If one or more of your employees tests positive for COVID-19, the other employees have the right to be informed directly, not by hearsay. At the same time, an employee's health records are still a confidential medical matter and their personal data must be protected. However, this does not mean you cannot share information with employees that they have been in contact with a person who has been shown to have symptoms of the disease. It is therefore a good idea to think about the appropriate form of message sharing in advance.
For inspiration, look at this open letter to employees of an unnamed company, which appeared in a recent article on the Workforce portal.
Dear employees:
We are sorry to inform you that one of your colleagues has tested positive for COVID-19. The law prevents us from telling you the identity of the employee in question, but we want to assure you that we will continue to provide support during treatment and welcome him again at work as soon as it is safe to do so.
We are doing everything in our power and resources to ensure the safest possible healthy working environment for you. Nevertheless, many transmissions of COVID-19 occur before the affected person even finds out that they have been exposed to the infection, and therefore we cannot guarantee 100% that the virus will not reappear at the workplace.
Therefore, we would like to request you really thoroughly evaluate the possibility of potential COVID-19 symptoms every day (fever or chills, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, fatigue, muscle or body pain, headache, loss of taste or smell, pain sore throat, runny nose, nausea, vomiting or diarrhea). If you have any of these symptoms, please let us know and do not return to work until you have passed a negative COVID-19 test or until at least seven days have passed and no further or worsening symptoms of the disease have occurred.
We also continue to take the following steps to ensure maximum health and safety for all employees at the workplace:
- Employees are required to wear veils or other workplace protection unless an exemption has been granted.
- Employees are obliged to constantly maintain the recommended distance of 2 metres from other employees.
- Employees must wash their hands thoroughly and use the disinfectant available at the workplace.
- The employee must assess his or her own health before coming to work, and no employee is allowed to enter employment if he or she has any of the known symptoms of COVID-19.
- The lunch room and other common areas are closed until further notice.
- Each employee is responsible for disinfecting their workplace at the end of each work shift using products designed for this purpose.
- Every week a thorough professional disinfection of the entire workplace takes place.
As a result of the current findings of a positively tested employee, we also hastily had the entire workplace disinfected to suppress further possible spread.
Our commitment to your health and safety is our highest priority. If you have any questions or comments, please contact ______________. Our doors are always open to you.
This message is intended only as inspiration for the process of internal communication and it goes without saying that each company can adapt it to their own needs.
At present, several outbreaks of coronavirus spread have occurred within specific companies on the Czech market, and many companies are proactive in testing their other employees for the presence of the infection and granting preventive quarantine to the closest collaborators of infected persons.
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