As workers return to jobs, “the stakes have never been higher”

Companies across the country that are starting to come back to life face a new challenge: keeping workers safe for the period coronavirus pandemic. They are implementing new protocols: temperature controls, social distancing, staggered schedules and contact tracking, but much is at stake without a vaccine or treatment in sight, experts said.

In fact, a coronavirus outbreak could be devastating for both businesses and employees, whether they work in a meat packing plant or in an office building.

“Companies face existential threats all the time. They are built to make decisions that will determine the life or death of the company,” said Andrew Challenger, senior vice president of staffing firm Challenger Gray & Christmas. “Choices that affect the lives or deaths of your employees must now be made for the first time. The stakes have never been higher.”

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Brian Kuhn, a data analyst in Roxbury, New Jersey, worked in an office with about 50 people until mid-March, when his company moved to remote work. He has not yet been asked to return to the office and would not feel comfortable returning, even with the precautions set.

“I don’t think any of that prevents anyone from coming in asymptomatic and getting infected,” he said. “It poses a risk to each of us that is not necessary at all … Prevention is the most important thing.”

Here are some questions and answers about what it will be like to return to work:

How do companies monitor workers’ health?

Companies are introducing a variety of new tools and techniques to monitor the health of their employees.

The simplest method is to perform temperature checks, using tactile thermometers. U.S. carmakers, for example, have employees fill out questionnaires daily to see if they have symptoms, take the temperature before entering buildings, and require them to wear gloves, masks, and face shields at work.

While these measures may help prevent the spread of COVID-19, they do not limit the risk to zero. Individuals may have high temperatures for reasons unrelated to coronavirus, while infected people may be asymptomatic, but still transmit the disease.

“Checking the temperature doesn’t necessarily correlate directly with COVID,” said Aiha Nguyen, program director at the Data & Society Research Institute in New York, a nonprofit that studies the cultural impact of technological change.

Directed by the employer contact tracking is another tool that companies will use to reopen. Contact tracking is a method of breaking down transmission chains by identifying people who may have come in contact with a positive person for COVID-19.

Digital applications that use Bluetooth or other signals to track people and alert users who have come in contact with infected people can complement human contact tracking efforts. Accounting consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers is testing a contract tracking application that it plans to use in-house and also offers to corporate clients.

A company’s human resources department can work the other way around to notify people who have been close to an infected employee, whose identity remains anonymous. In some cases, the data is sent to a remote server.

Contacts can be tracked offline, and employees self-report at the end of each workday they have been in contact with. Then, if an employee gives a positive result, the company can contact the people with whom they have overlapped.

Social distancing can be a challenge, but some employers achieve this by staggering employee hours and limiting the number of people in the workplace. Google, for example, plans to reopen some offices in early June, limiting office capacity to between 10% and 15%.

Is it legal for companies to monitor employee health?

Regulations vary by state, but it is generally legal to require employees to download tracking applications. Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, employers must give workers “a job and a job, which are free from recognized risks that cause or may cause death or serious physical harm.”

The American Disabilities Act prohibits employers from making disability-related inquiries and requiring medical examinations from employees, except in limited circumstances. The coronavirus is considered an exception because it has been considered a “direct threat” under ADA guidelines by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. This means that employers can test employees if it is work-related and compatible with business needs.

Companies probably wouldn’t be able to test an employee who is isolated at home, but it becomes necessary when people are taken back to the office during a pandemic. They must still comply with the confidentiality rules set by the ADA, so temperature checks and other medical consultations must be kept private. Health records must also be kept separate from employee staff files.

What about employee privacy rights?

Contact tracking involves the collection of sensitive data about people and leads to privacy issues. Healthcare providers may not disclose patients’ medical information to other entities in accordance with the Health Insurance Liability and Portability Act (HIPAA). However, employers and contact tracking applications are not covered by HIPPA, according to Michele Gilman, a privacy lawyer and partner at Data & Society.

“One of the concerns here is that this will open the door for employers to collect massive amounts of employee health data,” he said. “Many people believe that health data is protected by HIPPA status. This law does not apply to employers. Employers are free to collect this data and what they do with it.”

PwC and other application makers say they will not collect information about users. PwC, for example, says that there is no name or other personal information associated with the data and that the data is deleted within 45 days. But without federal regulation, employers are left unattended.

What are the guidelines for reopening?

Companies must comply with each state’s reopening guidelines, most of which include different requirements for employee control of employees, conducting health checks, and social distancing.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also offers guidance for companies and entrepreneurs on how to reopen, including recommendations to minimize potential risk to employees.

He has also published six one-page “decision tool” documents that use traffic signs and other graphics to tell organizations what they should consider before reopening.

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