Uniform occupational health and safety standard in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic | HÖPPNER

The Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and the German Social Accident Insurance have published a uniform occupational health and safety standard in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The measures must be implemented immediately by all companies and are designed to break possible chains of infection and minimize infection rates. Here is a brief excerpt from the guidelines. Please refer to the BMAS or DGUV websites for more detailed information.

Workplaces must always be designed in such a way that employees can maintain a minimum distance of 1.5 m from other employees. This also applies to canteens and food serving areas, as well as other areas where people may bump into each other. The distances must be clearly marked.
If possible, workstations should be separated from each other by protective devices such as transparent plastic walls.
Such partitions are mandatory for workplaces with public traffic (cashiers in grocery stores).
Soap, towel dispensers and disinfectant dispensers must be provided in sanitary facilities, but also in other common rooms and break rooms.
Depending on the intensity of use, the rooms must be cleaned and, if necessary, disinfected at regular, much more frequent intervals than usual. This also applies to door handles and handrails.
On construction sites and in agriculture, small teams of a maximum of 2-3 people should be deployed. This also applies to journeys to work assignments. Additional facilities to enable hand hygiene should be provided on construction sites. Journeys to procure or deliver materials should be kept to a minimum through organizational measures.
For parcel services, the BMAS provides for vehicles to be specially equipped with utensils for hand hygiene, disinfection, paper towels and bin liners.
Employees should be allowed to work from home wherever possible. Regular virtual meetings are also recommended in order to maintain communication within the team and to set presence times for the home office.
Business trips should be absolutely limited to what is absolutely necessary and technical alternatives such as online meetings, telephone or video conferences should be used as far as possible.
Work equipment and protective clothing such as tools, gowns, face shields etc. should be used on a personal basis. If this is not possible, the employer should provide suitable protective gloves.
The employer should provide suitable measures to equalize the occupancy density of work areas and shared facilities (staggered breaks).
In particular, employees should offer the risk groups employed in their company, i.e. employees over 60 or employees with corresponding pre-existing conditions, individual advice, if necessary from the company doctor. In such cases, company doctors are often in a position to suggest suitable infection protection measures to employers, individually tailored to the respective employee.

You can view the SARS-CoV-2 occupational health and safety standard in detail on the BMAS website.

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