How to make employee attestation part of your back to work process

How to keep COVID-19 out of the workplace is becoming a major issue as employers around the world look towards how they may return to work in the months ahead. 

Of course, there is a major desire to get business open. Owners need to make money and employees need to put food on their table. This desire to get back to work needs to be balanced with the health and safety risk that is COVID-19. 

It only takes one sick team-mate to come to the workplace and infect everyone else, which can have serious health implications and grind production to a halt. That’s why you might be hearing a lot about COVID-19 employee attestation forms at moment.

COVID-19 employee attestation forms?

You may know them by other names like, “Fit for work reports”, “wellbeing screening” or “Symptom tracking reports”. Regardless, the idea is basically this: You ask employees to fill out a form asking how are they are feeling. If they tick a box saying they are fine then they can come to work. If they are not fine then they stay away.

Businesses are asking all sorts of questions at the moment. This simple form template from The Society of Human Resources is one example.

How does filling out this form keep people safe?

Every business has a collection of forms, most don’t get filled out. What you need is a process to make sure employees are filling out the form each day and that the form information is getting into the right hands to prevent a virus outbreak in your workplace.

This process will work something like:

1. Employees fill out an attestation form every day before they come to work.
2. The form results are pushed to a health and safety manager or human resources manager.
3. In the event an employee is symptomatic they are instructed to stay away from work and get tested.
4. In the event an employee has tested positive for Covid-19 or is symptomatic a contact trace is performed and staff members which may have been exposed are also asked to not come to work and get tested as well.

Our app, SaferMe, has employee attestation forms built into it. This automation helps remind staff to fill out their forms and helps businesses create workflows to speed up all the actions that need to take place when an employee becomes symptomatic..

Can’t people just lie?

Yes that is possible, even though the act of falsifying a report would likely be a breach of a worker’s employment contract. But let’s not get heavy handed just yet.

Every business will need to have a good look if their company is structured in a way and has a culture which operates on a high trust model. It’s also worthwhile exploring the incentives that are in place that will help get these forms filled out. For example:

• Fostering a environment that cares about employees and their teammates.
• Places value on having a safe work environment.
• Allows people to work from home in the event they are isolating to make sure they may not suffer financially if they report as being symptomatic.

Everyone wants to go to work so they can provide for themselves and their families. Good employers help people do it in a way which allows people to get home safe every day.