As the winter sets in and temperatures drop, your staff may become more vulnerable to illness. Gemma O’Connor explains how to help reduce the spread of infection in your workplace
While you can’t stop staff from getting sick, you can take steps to lower the risk of employee illness impacting your operations.
The following steps can help keep your business up and running all winter.
Clamp down on presenteeism
While absenteeism causes its own problems, it’s a good idea to let staff know that it is okay to be ill.
Many employees continue going to work while they’re unwell and infectious out of fear that not turning up will have a negative impact on their prospects with the organisation.
This “presenteeism” (i.e. the pressure to be present at work) can be very damaging for you and your employee, however.
Employees who continue working while ill will likely struggle to perform, prolong their illness, and pass it on to others.
So, while you don’t have to manage without an absent employee in the short term, you could end up having more people off work sick in the weeks following their illness.
Ventilate your workplace
As a general rule, you should make sure your workplace is well-ventilated – especially in enclosed areas.
If your staff work in a poorly ventilated enclosed space, it’s far more likely that infectious illnesses will spread. Ensuring your workplace has access to fresh air will help reduce the transmission risk.
If you can’t open windows, you should have an air conditioner installed.
The Health and Safety Authority has recently released a Code of Practice for Indoor Air Quality that goes into greater detail on how to maintain acceptable indoor humidity levels.
Encourage staff to maintain a clean working environment
Maintaining good hygiene practices at work will also help to reduce the risk of viruses spreading.
It’s important to remind staff to be responsible for their hygiene by washing hands, covering their mouths when sneezing or coughing, and keeping surfaces clean.
You could put signs around the office to remind staff to practise good hygiene, leave hand sanitiser on desks or provide a communal sanitiser, and offer protective equipment to staff.
Review your sickness and absence policy
If you don’t currently have a sickness and absence policy, you must set one up to comply with the Sick Leave Act 2022.
Whether you have a standalone policy for sickness – or one policy outlining how you deal with all types of absences – it’s essential to have it in writing and to communicate it to staff.
Having a policy gives you and your staff a process to follow if they think they might not be well enough to work.
In your policy, you should outline:
- how to report a sickness absence;
- how often you’ll be in touch while your employee is off work;
- how you support employees who are returning to work after a sickness absence; and
- your statutory sick pay policy as required under the Sick Leave Act 2022.
For 2023, your staff have a statutory entitlement to three days of paid sick leave. This entitlement is scheduled to increase to five days of paid sick leave in 2024.
Your sick leave policy should set out the minimum payments for periods of certified sick leave, which is 70 percent of the employee’s usual daily earnings up to a maximum of €110 a day.
Gemma O’Connor is Head of Service at Peninsula Ireland
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