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Return to Work Considerations: Temperature Screening and Employee Perspectives

Return to Work Considerations: Temperature Screening and Employee Perspectives

Created: Thursday, May 7, 2020 - 12:48
Categories:
Pandemics

Facility Executive has published two articles intended to provide useful information to building owners and operators as they reopen their offices. This first, “COVID-19: Screening Employee Temperatures: What Employers Need to Know,” discussing legal and regulatory considerations for taking employees’ body temperatures as a condition of their entering the workplace. The article’s authors, who are representatives of a large law firm, note that they previously published an alert informing employers that such checks were legal, adding in this article that now several states and municipalities have actually implemented orders or issued guidance urging or requiring the checks. The article also offers a list of best practices for employers to consider in connection with temperature testing, including one to seek to facilitate testing in the least invasive way possible. In the second article, “Employee Views on Current and Post-Pandemic Office Life,” Facility Executive discusses the results of a survey of more than 1,000 professionals about their current work situation and future. According to the research, some professionals feel some apprehension about returning to their normal workplace, with 56 percent expressing worry about being in close proximity to colleagues. To mitigate these concerns, some of those surveyed indicated they would adopt different protocols at work, with 72 percent planning to schedule fewer in-person meetings and 61 percent anticipating spending less time in common areas in the office.