“AS A COMMUNITY,
WE ARE STRONGER,
MORE RESILIENT, AND BETTER TOGETHER.”
EMILY FALAPPINO
LAURA TURNBOW
KATIE COOK
BROOKE NUNN
SHARON LOPEZ
AMY SULLIVAN
President/CEO
Events Director
Operations Director
Membership Assistant
Membership Director
Community Specialist
We are here for you The Temecula Valley is our home. It’s where we live, work, and play. It’s where we create, inspire, and support one another. In a new era of COVID-19 concerns, the Temecula Valley Chamber of Commerce is here to support and equip you for the next phase of your business’s life. There are many unknowns and a lot of challenges still ahead, but we believe in you and your future. As a community, we are stronger, more resilient, and better together. We look forward to a future of “Open for Business” signs, but know that “business as usual” will take time to return to. To help prepare you for the road ahead, we have compiled a resource guide and toolkit with tips, considerations, and best practices to help you navigate your business through now, into its best future. Stay Connected. We’re here for you. The Temecula Valley Chamber of Commerce
Playbook for your Business SECTION 1: CRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS SECTION 2: YOUR READINESS PLAN SECTION 3: SHARED SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES
Five Critical Considerations
The road to recovery is not a straightforward one. Your ability to open and operate your business is influenced by location, jurisdictions, and health metrics (to cite a few of the known factors). And, most of these factors are out of your direct control. While many of these factors are in ever-changing states themselves, there are five considerations that seem consistent across all governing interests. Make sure your re-opening plan modifies your business to account for these five things:
1
Your consideration of hygiene and sanitation in the workplace
2
Your ability to manage your work flows and work space, to ensure physical distancing is always possible
3
Your ability to minimize points of contact between people and commonly touched items as well as commonly touched surfaces
4
Your ability to protect vulnerable populations (in your workforce and among your customers)
5
Your readiness to properly train and equip staff for proper workplace safety in accordance with State, OSHA, and/or industry guidelines
The guides, suggestions, and checklists throughout this document provide you with a list of ways you can adapt your business around these five considerations. The outlines included give you a framework for adapting your operation and includes suggestions that you can choose to adopt from our many checklists. How you choose to adapt your business is up to you, but the more consideration you can give these factors, the better positioned you’ll be to re-open successfully. In a COVID-19 era, you’ll find that adapting your business around these core considerations builds trust with your customers, employees, and your community. We want you to have the best reopening experience possible and know that your ability to modify your business around the interest of public health will play a critical role in how quickly and how well you are eligible to re-open for business.
Key Terms for opening your business HYGIENE
Practices that promote an individual’s ability to minimize germ spread and practice protective health measures. Hand hygiene (washing hands) is one of the most important ways to prevent the spread of disease.
SANITATION
Practices that ensure the cleanliness of physical items and spaces using proper disinfectants. For example, sanitizing the counter of a busy area could be completed with a bleach handi-wipe.
HEALTH SCREENING
Measures to assess the positive health of employees and/or customers before they enter your place of business. This could include a simple temperature check of your employees. If >100.4 consider asking them to stay home.
PHYSICAL DISTANCING
Efforts to enable a 6-foot physical distance between every individual in a physical space or place of congregation. One example is re-arranging furniture in waiting areas or meeting rooms.
MINIMIZING CONTACT
Making effort to reduce the need for people to come into contact with surfaces or touch points. The use of touch free practices is a great way to minimize contact.
Creating Your Own Re-Opening Readiness Plan Use the prompts below to help you draft a re-opening, readiness plan. Write out your responses to these prompts, adapt your workplace where you can, and organize your approach using these considerations. Physical Distancing
Minimizing the Spread of Germs
• Are there changes you can make to ensure your employees have physical distancing from one another and customers throughout the day?
• Identify what places, practices, and tools are most likely to be shared by multiple employees. How can you reduce the spread of germs in these places?
• Are there ways you can re-arrange the layout of your workspace to accommodate physical distancing and new workflows?
