PRESENTED BY:

This guide is meant to be a starting point for COVID-19 considerations prior to re-opening your business. This is NOT an exhaustive list, as guidelines and applications of recommendations will vary greatly across different industries. Presented by WesBanco Bank, this document was compiled by Commerce Lexington Inc. and includes a cross-section of recommendations and requirements from the Commonwealth of Kentucky, the Lexington-Fayette Co. Health Department, the CDC, and a variety of businesses and local human resources professionals. In all cases, your company should consult a human resources firm and/or law firm to develop policies that both work for your business and comply with FFCRA, EEO, ADA, HIPAA, and many other laws and regulations. To find an area human resources firm or law firm, CLICK HERE to view our on-line Business Directory. 

View more Return to Work Resources, including sample communications to customers and sample business reopening plans, ON-LINE HERE.

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Last Updated May 31, 2020.

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Introductory Guide to Reopening Your Business

NOTE: This guide is meant to be a starting point for COVID-19 considerations prior to re-opening your business. This is NOT an exhaustive list, as guidelines and applications of recommendations will vary greatly across different industries. Presented by WesBanco Bank, this document was compiled by Commerce Lexington Inc. and includes a cross-section of recommendations from the Commonwealth of Kentucky, the Lexington-Fayette Co. Health Department, the CDC, and a variety of businesses and local human resources professionals. In all cases, your company should consult a human resources firm and/or law firm to develop policies that both work for your business and comply with FFCRA, EEO, ADA, HIPAA, and many other laws and regulations. To find an area human resources firm or law firm, visit Commerce Lexington's on-line BUSINESS DIRECTORY.

ADDITIONAL GUIDANCE & INFORMATION:
CDC  |  OSHA  |  WHITE HOUSE REOPENING AMERICA PLAN  |  KY's HEALTHY AT WORK PLAN

CITY OF LEXINGTON  |  LEXINGTON HEALTH DEPARTMENT  |  COMMERCE LEXINGTON INC.

​KSBDC TEMPLATE COVID-19 BUSINESS PREPAREDNESS PLAN FOR REOPENING
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Review Lexington's Blueprint for Economic Recovery Here

KY Minimum Business Reopening Requirements

For closed businesses that will be reopening, each business must meet the following minimum requirements before they can reopen. If any business in a sector being reopened cannot comply with the minimum requirements set out below, they must wait to reopen until they are able to do so or until some or all of these restrictions are lifted.  For those businesses that have been deemed life-sustaining and remained operating, they will be expected to meet the following minimum requirements no later than May 11, 2020.  READ FULL DETAILS ON REQUIREMENTS ON-LINE HERE

1. Continue telework where possible.
2. Implement phased return to work for staff.
3. Enforce social distancing. [6 feet apart]
4. Limit face-to-face interaction.
5. Provide masks & any other necessary PPE for employees. Masking is NOT necessary for employees working alone in an enclosed space. Encourage customers to wear masks.
6. Provide hand sanitizer & encourage hand washing.
7. Restrict common areas.
8. Sanitize frequently touched surfaces.
9. Require employees to conduct daily temperature and health checks before coming to or entering work.
10. Create a testing plan for employees.
11. Make special accommodations for employees & customers at higher risk of illness.
12. Designate a workplace Healthy at Work main point of contact.
13. Educate & train employees.
14. Ensure that managers and employees participate in contact tracing.

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Other Recommendations

Companies should always consult a human resources firm and/or law firm to develop policies that both work for your business and comply with FFCRA, EEO, ADA, HIPAA, and many other laws and regulations.

​Managing the New Normal in Your Workplace

• Identify a workplace coordinator or a group of people in your office who will manage COVID-related items, communicate to staff, and ensure policies and procedures are being followed.
• Communicate to your staff everything that is expected of them and emphasize the importance of their actions.  Consider a conference call or videoconference with all employees to discuss the new expectations and answer questions. 
• Post all COVID-19 documents, resources, and company protocols on the company’s shared network that allows all employees to access them.

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Staff Policies & Procedures to Consider
- Always encourage sick employees to stay home.

- Evaluate sick leave policies to ensure flexibility and that fall within public health guidelines.

• How will your company handle employees who need to stay home to care for a sick family member or children who are home because of school and/or childcare closures?
• Could the company offer advances on future sick leave or allow employees to donate sick days to each other?
• If your company does NOT currently offer sick leave to all employees, it is recommended to draft non-punitive emergency sick leave policies.
• Waive the requirement for a medical professional’s or doctor’s note for employees to be eligible for sick leave or return to work. 

- Social distancing policies should be established inside the workplace.

• Social distancing guidelines should be followed inside the business as recommended by state and local health officials (at least 6 feet at all times).

- Develop policies for staff teleworking.

• Working environment: Staff should have the appropriate electronic devices and connectivity to effectively work from home.  Employer may need to provide or arrange for equipment.
• Productivity requirements.
• Periodic check-ins with supervisor/manager.
• Required tech security in home environment.

