Workplace Coordinator & the Hazard Assessment
The workplace pandemic coordinator has been a person identified by several agencies throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Maybe this was a person you already had in place in your Company that handled safety issues prior to this pandemic, and so you felt an easy transition to add this to their job duties. One main item to think about as we watch OSHA strengthen their guidance and/or requirements surrounding COVID-19 in the workplace is that the role of this workplace coordinator should not be handed out lightly.
In the recently published guidance by OSHA, they state that implementing a workplace COVID-19 prevention program is the most effective way to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Then OSHA goes on to identify the 16 items that are elements of the most effective COVID-19 prevention programs. Guess what is #1 on that list? The #1 item on the most effective COVID-19 Prevention program list is the “assignment of a workplace coordinator” that is then “responsible for COVID-19 issues on the employer’s behalf.” Whoever has been in this role to this point has the weight of handling many different items about COVID-19 in the workplace according to OSHA.
This person will also be in charge of responding to and handling OSHA investigation inquiries and claims. One of the parts that the workplace coordinator may have to initially answer if they were subject to an OSHA investigation related to COVID-19, is whether there was a thorough hazard assessment to identify potential workplace hazards related to COVID-19.
In talking about the hazard assessment, the recent guidance by OSHA states that the “most effective” way to determine the identification of where and how workers might be exposed to COVID-19 at work involves workers because they are often the people most familiar with the conditions they face.
This is a curious addition to the discussion of conducting a hazard assessment because while workers may be able to contribute information, the workers themselves might not be well versed in the most up to date guidance on exposure or risk. Further, the everchanging guidance of the government agencies at the local and federal level has not always been easy for every worker to understand especially when perhaps only pieces of information make it into mainstream media. I think I can see why OSHA thinks involving workers may be helpful, but I also see the confusion this creates in conducting an accurate hazard assessment. Both employees and employers have been faced with a range of emotions and misinformation while navigating this pandemic and I think it can be confusing if what is a perceived risk (not based on guidelines or science) should be distinguished from an actual potential workplace hazard per local, State and Federal guidelines as to what is known to date about COVID-19. We shall wait and see if OSHA expands on how they expect employers to involve employees in this assessment or they expect employers to just figure it out.