Top Tips For Reopening Your Business After Covid-19
With non-essential shops and retailers having reopened on June 15, business as usual may look very different after the coronavirus pandemic. By July, the government would like to see remaining small businesses that have been forced to close, including hairdressers and beauty salons also reopen.
But with social distancing still in place, what exactly do you need to do as a business owner to get your enterprise operating again after months of lockdown? And more importantly, how do you ensure you and your customers remain safe? In this guide, we give you our top tips to getting back to business.
1. Before anything, carry out a risk assessment
The most important part of preparing to return to work is to ensure the safety of your workplace.
In doing this, you should carry out a rigorous risk assessment in line with the Health and Safety Executive Guidelines. As part of this risk assessment, try and think of the issues that are likely to increase risk:
- How many people will be on the shop floor at one time?
- How are people going to enter and exit the shop floor?
- How are you going to clean work surfaces while customers are on the premises?
Once you’ve carried out your risk assessment, make sure it is shared with your employees and on your website so that everyone is aware of what needs to be done to mitigate the risk of infection.
2. Enforce the 2 meter social distancing rule
While shops may be opening once again, the risk of infection is still relatively high and as such social distancing is very much in place. A fundamental part of your risk assessment should therefore be the enforcement of the statutory 2 meter social distancing.
You can remind people to do this in a number of ways, such as:
- putting up signs to remind workers and visitors of social distancing guidance
- avoiding sharing workstations
- using floor tape or paint to mark areas to help people keep to a 2m distance
3. Implement regular cleaning and hand wash guidelines
As well as the need for social distancing, when reopening you should ensure that there is a facility for customers and employees to regularly wash their hands, as well as a regular disinfection of work surfaces. To do this, you should:
- encourage people to follow the guidance on hand washing and hygiene
- providing hand sanitiser around the workplace, in addition to washrooms. Preferably provide hand sanitizer before entering the building.
- frequently cleaning and disinfecting objects and surfaces that are touched regularly
4. Manage the risk of transmission
Where it’s not possible for people to be 2m apart, you should do everything practical to manage the transmission risk by:
- considering whether an activity needs to continue for the business to operate
- keeping the activity time involved as short as possible
- using screens or barriers to separate people from each other
- using back-to-back or side-to-side working whenever possible
- staggering arrival and departure times
Be creative. If you want to be successful while ensuring health and safety, look at alternative options. If you are a restaurant or cafe, look at online delivery services such as Deliveroo, or if you provide a product, marketplaces such as Amazon, Ebay or Gumtree to help boost your sales. If you are a service provider, centre your marketing strategy around safety. For example, that you use masks, PPE and hand sanitizer and can provide your service in the safest possible conditions.
Authors: Oliver Murphy & Sacha Bright
Disclaimer:
To the best of our knowledge, the information we have provided is correct at the time of publishing. SEIS and EIS tax benefits are dependent on your financial circumstances. Sacha Bright is not a solicitor or accountant and we recommend that you seek professional advice on any topic discussed.