COVID-19 Return to Work Checklist

The UK Government’s decision to slowly relax the lockdown restrictions and restart the economy presents opportunities for UK employers, but also risks that need monitoring. Every country’s strategy is different, so relying on an international head office for guidance is unlikely to be enough. Here, The International Risk Club provides a list of risk considerations for UK-based companies.

Government mandates and other external factors

Ensure compliance with all restrictions, regulations and laws, including industry standards. Be prepared to flex as circumstances potentially change, in the event of a second wave.

Employees

Review the UK Government guide(s) most relevant to your company, on “working safely during coronavirus”.
Undertake a COVID-19 risk assessment, as per the guidance. Ensure you consider the circumstances of employees who are “clinically vulnerable” and “clinically extremely vulnerable” to COVID-19 within these assessments.
Work with employees, unions and other employers and contractors sharing the workplace, to introduce preventative measures and controls. Where there are notable changes, the results of the risk assessment should be shared on your web site.
Beyond safety considerations, think about what the composition of your workforce needs to look like for the recovery period – do you require new hiring of permanent or temporary workers to deal with uncharacteristic demands on the business or changes in work shift patterns?
Do you need to amend your work-from-home strategy? What approach should you take to phasing staff back to on-site work?
What are the ramifications of employees coming back to work, when it comes to supervisory support and the continuity of operations in areas such as IT and comms?

Customers

Are your customers ready to receive your products and services? If so, in what quantities? What is their financial health and in a business-to-business environment, what is the ongoing demand for their products?
It is possible that demand for your products and services could be either significantly above or below pre-COVID rates? Do you have plans to deal with both sets of eventualities?
Have you planned for a potential second wave and what lessons have you learned from the first spike?

Suppliers

Are your suppliers also in a position to support you? Will they have competing priorities, or underlying financial challenges?
Can you support your suppliers in the short term with alternative levels of orders or more flexible invoicing terms etc. to keep them as suppliers in the long-term?

Buildings and assets

Are onsite facilities safe and are premises ready to open to employees?
Are technology changes made during the pandemic response able to shift back to an on-site technology environment?
How have the physical needs changed at your UK locations?

Your wider risk profile

Are you spending sufficient time monitoring all the other risks facing your business, rather than being preoccupied with COVID-19? Many of these risks will have accelerated, either because they are more likely to happen now (for example, cyber in a remote working environment) or because your financial tolerance will have reduced.

Crisis management

Have you retained your existing crisis management structure and team, or are you assuming that the crisis is going away? Ongoing and regular communication with key stakeholders, including employees, customers, regulators and the media, remains paramount in these uncertain times.

How ready is your UK business to return to the workplace? Email our panel of experts [email protected] with any questions you might have.

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