Adapting the workplace for COVID-19

In order to successfully re-open amidst the rampages of COVID-19 and roll with the punches thrown by this fearful virus, Barbadian businesses need to return to proper hygiene practices – like those learned in school until training that is being made available comes around.

“You still have to wash your hands properly,” emphasised Dr Heather Harewood, Lecturer in Public Health and Epidemiology University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus and head of the public health group in the faculty.

On respiratory etiquette she said, “If you cough or sneeze, you should cover your cough or sneeze. It is ironic that we teach that to small children, but as we become adults, we fall away from those practices.”

With COVID-19 devastating parts of the world and to a much lesser extent here, but is expected to be around for the long haul, the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Centre for Professional Development and Lifelong Learning got together with the Barbados Employers Federation to discuss “Workplace, Health & Wellness, Open for Business During COVID-19” before an in-person and Facebook audience.

Dr Heather Harewood

Other panellists were Clinical Pharmacologist Dr Kenneth Connell; business administrator Sheena Mayers-Granville; and Clinical Psychologist, Dr Jacqueline Benn.

As moderator Sonia Mahon put it when introducing the recent seminar, “This morning’s conversation is about re-opening in the age of COVID-19. This is not going away soon.”

Continuing to remind adults to get back to hygiene habits taught in school, Dr Harewood continued, “At a minimum, we need to remember that respiratory etiquette applies to all ages and it has to be done correctly and consistently.”

“You don’t sneeze into your hands,” she said, adding, “You have to either catch it with a piece of tissue or in the crock of your arm. And if you sneeze into tissue, dispose of the tissue so kerchiefs are a no-no. And then once you’ve done that, you need to clean your hands.”

Dr Connell, Chair of the Campus Health and Wellness Committee, noted some of the new dos and don’ts in this era of, “a new health landscape. Whether we choose to admit it or not, the world pre-covid will never be here again. This is not all negative.”

He spoke of infrastructural changes: “We have to redesign our desks [so that they] are not next to each other. Change the way we do business so that the entire team isn’t at work at the same time.

“There is also behavioural change. How do we change the Caribbean culture of greeting people where we hug each other if we haven’t seen each other for a long time?”

“Your business has to have a policy. You can’t be just playing this by ear. You have to be very clear, whether you are a salon owner or the CEO of a bank. What is the policy for this place? What are we going to allow and what are we not going to allow based on what the national policy is?”

Making clear that these adaptations have to work because the last shutdown made Barbados’ engine of growth, business, desperate, Executive Director of Barbados Employers Confederation Mayers-Granville said, “The business community believes we cannot afford a second shutdown so therefore, let’s open in a safe manner to ensure [we don’t get] to that total shutdown stage.”

Sheens Mayers-Granville

She said this applies not only to big businesses. “We do have a large network of small and micro enterprises who are severely impacted.”

But Dr Jacqueline Benn advised that amid the rush there must be caution because many workers are going through mental stress. “COVID has upended how we have been living. It has had a very detrimental effect on our physical health, economic health and all of those then play a part in our mental health.”

“Work is an integral aspect of our lives,” she said, pointing out that if a person is unable to work, it affects the way that individual thinks of him or herself.

Arguing for a more centralised role in the attention paid to mental disorders in the workplace, she said mental disorder is an NCD. “We tend not to put a lot of emphasis on mental health. I think because of the stigma, the fact [of] how mental health has been perceived throughout history – once mad, always mad is false.”