On 3 March, the Isle of Man Government announced restrictions, including a ‘Stay at Home’ request and social distancing of 2 metres, in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus in the community.
Employers are required to take the stay at home obligation seriously and do everything they can to facilitate working from home. Limited specific sectors will be able to continue work when they are classed as an essential service.
You should prepare plans for how your business could accommodate changes, in case they are required. You are likely to already have records of visitors in place, and it may be useful to review your record-keeping, should this be required for contact-tracing purposes. The below information gives some general guidance on how you can go about contingency planning.
- Make sure your business has an up to date continuity plan and key members of staff are identified to carry out the measures required
- Identify clear ways to communicate with all employees throughout the process – whether in work or at home
- Display and share up to date content from this website
- Make sure your business has a plan and is fully prepared
- Ensure that any ongoing business activities are following Public Health guidance and any required business closure orders
As the situation in relation to COVID-19 is fast-moving, we recommend you take the following steps in relation to planning for any impact on your business:
- Define a lead team who can create and carry out your business preparation planning
- Define your business’ critical functions of service that must be maintained at times of disruption
- Assess business needs and options to minimise the spread of infection including reviewing face to face contact, travel etc.
- Define the impact on service delivery – what needs to happen in 24 hours, first week, first month etc. and what essential resources are required (inc. staff)
- Establish list of key stakeholders that will need to be kept up to date
- Review staff processes and consider demand on certain areas of the business e.g. HR
- Ensure up to date list of all critical documentation and data, and detail on how this is accessed
- List and review suppliers and how they will be affected
- Detail sequence of tasks and individuals that are needed to provide a basic service while the overall process of full service recovery is being progressed
- Detail the sequence of events and individuals required to restore the service to normal – making people aware of their responsibilities
- Ensure adequate location and technology to continue activity
- Create detailed action plan based on all of this information and keep it regularly up to date
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