On Sunday 10th May, Boris Johnson addressed the nation urging those that cannot work from home to return to work. In light of this employers are now legally required to risk assess the workplace. Systems and resources now must be put into place to minimise risk within the working environment.
The Government has created eight guides on working safely during coronavirus. The guidance has been created to support employers, employees, and the self-employed understand how to stay safe when returning to work during the pandemic. Each of the eight guides focus on a different working environment depending on the business. For example there is a guide specifically for offices and contact centres.
Keeping employees, customers, and visitors, safe within the workplace is more important than ever during this unprecedented global pandemic. Employers have a responsibility to review new ways of working to minimise risk across all areas of businesses.
After reviewing the Office and contact centres guidance issued by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy we have put together ten ways to create a COVID-Secure workplace.
What is a COVID Secure Workplace?
Workplaces inevitably are going to face the real risk of coronavirus transmission for as long as the outbreak lasts. For now at least we have to adapt to make working environments as safe as possible. A COVID Secure workplace is about working to create the safest possible environment for employees, customers, and site visitors. Following the professional guidelines and implementing this advice into your business appropriately is crucial.
Carry out a COVID-19 Risk Assessment
All employers need to first assess the risks of COVID-19. This means you need to think about the risks employees and site visitors face and do everything reasonably possible to minimise them as a business. It is important to acknowledge that the Government have stated within the guidelines employers must recognise that you cannot completely eliminate the risk of COVID-19. A risk assessment does not need to be about creating a large thousand page guide, instead simply reviewing all areas of the business and identifying sensible measures to control and minimise risk. Creating a risk assessment will help you decide on all of the tools that you will need to be a COVID secure workplace.
Now you have conducted your risk assessment you will no doubt have a list of important resources that your workplace needs in order to become COVID secure. Totally Branded has a wide range of coronavirus protective products that are essential when making your environment Covid secure. Everything from branded hand sanitisers, social distancing floor tape, branded logo face masks, to screen shields and promotional hygiene keyrings.
Whilst every business is going to be unique in its resource requirements in order to minimise the risk of transmission, we have outlined below some key tools that are helping businesses in preparing to safely reopen.
Provide Staff with Company Hand Sanitiser
Anti bacterial hand sanitiser, compliant with the World Health Organisation standards is crucial for staff and visitors. Hand sanitiser works especially well in the workplace as there may not always be a sink available close by for washing hands with soap. Creating company branded hand sanitisers to provide each member of staff with is a further way to prevent the spread of germs within the workplace.
Tip: Alongside your own branded hand sanitiser, a printed poster around the office reminding staff to consistently sanitise their hands works very well to raise awareness of the importance of using the anti bacterial gel to regularly sanitise throughout the working day.
Branded with your logo, sanitiser gel not only protects staff but also provides an amazing practical promotional product. When it comes to branded goodies at the moment, nothing beats a good quality hand sanitiser. With retail store sanitiser prices sky high recipients now appreciate the value of sanitiser and understand how important hygiene is.
At Totally Branded we stock a wide variety of hand sanitisers here in the UK with low minimum order quantities. UK made branded hand sanitiser allows us to ensure the anti bacterial formula meets EN-1276 and EB-15000 standards. What’s more, The World Health Organisation has set a specific formula that must be used to ensure that sanitising products are effective. Our UK made sanitisers have been independently lab tested to verify that the anti bacterial gel meets this criteria and will kill 99.9% of all bacteria.
Our most popular option is the Ellyson 30ml Sanitiser. Comes in 6 colours on the lid to match with your business and branding. Features a handy carabiner clip for easy storage and contains 62% alcohol. The beauty of this sanitiser is the practicality, ensuring that it can always be carried with you during the day to ensure regular hand washing without being bulky.
You can also see our full range of promotional hand sanitisers here!
