PRINTING United Alliance Releases a COVID-19 Preparedness and Response Plan
Since the widespread outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) in March, many state and local municipalities implemented measures to help prevent the spread of it. Several of these measures greatly impacted businesses, including printing operations. As the “stay-at-home” orders imposed are lifted, many jurisdictions are requiring businesses to develop and implement a formal written plan designed to address workplace safety. Even if a formal plan is not required, your local government may be requiring business that have opened to follow certain practices to protect their employees and visitors from contracting the virus.
To save time and money for its members, PRINTING United Alliance’s (PrUA), EHS and HR professionals created a COVID-19 Preparedness and Response Plan designed to meet local government’s requirements.
The Response Plan, a “plug and play” resource, contains guides, policies, checklists, and templates to help you develop a comprehensive program and to implement best practices in your workplace addressing COVID-19 exposure. Additionally, the Response Plan tackles difficult human resources issues such as how to manage situations when an employee is diagnosed with COVID-19.
Our goal is to provide you, the printing facility, with resources developed specifically for the printing industry that will help you put your facility in the best position possible to control exposures to COVID-19.
Key elements include:
- Management and supervisory responsibilities for managing a pandemic/post pandemic workplace.
- Employee responsibilities, with a look at PPE requirements and usage
- Facility protective measures, including the sanitation guide and checklist
- Personnel requirements and policies
- Travel and meeting policies
- Visitor questionnaire and privacy notice
- Timeline for responding to an employee’s positive COVID-19 diagnosis
- Questions to ask employees who have tested positive for COVID-19
- Sample communication templates for
- Notification to workforce of an employee’s positive COVID-19 diagnosis
- Notification to coworkers that they have had close contact with a positive COVID-19 case
- Notification to customers and third parties of a possible exposure
Printing operations benefit from the expertise of the PrUA team and can save countless hours of researching and creating policies and procedures by downloading the Response Plan. The best news is that the plan is free for all PRINTING United Alliance members! Nonmembers can purchase the plan for only $99.
- Categories:
- Business Management - Disaster Recovery
Gary A. Jones is the director of environmental, health and safety (EHS) affairs at PRINTING United Alliance in Fairfax, VA. His primary responsibility is to monitor and analyze EHS regulatory activities at all domestic and some international government levels. He provides representation on behalf of the printing and specialty graphic imaging industry. In doing so, Mr. Jones works closely with the federal and state-level Environmental Protection Agencies (EPA), Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA), Department of Transportation (DOT), and other agencies. He also provides membership assistance on EHS compliance and sustainability programs through a variety of approaches including responding to inquiries, presentations, writing, and consulting services.
Mr. Jones is also supporting PRINTING United Alliance’s efforts for the Sustainable Green Printing Partnership (SGP). SGP is dedicated to assisting printing operations respond to the customer demand for sustainable printing.
He holds a BS in biology from LaRoche College and an MS in chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh.
