Which measures should you take on the work floor?
- An employee cannot come into work due to the risk; what does employment law say?
If an employee is infected, he is unavailable for work and the usual rules for sickness absence apply. The employee can fall back on his sickness insurance and has the right to a guaranteed wage.
Sometimes, various groups of travellers may go into quarantine in a hotel because one passenger was infected with the corona virus. Is one of your employees in this type of group while on holiday or on a business trip? Then he has a (valid) reason for absence due to force majeure, irrespective of whether he is a blue or white collar worker. The employee is not entitled to wages but you can request a regulation for temporary unemployment.
- An employee returns from holiday from a red or orange zone. What should you do, as the employer?
An employee who returns from a red zone must go into quarantine and be tested twice via the doctor. Only after the second negative test may he leave quarantine.
With orange zones, the guidelines are different: sometimes one test is adequate but returning from some countries requires mandatory quarantine. The conditions per area can be found on the website of the FPS Foreign Affairs.
As an employer, you may not force an employee to disclose his/her holiday destination. You can ask but the employee can decide whether or not to tell you.
It is the responsibility of your employee, not you, to follow the official travel advice (or not). You can, of course, encourage your employees to behave responsibly.
You cannot impose a test on your employee when he/she returns. If he or she is showing no symptoms, the employee may resume work. You cannot prohibit this.
Ideally, you will have made agreements with your employees about returning from risk areas. This could include working from home or in a separated area.
- Can you, as the employer, make your employee take a test when they return from their holiday?
As an employer, you may not do this.
- You may only request a medical certificate if the employee calls in sick.
- If an employee begins to show symptoms and is still capable of getting home alone, ask him/her to go home immediately and contact his/her doctor as quickly as possible. It is best to avoid the use of public transport for this journey.
- If the employee appears to be seriously ill, contact the company doctor. They can then take the sick employee to a hospital (or organise this).
- Do you have to pay quarantined employees?
If an employee has to go into quarantine but can work from home, you can pay his/her usual wages through the relevant period.
If home-working is not an option, ask the employee to supply a quarantine certificate from the doctor. With this certificate, the employee is entitled to benefits. In consultation with you, he/she may be able to use additional holiday days.
What should you do in the event of infection in your own company?
- Who should you notify if an employee is infected?
First and foremost, the treating doctor will pass the employee’s contact details to the government; then a contact tracer will contact the employee.
- If the employee has been into work in the days prior to infection, the contact tracer will inform the company doctor. The company doctor can then take the necessary measures (home-working, testing high-risk contacts…) You should not have to wait long. Once you know that an employee is infected, you can contact the company doctor for advice about any measures you should take.
- Can you have employees tested if a colleague is infected?
No. Contact tracing must identify the persons with whom the infected person has been in contact between 2 days before symptoms emerged and the day on which the employee went into quarantine (risk period).
- These persons will then be divided into ‘high-risk contacts’ and ‘low-risk contacts’.
- The high-risk contacts are the persons who spent longer than 15 minutes within 1.5 metres of the infected employee. These employees will be contacted by the contact tracing team. They will be asked to go into quarantine for 14 days and take tests if they show any symptoms.
- Low-risk contacts do not have to stay at home or be tested.
- Can you make your employees take a test?
As an employer you may not process any medical details from your employees. You can offer a corona test but employees are not obliged to take it. If they are tested by your organisation, the result of the test will not be shared with you. Also, taking tests for the sake of it is not helpful.
- You cannot force employees to take a test at their doctor’s either.
- How can you organise contact tracing in your company?
Contact tracing is essential for monitoring the spread of the corona virus on the work floor, but it is difficult to ensure privacy in this situation.
- One option is Savitas, a privacy-friendly contact tracing system based on QR-codes. These codes are applied at locations where gatherings are (almost) unavoidable. Employees who attend these locations can scan the code voluntarily with their smartphones. Registration or installation of an app is not necessary. All scans are anonymous, which ensures the privacy of all employees is guaranteed.
In the event of infection, the following steps must be followed:
- The infected colleague receives a code for Savitas from HR or the company doctor.
- The sick employee uses this code to communicate their infection to Savitas.
- Everyone who scanned the QR-code at around the same time as the infected person will be regarded as possibly infected.
- The possibly infected persons will be advised to isolate or contact their doctor. This notification is confidential.
- How do you assess high-risk contacts?
With a ‘contact risk analysis’ you can determine the high-risk contacts within your company. There are some roles or circumstances where the prevention measures cannot be applied. With this risk analysis, you will gain a clear overview of who falls into the high-risk category. If there is a colleague with symptoms or an employee is called by the contact tracing team, you can rapidly switch to testing.
- What should you do with an increased infection level or a cluster of infections in your organisation?
Are there multiple infections among your employees? Consult your (internal) prevention adviser in order to take the necessary measures. A few examples include mandatory home-working, placing high-risk contacts in quarantine, and organising testing.
source: https://www.mensura.be/nl/klantenzone/qa/coronavirus-voorzorgen
