Page last updated August 2021
Australia's vaccination roll-out is underway. See Safe Work Australia's website for vaccination information for industry.
Businesses can also take practical steps to reduce the risk of spread between staff and to the general public.
To minimise the transmission of COVID-19 and staff absenteeism, your manufacturing practices and procedures should include:
- good personal hygiene
- effective cleaning and sanitation
- social distancing between employees (at least 1.5m)
- notification of staff illness
What you can do to protect your employees and customers
- Continue to reinforce good personal hygiene practices.
- Encourage staff to wash their hands frequently throughout the day and have an adequate supply of soap and paper towel at hand wash stations.
- Continue to practice good cleaning and sanitation of equipment and surfaces in the workplace, paying particular attention to touch points such as door handles touchscreens and light switches, and high traffic areas like lunchrooms.
- Continue to encourage social distancing of at least 1.5m. This includes team meetings, workstations, production lines, picking rotations, smoking areas, lunch, break and change rooms.
- Review shift arrangements and limit opportunities for large gatherings in the workplace, for example lunchrooms, change rooms, car parks, and so on.
- Divide staff into teams and limit interaction between these teams, for example increase time between shifts to reduce the number of staff that may need to quarantine should an employee contract COVID-19.
- Non-essential workers should not enter the workplace. Encourage phone or videoconferencing instead of face to face meetings.
- Know the symptoms of COVID-19 such as fever, cough, sore throat and shortness of breath and ensure employees stay home if they have any symptoms or have been in contact with someone who does.
- Exclude sick people from the workplace.
- Ask employees on a daily basis if they have any flu-like symptoms.
- Designate and prepare an isolation area to be used if they display flu-like symptoms while at work.
More information
Some food regulatory agencies have detailed advice for specific food business sectors on how to minimise workforce impacts.
Your peak industry body may also have advice specific for your industry.
Read more about COVID-19 information for work-places, including vaccinaton information for industry on the
Safe Work Australia website
The
Australian Hotels Association Western Australia are now running their own
COVID-19 Hygiene courses.
The Northern Territory government has a range of free hospitality courses on offer. Visit the
NT gov website for more information.
Read more topics on Novel Coronavirus and Food Safety.
