How Should My Business Prepare for Covid-19

1. How Should My Business Prepare for Covid-19 The World Health Organization has declared Covid-19 a pandemic. As of today, the United States has declared a state of emergency. Businesses are wanting to know what they need to do and what they should do. Employees also want to know their rights. Businesses and employees should follow the advice of their local health departments as well as national agencies like the Center for Disease Control. What you should do: Require people who have tested positive to self-quarantine at home until they are testing negative. Have employees who have traveled to high risk locations work remotely or take leave for two weeks to see if they develop symptoms. If they do, see the above bullet point. Utilize social distancing. This may involve cancelling meetings, limiting visitors to job sites, having people who can work from home do so and postponing events with more than five people. Cancel business travel whenever possible. Many schools are shutting down and parents must stay home with their children. Some towns that are seeing large outbreaks are being put on quarantine. If your employees are part of that you need to have a way for them to do their essential job functions remotely when possible. Work with your IT department to set up remote access to computers now. Talk to employees to find out what kind of equipment they may need to work remotely. Facilitate with them the ability to bring office supplies home during the time needed. Develop contingency plans that may involve cross training employees so you can stay in business as long as possible despite employee absences. Consider providing additional paid leave to your employees. Employees, particularly hourly employees and lower wage employees, are reluctant to miss work if they are going to lose money. If you want your employees to stay home if they have been exposed, you should pay them. Follow local and national updates that may provide funding for businesses to assist with this. That said, while salaried employees have to be paid for the full pay period for anytime worked, hourly employees are not required to be paid if they have exhausted their leave. Be flexible with your employees. Recognize that if they are working from home with children who cannot go to daycare, they may not have a distraction free zone. Be patient if you hear children in the background of a conference call.

2. Encourage sanitation at work. Make sure there is plenty of hand soap and signs reminding employees to wash their hands for at least 20 seconds. Increase office cleaning. Provide hand sanitizer when available. What you should not do: Do not share private employee health information without permission. If you find out an employee had Covid-19, you may tell your employees that an employee tested positive and you may tell exposed employees they should self-quarantine, but you should not tell anyone who that employee is without that employee’s permission. Be careful not to ask for information that you would otherwise not want to know. Generally, employers do not like to know if an employee has a disability unless that employee needs an accommodation for that disability. Accordingly, if an employee is coughing, you should not ask if they have asthma or allergies. If an employee wishes to volunteer that information, that is fine. You certainly can ask an employee if they think they could have Covid-19. You can ask generally whether they believe their symptoms are from another issue but make clear that they are not required to disclose what that issue is. If you continue to have concerns, you may request that an employee get a note that they are fit to work, but you should only request this in absolutely extreme situations. Our healthcare system is currently heavily burdened fighting this virus and does not have the capacity to write a note for each employee that might have a sneeze or a cough. Do not strictly enforce workplace policies. Even if an action is normally legal, like firing an employee who refuses to come to work, you may later face a wrongful termination claim. In New Hampshire, a termination is wrongful under common law “if the defendant was motivated by bad faith, malice, or retaliation in terminating plaintiff’s employment. The word ‘malice’ means ill will, hatred, hostility or some evil motive on the part of the defendant.”Further, “the plaintiff must demonstrate that he/she was discharged because he/she performed an act that public policy would encourage or refused to do something that public policy would condemn.” Participating in a civic responsibility is usually an act that public policy would encourage. Refusing to do an act that public policy would condemn includes refusing to do an act which might jeopardize that person’s safety or some other person’s safety.

3. For more information or assistance, please contact Attorney Kathleen A. Davidson at 603-668- 2222.https://hagehodes.com/how-should-my-business-prepare-for-covid-19/ Contact Details: Hage Hodes, PA – Attorneys at Law 1855 Elm Street Manchester New Hampshire USA 03104 603-668-2222 info@hagehodes.com Fax 603-641-6333 800-588-8886 (NH & MASS)