• How can you help customers maintain a safe physical distance from others, while at your place of businesss?
• Assess how to minimize germ spread between your employees and customers who meet face to face, or may touch the same items or surfaces.
• Ask how you can reduce touch points in common areas or highly trafficked areas, at your place of business.
Health Screenings
Promoting Positive Hygiene and Sanitation
• Temperature checks and short health stations are two popular tools for health screenings.
• Do you know where to purchase hand sanitizers, cleaning disinfectants, and basic PPE for your employees?
• Have you drafted new policies and procedures around cleaning practices?
• Consider using a temp service for managing health screening. The Chamber has a list of referrals available.
• Who is responsible for ensuring that each area of your business is regularly cleaned or disinfected?
• Have policies in place to help your team navigate through what to do when someone is suspect or confirmed to be sick.
• How will you train your employees to properly wear PPE and how to use hygiene and sanitation tools?
• Do your employees know what to do if they suspect they are sick or may have come in contact with the COVID-19 virus?
• Consider whether health screening your employees and/or your customers is a good fit for your business.
• Assess whether you have access to a proper supply of thermometers and PPE for the team administering health checks.
Communicating Safety
• There are many things to communicate with your customers and your employees as you return to work. Communicating what efforts you are making to preserve the safety and well being of your employees and customers is important.
• What methods will you use to communicate with your customers online and at your place of business?
• How will you communicate with employees, to ensure they have confidence to return to work?
• Do you have a new training or orientation program for employees as they return to work?
GETTING READY TO RE-OPEN
PROGRESS WITH TIMELESS BEST PRACTICES
Your Workforce • Know how many employees you will need to to operate your business as it re-opens. Recall your team to work or prepare to hire. Make all offers in writing and document responses. • Consider return to work bonuses, a temporary wage increase, and/or the use of temporary staff services to help you rebuild your workforce. • Host a training and orientation for your employees so everyone knows what new protocols and policies are in place. • Have a plan in place for how to respond to a positive COVID-19 case in your workplace. Think about the protocols your employees will need to follow and how you can contact trace. • Have educational resources about COVID-19 available for your employees. Written Plans & Guides • Health screenings • Use telecommute agreements for those employees who will temporarily or permanently work from home. • Update your company policy and procedure guides to account for new COVID-19 related practices, precautions, and policies. Make sure to add a section to your IIPP with your new safety protocols. • Review the State and County industry guidance and be prepared to self certify your compliance. • Clearly outline what tools you will provide to employees who work from home, and what security protocols are in place for work from home arrangements. • Have a written plan for how you plan to monitor the health of your workplace. Will you collect health assessments from your employees or customers? Will you facilitate temperature checks? What (if any) methods will you use to monitor health screening? • Know the current EPSL and EFMLA policies in place for a business and workforce of your size. Incorporate these into your policies along with updated labor law posters. Supply chain • What forms of PPE will you provide for your employees? And, where will you source these items? • Make sure your cleaning supplies and service providers are appropriate for COVID-19 concerns. • Create an inventory list and cleaning checklist for reference daily. Adapting Your Workplace • Adapt your office space or store layout to accommodate physical distancing. • Provide hand sanitizing stations, disinfectant wipes, and hand washing stations throughout your workplace, as reasonable. • Have plans to minimize crowding in common waiting or reception areas. • Post signage at the entrance of your business for customers to reference before entering. Clearly outline “what to expect” in the store and of your customers.
The following sections provide you with some best practices we’ve gathered from a variety of sources. These best practices are intended as a helpful reference as you adapt your business for the future. The practices below are “universal” and can apply to nearly every business environment. Adopt what you think could work for you and call on the Chamber for referrals to help you get started.
“THESE BEST PRACTICES ARE INTENDED AS A HELPFUL REFERENCE AS YOU THINK THROUGH WHAT CHANGES YOUR BUSINESS CAN MAKE TO ADAPT.”
