info@nosaacademy.co.za for more information. Let’s work together to stay safe.