Branded Face Masks
From 15th June 2020 the Government have confirmed that it will be a legal requirement to wear a face covering when using public transport. Public Health England have produced guidance on wearing a face covering:
A cloth face covering should cover your mouth and nose while allowing you to breathe comfortably. It can be as simple as a scarf or bandana that ties behind the head.
Wash your hands or use hand sanitiser before putting it on and after taking it off. Avoid touching your eyes, nose, or mouth at all times and store used face coverings in a plastic bag until you have an opportunity to wash them.
Do not touch the front of the face covering, or the part of the face covering that has been in contact with your mouth and nose. Once removed, make sure you clean any surfaces the face covering has touched.
You should wash a face covering regularly. It can go in with other laundry, using your normal detergent.
When wearing a face covering, take care to tuck away any loose ends.
Following this guidance we have produced a range of branded logo face masks to help prevent the spread. Face masks prevent the touching of vulnerable areas of your face such as your mouth and nose whilst in public places. Covering these parts of your face helps to reduce transmission.
Mask Style 1 – Branded Logo Face Mask with Filter
The custom printed reusable face mask is designed for personal use and features a KM2.5 filter that slides into the pocket layer within the mask. Manufactured using a skin-friendly cotton internal layer which is in contact with the face, along with a full colour printed polyester outer layer.
The material used to create these reusable masks has been independently tested to meet the STANDARD 100 by OEKO-TEX product class 2 skin contact.
Once printed with your full colour design the material allows for a cold machine wash or hand washing before reusing. It’s important to remember that the filter inside the mask must be removed before washing. We also strongly recommended that the face mask is not placed into a tumble dryer.
Like all of our custom branded face masks, the masks are used for personal use only. Designed to act as an additional barrier that will help to prevent the contact with some airborne particles as well as prevent hand to face contact, avoiding potentially contaminated hands coming into contact with vulnerable areas of the face, such as the mouth and nose.
The minimum order quantity for the printed face masks with a filter inside is 250 pieces with a lead time of approximately fifteen to twenty working days. If you need a smaller quantity of printed face masks, or need reusable masks with fast delivery then our next mask style is the perfect solution for you.
Branded Face Mask with Filter Inside
Mask Style 2 – No Minimum Order Quantity Printed Face Masks
In line with the recent Public Health England face coverings guidance, we have been able to create a new style of UK printed face mask, with no minimum order quantity and fast delivery in as quick as 3 working days. A comfortable, smooth, white polyester fabric mask is flood printed to your chosen colour along with your company logo.
Following the guidance issued, “A cloth face covering should cover your mouth and nose while allowing you to breathe comfortably. It can be as simple as a scarf or bandana that ties behind the head.” We wanted to create a promotional face covering that is accessible for businesses of all shapes and sizes to giveaway staff. This means that small businesses needing small quantities of personalised masks can now not be restricted by quantity restrictions.
Small Quantity Printed Face Masks
Hand Sanitiser Stations
Regularly cleaning our hands is now more important than ever before. A freestanding hand sanitiser dispenser is now more than ever a must-have for workplaces becoming COVID-Secure.
Tip: Place your company branded hand sanitiser station at the entrance to your workplace, ensuring that each member of staff cleans their hands before entering the premises. Working to prevent the chance of germs being carried into the building is essential as we return to work.
A strong, freestanding metal unit, full colour printed with your personalised design to the entire front allows your company branded sanitiser stations to be produced on brand and with a personalised message encouraging staff to regularly sanitise hands within the workplace.
Contactless hand sanitiser stations further reduce the risk of transmitting the virus using the automatic battery operated dispenser system built into the metal station. Each time the dispenser is refilled this allows for 660 uses of the station.
Freestanding Automatic Hand Sanitiser Dispenser
These are just some of the tools that are important in the quest to prepare for the ‘new normal’ within the workplace. To further help our customers we have created a dedicated range of Protective Products on our website which includes a large range of tools that can help organisations preparing to return to work over the coming months