Getting Back to Business: How We Are Helping Our Customers Return to Work

As Covid-19 restrictions are gradually being lifted many businesses across the country are facing the task of preparing the workplace for the return of their workforce. Through their Return To Work Safely Protocol, the Irish Government has laid out a range of conditions that companies must satisfy before they can be deemed safe to return to operations.

Published by the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation, it is a collaboration between that department, the Health and Safety Authority (HSA), the Department of Health and the Health Service Executive (HSE), and provides practical guidance designed to protect employers and employees against the spread of the coronavirus and the feared second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.

At Kefron we are helping clients with their preparations with services that can make the transition a little bit easier.

Employer & Employee Responsibilities

A key overlying element of the protocol is the need for employers and employees to engage and work together to reduce the spread of Covid-19 at work, highlighting the sets of responsibilities both have in their own right.

For example, employers must:

• Provide appropriate hygiene facilities and guidance on good hand washing practices and advice on good respiratory practice
• Ensure clear communication between management and workers via a designated employee representative
• Ensure physical distancing is facilitated and adhered to, with one-way systems, staggered shifts and breaks and installation of physical barriers where necessary
• Maintain a contact log to aid contact tracing
• Enhance workplace cleaning schedules and frequency, while providing hand sanitisers
• Provide Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) where necessary
• Revise working arrangements to eliminate physical interaction between employees and customers as much as is reasonably practicable.

Meanwhile, employees are expected to follow public health advice and any specific direction from their employer, as well as adopting good hygiene practices and comply with physical distancing.

Meeting The Challenge

To meet these requirements companies have to make changes to the workplace as well as to procedures and practices to get ready for return to work. This is where the challenges lie. Central to Government Protocol is the need to introduce physical distancing restrictions, which effectively means re-designing the office layout. And with no certainty over when (if at all) workspace can return to pre-Covid19 “normal”, the solutions need to be long-term.

This is where Kefron can help, with services targeted at meeting this challenge.

• Secure Off-Site Storage

Space may already have been at a premium, but with extra space now needed to adhere to physical distancing, all those non-essential files in bulky filing cabinets that have been sitting untouched during remote working need to be cleared away to make room for the essential larger workspace. Kefron offers secure off-site storage solutions, including everything from box supply to pack away those files to cataloguing the contents of those cabinets to vault storage for sensitive documents that require an extra level of security.

• Files Recall

With our Retrieval and Delivery service, we facilitate customers requests for delivery from storage to one or multiple locations, making accessing your hardcopy files easy or alternatively our Scan-On-Demand service delivers your files electronically to your desk wherever you are working, allowing you immediate access.

• Remote Working Systems

The Government’s return to work protocol details many changes to workplace layouts and practices, but it also highlights the value of continuing remote working options where possible. Kefron provides a suite of Digital Solutions that makes remote access not only simple but fully secure.

These services include invoice automation, document scanning and hosting, and data capture amongst others, all of which will support remote working procedures and help ensure the smoothest transition to full operations.

Of course, every business faces a unique set of challenges, do not hesitate to contact us if you would like to discuss the right solution for your business.