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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Employees Guide to Coronavirus March 2020City Employees Guide to Coronavirus Sick Employees • Any employee that has a fever or upper respiratory symptoms should be directed to go home and utilize sick time until symptoms and fever clear for 24 hours. • Employees should not be asked to provide a doctor’s note to return to work, unless there are unusual circumstances. Please consult with HR prior to any requirements for a doctor’s note. This is being done to ease burdens on the healthcare system. Certainly, if an employee feels the need to obtain healthcare services they should do so without hesitation. This only pertains to return to work notes. • Be flexible with family sick leave time and allow employees to use regular sick leave if they are caring for an immediate family member with flu symptoms. Travel • Take inventory of all approved work-related travel in the next two months. Even if travel is already approved, you should be reviewing the CDC’s travel guidance prior to authorizing trips. You can access that information at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019- ncov/travelers/index.html. Please know this is being updated daily. While there are no US restrictions at this time, you should check back regularly to make sure that does not change. Hygiene • The most stressed advice is to be mindful of personal hygiene. Washing hands frequently with soap and water for 20 seconds or more is encouraged. Hand sanitizer is an alternative if hand washing capabilities are not readily available. Please encourage and allow staff in customer service positions the ability to wash hands frequently. You can provide additional sanitizer for these positions as well. • Government Buildings and other staff that have cleaning responsibilities should give more priority to regular cleaning routines in high contact areas (customer service counters, frequently used door handles, break room furniture, etc.) Operations Planning • If the threat level rises, social distancing may be one recommendation from our Public Health Officials. This is situation in which they will discourage large gatherings and encourage people to stay at least 6ft from others. Important, this is not a current recommendation. However, look at your operations and events that are planned. Begin to think about any possible closures, cancellations, etc. At this time, take inventory – not action. Questions from the Public • It is important that we allow public health officials to be the crafter of content. Thus, please refer people to the IDPH website and the CDC website. • Communications – Please monitor the communication links and social media posts on these sites and share their content as appropriate. We want to inform, stress current recommendations and provide access to more details at the reader’s discretion. We do not want to alarm. Going Forward We will continue to monitor guidance from our health partners. Please do begin to take inventories and begin some basic planning as described above. If the situation warrants, we will gather a team of department representatives and risk management staff to expedite our efforts.