- Travel policies for staff: Employers will need to take a close look at their employee travel policy, and for employees who travel for the job, decide what your guidelines will be for when they are allowed to return to work?  Will they need to stay at home for two weeks following travel outside the state or country? Or, what length of time would you propose?

• If possible, utilize videoconferencing to avoid unnecessary person-to-person contact.
• If employees do travel out of state for work, ensure they practice safe social distancing and follow guidelines while gone, so that they would not be required to self-quarantine upon return. 

- Meetings and gatherings:

• Once meetings and gatherings are allowed again, what will be your company’s policies be regarding meetings for your employees off-site?  What about meetings inside your own workplace between employees or from outside groups?
• If meetings must be held, require them to be conducted in well ventilated areas with appropriate social distancing.

- Review all human resources policies to ensure they are consistent with public health recommendations and federal and state workplace laws.

• Depending on the industry and the size of the business, compliance with FFCRA, EEO, ADA, HIPAA, and many other laws and regulations, is vital as it relates to safely bringing employees back to the worksite/office.

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Assess Your Physical Workplace

• Assess and identify common touchpoints within the facility, such as doors, countertops, desks, elevators, bathrooms, meeting spaces, payment processing touch screens, etc.
• Develop a cleaning and disinfecting policy/schedule, identifying who will clean what items inside the office and how often.  For guidance on cleaning and disinfecting public spaces and workplaces, the CDC has information posted on-line HERE. 
• Identify potentially tight spaces, such as narrow hallways, stairwells, elevators, small break rooms and restrict the number of people in these areas at a given time, to allow for physical spacing.  Think about how many staff and customers you can accommodate in the public areas, given the square footage of the areas.
• Other modifications to the workplace might include replacing doorknobs with easy to use handles or hooks, using non-touch trash cans, and adding air cleaning systems. 
• Inspect, and if necessary, improve the building’s ventilation system (i.e. increase the amount of outdoor air circulating into the system).
• Are plastic or plexiglass barriers necessary between employees and the public?
• Reconfigure your lobby area to conform to social distancing guidelines or close lobby area to the public and encourage people to wait in vehicles until their meeting time.

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Protect Your Workforce

• Ask staff to take temperatures and monitor themselves for symptoms of cough, chills, shortness of breath or diarrhea daily before coming to work.  Tell staff not to come to work if they have fever or symptoms.  
• Evaluate which positions in your workplace are essential (may need to be at the office more regularly) and those that are non-essential and could continue to work from home.
• As you begin to bring employees back to your business, consider staggered shifts, spacing out shifts, or rotating staff with block scheduling to adhere to social distancing policies.
• Identify the most at-risk employees in your workforce. Allow them to telework as long as possible or give them tasks that keep them away from others.
• Discouraging or prohibit employees from using other employees’ phones, desks, computers, etc.
• Put up posters in bathrooms and common areas promoting proper handwashing.
• Inform staff that gathering in common areas is prohibited, such as breakrooms. Discourage gatherings of staff in cars, outside in smoking areas or in other alternate places, since break rooms and meeting rooms will have fewer chairs.
• Restrict movement between departments, and instead encourage use of Microsoft Teams, Google docs or other project sharing software.
• Encourage single-use coffee, bottled water, and other items, rather than water coolers & coffee pots.
• Develop a cleaning and disinfecting policy/schedule, identifying who will clean what items inside the office and how often.
• Some workplaces are adjusting the placement of workers, so they are not side-by-side, installing plastic barriers between workers, requiring face shields, etc.
• Institute universal masking of staff and customers with surgical or cloth masks, except when staff are working alone in an enclosed space. 
• Employers are responsible for providing personal protective equipment (PPE) items such as gloves, face masks or shields, surface disinfectant, hand sanitizer, tissues, etc.
• Employers are permitted/encouraged to conduct temperature checks and assess employee health prior to workers entering the facility. 
• Decide how to handle deliveries and contracted vendor services entering the building.
• Determine COVID-19 testing availability, should staff need to be tested.
• Determine the plan for how your company will respond if an employee tests positive for COVID-19. Do you know when each employee worked and who they potentially had close contact with? Do you have good contact info for staff and clients who have been close contacts of a case?

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Protect Your Clients & The Public

• Ensure appropriate space for public traffic inside the building.
• Develop modified plan and protocols for intake of clients, members, patients, etc.  Communicate your new plan welcoming customers, clients, patients into your building. Review some sample customer communications ON-LINE HERE.
• Implement a “No Handshake Zone” with appropriate signage inside your facility.
• Put up posters in public bathrooms promoting proper handwashing.
• If necessary, install plastic or plexiglass barriers between employees and the public.
• Consider limiting access to bathrooms to one or two people at a time, depending on the size.
• If possible, limit the number of people utilizing an elevator at one time.
• Provide hand sanitizer or hand-washing stations for the public.
• Provide masks for clients/customers or require that customers wear their own mask.
• Clean and disinfect common touchpoints regularly or after each use if needed.
• Use appropriate signage and visual floor markers to communicate rules and guidelines for social distancing, use of PPE, deliveries, client meetings, etc.  Purchase visual elements HERE.