When Their Business Affects Your Business: How to Prepare for the OSHA ETS Mandate

There is currently an abundance of change in COVID-19 protocols as our safety is continuously challenged. You may be scrambling to adhere to new guidelines for your organization while keeping up with the pressures of a normal work day. Although these day-to-day responsibilities are increasing for many, you should already be familiar with the idea of reasonable expectations for employee protection as it is in everyone’s best interest to put safety first and to have an effective plan and tools in place. One of the latest mandates, OSHA ETS, will require employers with 100+ employees to mandate that workers be vaccinated or undergo weekly testing. Businesses and schools need an easy-to-use, resourceful solution that will keep track of everyone’s status.

Prepare Now, Act Later
Since the OSHA mandate is in a limbo period, you should hold off on taking strict action such as spending money on self-testing kits. However, it is still important for you to begin preparing for this mandate. One way is to digitize as much information as possible. Executives say that a top benefit of this digital transformation is improved operational efficiency. However, when new technology is adopted, it usually takes time to implement and involves extensive training. You need a plan to tackle the OSHA ETS mandate that is fast and simple to adopt.

CrisisGo’s Safety iPass is built on Amazon Web Services and doesn’t require any applications to be downloaded. It’s available in several languages and only takes less than 5 business days to adopt. It’s simple to maintain with user management integration options and would be an excellent solution for implementing OSHA.

Know Your Employees
It’s essential to establish trust and clear communication within your organization. Think about your employee culture and how they may react to a vaccine mandate. Explain the OSHA ETS mandate to them. Ensure them that their vaccination status, COVID-19 test results, and current symptoms will be kept private. If the information is digitized, reports can easily be generated. Then, a business or a school can determine whether or not a person can enter their facility. With Safety iPass, anyone entering the building will be virtually assigned a green badge for entry or a red badge for no entry. No one has to fumble for vaccine cards or test papers. Long entry lines are eliminated and time is freed up for all.

Safety iPass allows those entering to verify their status by scanning staff ID badges, QR codes in the CrisisGo app, QR code printed badges, or by reviewing the status via web portal. This system lends itself to contact tracing and quarantine management that is easy to track. All of the relevant information is in one place with the option to filter by case, close contact, symptomatic, fully vaccinated, and last test results.

Partner with National Test Labs
Test reporting can become complicated when the responsibility is on the employee to self-report. A better solution is incorporating the results into a network for your business or school. CrisisGo’s API facilitates integration between tests and labs, whether PCR or Antigen, and Safety iPass for automatic test results and scheduling synchronization.

Automated test results are sent right to your organization's dashboard. If your employee tests positive, the information will appear in the dashboard and an appropriate action plan can be determined. Close contacts can be generated and notified at the touch of a button, ensuring more safety in the workplace.

Uphold All Safety Standards
While we hope to see an end to the pandemic, OSHA anticipates that the emergency temporary standard will be in effect for 6 months, but could be extended or made more permanent. The rule may even be extended to businesses with fewer than 100 workers, making the need for a good tracking system imperative for so many.

This mandate will first be put into effect for 100+ employees because it is believed that a business of this size will have the administrative capacity to actually implement it. With a safety tool like Safety iPass, even smaller businesses can handle the demands of the mandate.

As an employer, it’s important to ask yourself if you are doing everything possible in regards to keeping your employees safe. While navigating through this pandemic, we have seen how guidelines and mandates are emphasizing this idea of upholding a high standard of overall safety. We must also take action to protect employee privacy while keeping our focus on our day-to-day demands. By implementing an easy-to-use streamlined solution such as CrisisGo’s Safety iPass, we can constantly revise and improve our safety plans. That way, when it comes to a mandate such as OSHA ETS, we can effortlessly separate the personal business of the employees from the business itself.