The Wilkins Safety Group are now offering an assurance assessment service to ensure that you are Covid Secure. This focuses on five elements of business recovery and will help support your business, take stock of the present situation and then grow in the future.
We are offering professional support, guidance and independent assurance to enable companies to develop and ensure they have suitable Covid controls within the workplace.
Our technical support can provide you with the independent assurance that you are COVID-19 secure and your workplace safety, health and environmental arrangements are in accordance with current guidance and best practice, as a minimum standard.
We can also support you as the guidelines, requirements and circumstances change to ensure your workplace remains as safe and healthy as is reasonably practicable.
The following five factors provide the framework for the consultancy services:
- Organisational context (risk management)
- Operational processes (risk assessment, safe operating procedures, etc)
- Health and wellbeing
- Stakeholder engagement
- Facilities and workplace health and safety (workplace adjustments, etc).
Our technical support includes:
This is new territory for all of us, but for almost 30 years we’ve been a trusted guide to excellent health, safety and environmental management. Our experience will help you achieve the very highest health, safety and wellbeing standards, so you can protect your people, your reputation and your bottom line.
To find out more about how we can help you plan for the return to work, please contact us on 01458 253682 or email [email protected]
Our COVID-19 Consultancy Services
Risk Management
Here we focus on the priority business activities and the decision-making process required to bring back into the workplace, those who have been remote-based working and look at the risk to their health, safety and wellbeing together with the wider business risks.
Typical support would include risk profiling, reviewing roles and responsibilities, establishing suitable objectives, operational planning, etc.
Typical outputs would include a summary report with recommendations, top management briefings, guidance, post-operational return reviews.
Operational Processes and Risk Assessment
Primarily concerned with risk assessment, aspects / impacts evaluation, control measures (planning and implementing), safe operating policies and procedures, crisis management plans, training needs analysis, etc
Typical support would include review and/or development of COVID -19 specific risk assessments, provision of risk assessment templates, development and/or review of safe operating policies and procedures (in accordance with current governmental and/or sector guidelines and practice), monitoring and review processes. Communication with, and participation of, key stakeholders (management, staff, etc) would be an integral part of this service.
Health and Wellbeing
An area of great concern for all organisations. Employees will undoubtedly have been impacted by the pandemic, some more directly than others either as recovering patients or bereaved individuals. Many experts have also identified that those in enforced isolation, or those who have adapted their lives to staying at home, may suffer from increased levels of anxiety and possibly panic attacks. This is a critical area for employers and an obvious area for them to consider what support to offer.
Businesses will also need to consider enhanced health surveillance provision for staff as identifying people who may be infected with Covid-19, or who have been in close personal contact with an infected person, and then isolating them from work for a period until they are clear of infection is considered to be a key control measure.
Typical support would include risk assessment reviews / development, identification of vulnerable staff, development of pre-return to work confidential health assessments, mental health training for managers and other designated staff, information and guidance, etc.
Stakeholder Engagement
In the same way as wellbeing is critical to recovery, then stakeholder (management, staff, etc) engagement is equally important. Employees may well be anxious and cautious about returning to the workplace and sharing information, ensuring understanding of the controls selected and of the underlying rationale, will be essential in ensuring compliance, sustainability and, most importantly, reassurance to employees, visitors, and other stakeholders.
Typical support would be the development of a communications plan, staff briefings, revised induction process for return to the workplace, etc.
Facilities and Workplace Adjustments
Perhaps the most critical aspect of a return to the workplace. Compliance with statutory regulations has not been removed during the pandemic, therefore we can provide guidance in respect to this matter for clients who are seeking to return to offices, shops, factories or warehouses.
Revised procedures and arrangements may well require physical adjustments within the workplace in respect of access, egress, emergency event management, use of equipment, PPE, cleaning regimes, use of elevators, movement and flow of persons within the premises, waste management, social distancing controls, welfare and hygiene controls, etc
Typical support would include review and/or development of workplace controls, processes, based upon relevant risk assessment outcomes and relevant national and sector guidelines.
Covid Secure Certificate
Whether you have already established COVID-19 policies, protocols and workplace controls or you are just getting started, there is considerable benefit in undertaking an independent third-party review (audit) of these arrangements. We can provide such an assurance audit / review against the current government and sector guidelines and provide a Covid Secure Certificate, together with a summary report, with recommendations for improved controls if appropriate.
This can provide you with external verification of your commitment to providing a safe and healthy workplace in accordance with current national and sector COVID-19 guidelines.