One of the realities that companies are having to deal with is the fact that they must constantly be on guard when it comes to preventing COVID-19 outbreaks within their workplaces. Managing the pandemic within the company’s employees is not just good HR practice but it helps the company avoid expensive disruptions. However, while many companies are happy to use approaches such as workplace COVID-19 testing to help manage the pandemic, there are many factors surrounding workplace testing that may not be very clear to the company. Here are a number of factors to consider when making decisions about workplace COVID-19 testing.
Is Workplace COVID-19 Testing Suitable for All Companies?
While current regulations do not make workplace testing mandatory, it is a pretty good idea to do it anyway regardless of what kind of business you are in. This is because any outbreaks could bring your business operations to a halt with very costly consequences. Businesses that deal with many customers present greater risks to employees. These include businesses such as hotels, restaurants, taxi companies, and many others. For these sorts of companies, workplace testing for COVID-19 is an essential part of their operations.
Best Approach to Use
One of the biggest decisions that companies face when deciding how to go about workplace testing for COVID-19 is how often to do it. The problem is caused by the fact that a majority of people who get COVID-19 are unlikely to show any symptoms. However, these people are still able to spread the virus, meaning that coronavirus could easily sneak into your workplace. While constant testing can easily prevent this problem, the costs associated with COVID-19 testing make it hard for many companies to do mass testing frequently. The best way to get around this problem is to do random COVID-19 tests after every five days or so. This helps to keep testing costs down while at the same time, ensuring that any infected employees are identified quickly and isolated.
What if an Employee Refuses to Take the Test?
Currently, the laws around COVID-19 testing are not very clear. Unless COVID-19 tests are mandatory as per the company's policy, it is difficult to take any disciplinary action against an employee who refuses to take a test. Even in companies where such tests are mandatory, it is unclear how the law would interpret any disciplinary action that a company might take against an employee who refuses to take a COVID-19 test. With this in mind, it is important for any company to proceed with caution when taking any action on such an employee.
However, even without going the disciplinary route, there are many other options that a company can consider. The most basic of these is addressing the issue that an employee may have about the testing process. Sometimes employees refuse to take a COVID-19 test due to fear or lack of information about what the process entails. These kinds of obstacles are easy to deal with.
Can I Ask Employees to Arrange for Their Own Tests?
While some companies pursue this as an option, the truth is that it may not be a very efficient way of getting it done. For starters, there is no guarantee of 100% compliance as opposed to workplace COVID-19 testing. The other problem is the turnaround time which varies across different testing centers.
