Question: What should employers be doing to mitigate the risk factors in the outdoor or construction workplace?

Answer passage (source: UK):
page_title: Construction and other outdoor work
section_headers: 1. Thinking about risk
section_content: In this section

1.1 Managing risk
1.2 Sharing the results of 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:
The information here might be helpful, but it is general.  It is not specific to those working outdoors or in construction.
This response is really just general risk assessments for business but the question wants to know how to mitigate risk in outdoor working areas which this doesn't really hit on so it misses the mark

Reviewer ratings:
Could be Improved
Could be Improved

Answer passage (source: UK):
page_title: Construction and other outdoor work
section_headers: 5. Cleaning and sanitising the workplace
section_content: In this section

5.1 Before reopening
5.2 Keeping your workplace clean
5.3 Hygiene: handwashing, sanitation facilities and toilets
5.4 Changing rooms and showers
5.5 Handling equipment, materials, waste, and onsite vehicles

5.1 Before reopening
Objective: To make sure that any site or location that has been closed or
partially operated is clean and ready to restart, including:

conducting a risk assessment for all sites, or part of sites, that have been closed, before restarting work
carrying out cleaning procedures and providing hand sanitiser, before restarting work

5.2 Keeping your workplace clean
Objective: To keep the workplace clean and prevent transmission by touching
contaminated surfaces.
Steps that will usually be needed:


Frequent cleaning of work areas and equipment between uses, using your usual cleaning products.


Frequent cleaning of objects and surfaces that are touched regularly, such as buckets, site equipment and control panels, and making sure there are adequate disposal arrangements.


Clearing workspaces and removing waste and belongings from the work area at the end of shift.


Sanitisation of all hand tools, controls, machinery and equipment after use.


If you are cleaning after a known or suspected case of COVID-19 then you should refer to the specific guidance.


5.3 Hygiene: handwashing, sanitation facilities and toilets
Objective: To help everyone keep good hygiene through the working day.
Steps that will usually be needed:


Providing additional handwashing facilities, for example, pop-ups, particularly on a large site or where there are significant numbers of personnel on site.


Using signs and posters to build awareness of good handwashing technique, the need to increase handwashing frequency, avoid touching your face and to cough or sneeze into a tissue which is binned safely, or into your arm if a tissue is not available.


Providing regular reminders and signage to maintain hygiene standards.


Providing hand sanitisers in multiple locations in addition to washrooms.


Setting clear use and cleaning guidance for toilets to ensure they are kept clean and social distancing is achieved as much as possible.


Enhancing cleaning for busy areas.


Special care should be taken for cleaning of portable toilets.


Providing more waste facilities and more frequent rubbish collection.


Providing hand drying facilities – either paper towels or electrical driers.


5.4 Changing rooms and showers
Objective: To minimise the risk of transmission in changing rooms and showers.
Steps that will usually be needed:


Where shower and changing facilities are required, setting clear use and cleaning guidance for showers, lockers and changing rooms to ensure they are kept clean and clear of personal items and that social distancing is achieved as much as possible.


Introducing enhanced cleaning of all facilities regularly during the day and at the end of the day.


5.5 Handling equipment, materials, waste, and onsite vehicles
Objective: To reduce transmission through contact with objects that come into
the workplace and vehicles at the worksite.
Steps that will usually be needed:


Cleaning procedures for the parts of shared equipment you touch after each use, thinking about equipment, tools and vehicles, for example, pallet trucks and forklift trucks.


Encouraging increased handwashing and introducing more handwashing facilities for workers handling goods and merchandise or providing hand sanitiser where this is not practical.


Regular cleaning of vehicles that workers may take home.


Regular cleaning of reusable delivery boxes.


*[COVID-19]: coronavirus

Reviewer feedback on this answer:
This is general preventive information.  The question was asking about how to protect those working outside or in construction.
This response is going into great detail about how to clean things in the workplace but makes no mention of the special circumstances that would apply to outdoor or construction work sites.

Reviewer ratings:
Could be Improved
Bad

Answer passage (source: UK):
page_title: Construction and other outdoor work
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:
This information is helpful, but most to the general workplace.  The question was specific to those working outdoors or in construction.
This response seems to be talking about general cleaning and social distancing in any work place but  makes no mention of the special circumstances that may come into play in outdoor work areas

Reviewer ratings:
Acceptable
Could be Improved