RESHAPE THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE Tips and Tricks • Offer delivery services (in house or via third party) • Offer an online shopping experience (through your site or a third party site) • Offer grab and go/curbside pick up options • Provide online or virtual customer service options • Offer virtual meetings and consultations • Dedicate certain hours to serve special populations • Offer touch free payment options and digital contracts • Go paperless (e.g. receipts, documents, flyers, and informational brochures) • Offer touch free payment options and digital contracts RESHAPING THE EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE Tips and Tricks • Allow telecommute arrangements for non-essential employees • Expand your hours of operation to accommodate staggered employee scheduling • Offer flex schedules • Close common areas and promote offsite breaks • Offer training on the best practices you adopt on hygiene, sanitation, and physical distancing • Develop and articulate your COVID-19 related sick & leave policies • Appoint a “Health & Wellness Leader” to oversee your cleaning and hygiene measures through the work day • Provide hygiene and disinfectant tools to employees at every work station and point of contact • Develop a framework for health screening via self-assessment or company policy RESHAPING YOUR WORK ENVIRONMENT • Provide PPE to employees as appropriate for their work role • Hand washing stations to always be stocked with soap • Hand sanitizer stations to be placed frequently throughout commonly trafficked areas • Signage to be placed in highly-trafficked areas reminding the public and workforce to observe hygiene • Social distancing will be encouraged by eliminating congestion via walkway queues, line management techniques, spacing tables and chairs, and by creating sectioning where possible • Instruct employees and consumers with ways to report concerns, and how to handle symptoms of illness • Establish ways of contact tracing if an employee contracts COVID-19
EMPLOYER RESPONSIBILITY: A UNIVERSAL CHECKLIST FOR YOUR WORKSITE • Limit the workforce you have onsite via telecommute and staggered shift arrangements • Manage your workspace capacity with line management, appointment by reservation only, creating a threshold for managing incoming and outgoing customers • Have ample supply of PPE, hygiene, and sanitation equipment on hand • Post signage for customers on your website, social media, at and throughout your store • Make entry/exit contactless where possible, minimize person to person contact through touchless pay and partitioned service counters • Schedule frequent and regular cleaning of your premises throughout the day, and have a robust end of day sanitization • Have a detailed checklist for cleaning and sanitizing accounting for door knobs to trashcans EMPLOYEE RESPONSIBILITY: A UNIVERSAL CHECKLIST FOR YOUR EMPLOYEES TO ADOPT • Wear PPE assigned • Frequently wash hands • Avoid person to person contact and observe social distancing • Frequently clean and disinfect your work area • Avoid common areas • Take breaks outside of the office, in open spaces or away from crowds • Manage your personal health by promptly reporting any signs of illness or infection to your manager
CUSTOMER RESPONSIBILITY: A UNIVERSAL CHECKLIST FOR YOUR EMPLOYEES TO ADOPT • Leave home with a mask, hand sanitizer, and disinfectant sprays/wipes • Frequently wash hands • Avoid person to person contact, and observe social distancing • Observe posted guidelines at each store or office front. If you don’t see signage, ask an employee for guidance • Avoid lines by placing reservations, shopping online, and using take out or delivery services • Use hand sanitizing wipes and stations as available to the public • Carry pocket-sized hand sanitizer • Stay home if you are sick, have been in contact with someone who is sick, or if you have symptoms of being sick
Resources SOME OF OUR GO-TO RESOURCES • OSHA Guidance for ReOpening Businesses • California Guidance for Industry • CDC Guidelines for Industry • City of Temecula Guidance • County of Riverside Guidance ADDITIONAL GUIDANCE FOR RESTAURANTS • CDC • National Restaurant Association Resources • National Restaurant Association Guidance • Dept. of Public Health Restaurant Re-opening Guidelines ADDITIONAL GUIDANCE FOR WINERIES • California Wine Institute Protocols ADDITIONAL GUIDANCE FOR MEDICAL OFFICES • American Medical Association Medical Practice Re-opening Guidelines
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