Question: What should I do to prevent the risks to employees at my business?

Answer passage (source: UK):
page_title: Shops and branches
section_headers: 1. Thinking about risk
section_content: In this section

Managing risk
Sharing your risk assessment

Objective: That all employers carry out a COVID-19 risk assessment.
Everyone needs to assess and manage the risks of COVID-19. As an employer, you
also have a legal responsibility to protect workers and others from risk to
their health and safety. This means you need to think about the risks they
face and do everything reasonably practicable to minimise them, recognising
you cannot completely eliminate the risk of COVID-19.
You must make sure that the risk assessment for your business addresses the
risks of COVID-19, using this guidance to inform your decisions and control
measures. A risk assessment is not about creating huge amounts of paperwork,
but rather about identifying sensible measures to control the risks in your
workplace. If you have fewer than 5 workers, or are self-employed, you don’t
have to write anything down as part of your risk assessment. Your risk
assessment will help you decide whether you have done everything you need to.
The Health and Safety Executive has guidance for business on how to manage
risk and risk assessment at work along with specific advice to help control the risk of
coronavirus in workplaces.
Employers have a duty to consult their people on health and safety. You can do
this by listening and talking to them about the work and how you will manage
risks from COVID-19. The people who do the work are often the best people to
understand the risks in the workplace and will have a view on how to work
safely. Involving them in making decisions shows that you take their health
and safety seriously. You must consult with the health and safety
representative selected by a recognised trade union or, if there isn’t one, a
representative chosen by workers. As an employer, you cannot decide who the
representative will be.
At its most effective, full involvement of your workers creates a culture
where relationships between employers and workers are based on collaboration,
trust and joint problem solving. As is normal practice, workers should be
involved in assessing workplace risks and the development and review of
workplace health and safety policies in partnership with the employer.
Employers and workers should always come together to resolve issues. If
concerns still cannot be resolved, see below for further steps you can take.
Where the enforcing authority, such as the HSE or your local authority,
identifies employers who are not taking action to comply with the relevant
public health legislation and guidance to control public health risks, they
will consider taking a range of actions to improve control of workplace risks.
For example, this would cover employers not taking appropriate action to
socially distance, where possible. The actions the HSE can take include the
provision of specific advice to employers through to issuing enforcement
notices to help secure improvements.
How to raise a concern:

contact your employee representative
contact your trade union if you have one
contact HSE at:

HSE COVID-19 enquiries
Telephone: 0300 790 6787 (Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 8pm)
Online: working safely enquiry
form
[COVID-19]: coronavirus
  [HSE]: Health and Safety Executive

Reviewer feedback on this answer:
Context of answer is how to register a complaint in the workforce.
This answer, while related, does not give out any step by steps or advice on what an employer should do for their employees.

Reviewer ratings:
Bad
Acceptable

Answer passage (source: UK):
page_title: Offices and contact centres
section_headers: 1. Thinking about risk
1.1 Managing risk
section_content: Objective: To reduce risk to the lowest reasonably practicable level by taking
preventative measures, in order of priority.
Employers have a duty to reduce workplace risk to the lowest reasonably
practicable level by taking preventative measures. Employers must work with
any other employers or contractors sharing the workplace so that everybody’s
health and safety is protected.
In the context of COVID-19 this means working through these steps in order:


In every workplace, increasing the frequency of handwashing and surface cleaning.


Businesses and workplaces should make every reasonable effort to enable working from home as a first option. Where working from home is not possible, workplaces should make every reasonable effort to comply with the social distancing guidelines set out by the government (keeping people 2m apart wherever possible).


Where the social distancing guidelines cannot be followed in full, in relation to a particular activity, businesses should consider whether that activity needs to continue for the business to operate, and, if so, take all the mitigating actions possible to reduce the risk of transmission between their staff.   


Further mitigating actions include:  
– increasing the frequency of hand washing and surface cleaning
– keeping the activity time involved as short as possible
– using screens or barriers to separate people from each other
– using back-to-back or side-to-side working (rather than face-to-face)
whenever possible
– reducing the number of people each person has contact with by using ‘fixed
teams or partnering’ (so each person works with only a few others)

Finally, if people must work face-to-face for a sustained period with more than a small group of fixed partners, then you will need to assess whether the activity can safely go ahead. No one is obliged to work in an unsafe work environment.   

In your assessment you should have particular regard to whether the people
doing the work are especially vulnerable to COVID-19.
The recommendations in the rest of this document are ones you should consider
as you go through this process. You could also consider any advice that has
been produced specifically for your sector, for example by trade associations
or trades unions.
If you have not already done so, you should carry out an assessment of the
risks posed by COVID-19 in your workplace as soon as possible. If you are
currently operating, you are likely to have gone through a lot of this
thinking already. We recommend that you use this document to identify any
further improvements you should make.
*[COVID-19]: coronavirus

Reviewer feedback on this answer:
Provides steps of order to follow to decrease risk of exposure to COVID.
This answer perfectly relates to the question and addresses what an employer should do for employees to prevent any risks.

Reviewer ratings:
Acceptable
Excellent

Answer passage (source: UK):
page_title: Vehicles
section_headers: 1. Thinking about risk
1.1 Managing risk
section_content: Objective: To reduce risk to the lowest reasonably practicable level by taking
preventative measures, in order of priority
Employers have a duty to reduce workplace risk to the lowest reasonably
practicable level by taking preventative measures. Employers must work with
any other employers or contractors sharing the workplace so that everybody’s
health and safety is protected.
In the context of COVID-19 this means working through these steps in order:


In every workplace, increasing the frequency of handwashing and surface cleaning.


Businesses and workplaces should make every reasonable effort to enable working from home as a first option. Where working from home is not possible, workplaces should make every reasonable effort to comply with the social distancing guidelines set out by the government (keeping people 2m apart wherever possible).


Where the social distancing guidelines cannot be followed in full, in relation to a particular activity, businesses should consider whether that activity needs to continue for the business to operate, and, if so, take all the mitigating actions possible to reduce the risk of transmission between their staff.   


Further mitigating actions include:  
– increasing the frequency of handwashing and surface cleaning
– keeping the activity time involved as short as possible
– using screens or barriers to separate people from each other
– using back-to-back or side-to-side working (rather than face-to-face)
whenever possible
– reducing the number of people each person has contact with by using ‘fixed
teams or partnering’ (so each person works with only a few others)

Finally, if people must work face-to-face for a sustained period with more than a small group of fixed partners, then you will need to assess whether the activity can safely go ahead. No one is obliged to work in an unsafe work environment.   

In your assessment you should have particular regard to whether the people
doing the work are especially vulnerable to COVID-19.
The recommendations in the rest of this document are ones you should consider
as you go through this process. You could also consider any advice that has
been produced specifically for your sector, for example by trade associations
or trades unions.
If you have not already done so, you should carry out an assessment of the
risks posed by COVID-19 in your workplace as soon as possible. If you are
currently operating, you are likely to have gone through a lot of this
thinking already. We recommend that you use this document to identify any
further improvements you should make.
*[COVID-19]: coronavirus

Reviewer feedback on this answer:
Provides guidance for the employer to follow to keep employees safe.
This answer perfectly relates to the question and answers it thoroughly and fully.

Reviewer ratings:
Acceptable
Excellent