COVID-19 Safety Plan

Step 1: Assess the risks at your workplace

  • Owners pose the greatest risk of exposure
  • Standing in close proximity to an owner during payment
  • Contact with pets who may be carriers
  • In close proximity with coworkers for procedures that require restraint
  • Contact with surfaces people touch often

Step 2: Implement protocols to reduce the risks

  • First level protection (elimination): Limit the number of people at the workplace and ensure physical distance whenever possible
    • No clients allowed in the hospital (except for euthanasias)
    • Only taking essential appointments (i.e. no nail trims)
    • Doctors doing phone consultations
    • Encourage e-transfer for contactless method of payment
    • Posters and stickers visible for our clients to see protocols
  • Second level protection (engineering): Barriers and partitions
  • Bright tape on the ground 2 meters away from the door so clients know to keep their distance
  • Third level protection (administrative): Rules and guidelines
    • Post protocols in easily visible places for clients and staff to review
  • Fourth level protection: Using masks
    • Wear PPE (mask and gloves) anytime we exit the hospital to help a client
    • Wear a mask when participating in a procedure that requires you to be less than 6ft apart from your coworker
    • Staff trained to properly use a mask and change gloves frequently
  • Reduce the risk of surface transmission through effective cleaning and hygiene practices
  • Increase frequency of cleaning surfaces, especially those touched often
    • Alcohol wiping mobile terminal between clients
    • Bathroom cleaning schedule  

Step 3: Develop Policies

Our workplace policies ensure that workers and other showing symptoms of COVID-19 are prohibited from the workplace

  • Anyone who has symptoms of COVID-19 in the last 10 days. Symptoms include fever, chills, new or worsening cough, shortness of breath, sore throat, and new muscle aches or headache. 
  • Anyone directed by Public Health to self-isolate. 
  • Anyone who has arrived from outside of Canada or who has had contact with a confirmed COVID-19 case must self-isolate for 14 days and monitor for symptoms.
  • Visitors are prohibited or limited in the workplace. 
  • Ensure workers have the training and strategies required to address the risk of violence that may arise as customers and members of the public adapt to restrictions or modifications to the workplace. 
  • Ensure an appropriate violence prevention program is in place. 

Our policy addresses workers who may start to feel ill at work. It includes the following: 

  • Sick workers should be asked to wash or sanitize their hands, provided with a mask, and isolated. Ask the worker to go straight home. [Consult the BC COVID-19 Self-Assessment Tool, or call 811 for further guidance related to testing and self-isolation.] 
  • If the worker is severely ill (e.g., difficulty breathing, chest pain), call 911. 
  • Clean and disinfect any surfaces that the ill worker has come into contact with.

Step 4: Develop communication plans and training

You must ensure that everyone entering the workplace, including workers from other employers, knows how to keep themselves safe while at your workplace. 

  • We have a training plan to ensure everyone is trained in workplace policies and procedures. 
  • All workers have received the policies for staying home when sick. 
  • We have posted signage at the workplace, including occupancy limits and effective hygiene practices.
  • We have posted signage at the main entrance indicating who is restricted from entering the premises, including visitors and workers with symptoms. 
  • Supervisors have been trained on monitoring workers and the workplace to ensure policies and procedures are being followed.

Step 5: Monitor your workplace and update your plans as necessary 

Things may change as your business operates. If you identify a new area of concern, or if it seems like something isn’t working, take steps to update your policies and procedures. Involve workers in this process. 

  • We have a plan in place to monitor risks. We make changes to our policies and procedures as necessary. 
  • Workers know who to go to with health and safety concerns.