Safe Work Australia Releases New COVID-19 Guidance for Businesses

Safe Work Australia (SWA) has updated its COVID-19 guidance website and has released new workplace resources for businesses preparing for the pandemic – including information on minimising the risk to office workers, and employer duties surrounding psychological health.

The new resources also cover issues such as employee safety working from home; information on workers’ compensation arrangements and how they might apply during COVID-19; information for workers concerning their own responsibilities; and specific information for small businesses, including what to do if a worker contracts COVID-19.

The four new fact sheets from SWA are:

• Minimising the risk of exposure to COVID-19: Office workers
• Minimising the risk of exposure to COVID-19 in the building and construction industry
• COVID-19: WHS advice for small business
• COVID-19: WHS advice for workers

“For those businesses that are still able to trade, you must still implement appropriate controls to manage the risk of exposure to COVID-19,” SWA says. “What you can do to manage the risk will depend on your workplace and the work that you do.”

SWA says the three key things employers should be doing are:

• maintaining good hygiene and cleanliness of the workplace
• implementing physical distancing – keeping everyone at the workplace physically apart, and
• using protective personal equipment appropriately.

“There might be other controls that would minimise the risk of infection, such as delaying non-essential tasks. There is no one size fits all approach. The important thing is that you:

• actively consider the context of your business, that is, the workplace, the work carried out there, your workers and others who come into the workplace, and
• do what you reasonably can to eliminate or minimise the risk of the people at your workplace contracting COVID-19.”