Covid-19 Documentation: Best Practices For HR

Using technology to stay secure and compliant

Companies need to have clear strategies and plans in place to confront unexpected circumstances that affect their workforce. HR leaders are often at the frontlines of answering the tough questions about compliance, meeting employee expectations of workplace policies, and developing procedures to ensure employees work in a safe, productive environment. 

Leveraging Technology

The Covid-19 pandemic hit many organizations like a ton of bricks. The introduction of lockdowns, remote working, and mask and vaccine mandates made the blow even harder. It also demonstrated the vital need to have flexible, personalized tracking and reporting tools to track employee data and comply with ever-changing federal, state, and local rules and regulations that govern workplace health and safety. 
 

While the OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) vaccine mandate was withdrawn, healthcare facilities regulated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) must follow CMS’s compliance rules. The key elements of these rules included tracking and documenting employee vaccination status, providing exemptions and reasonable accommodations, and enforcing compliance guidelines. With that in mind, HR leaders can leverage technology to its fullest to keep their organizations compliant.

Sharing Information

“HR leaders need to understand mandate requirements, determinations of exemption, regulatory enforcement, policy changes, and tools that assist in making the process more efficient,” says Dawn Adams, president of HResults. “We know that information is changing rapidly. Savvy HR leaders are preparing now to manage these changes.”

It is important to know which regulations apply to each private or public organization. HR professionals must engage with their leadership team and staff to create, communicate, and implement policies and processes. Adams identified two important characteristics in managing requirements: consistency and communication.

1. Consistency 
HR leaders need to train managers on the relevant processes, forms, etc. so the leaders understand—and can explain—what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and most importantly, how. Accurate understanding of the rules is only possible through open, constant…

2. Communication 
Communicating the rules and any changes is vital for every organization to confidently comply with them. Leaders must share policy changes with everyone, who needs to know in order for them to do their jobs. 

Tools

Given the different mandates in different states, HR professionals need to have the right tools to be flexible and agile, including online platforms that can manage other workflows and can easily report data to satisfy requests from government agencies and other enforcement bodies. 

To make this level of adaptability possible, HR professionals need tools that allow for continuous updates in minutes; this can help create consistency and improves communications by being:
 

• Flexible: With constantly changing rules from all levels of government, this type of tool supports the user’s ability to quickly make updates to content, logic, and alerting. 

 

• Configurable: The tool should allow for update alerts, screening criteria, and employee instructions that meet the specific and unique needs of an organization.

 

• Real-time: The reporting dashboard should offer continuous updates to keep users current on vaccination status, user screening responses, and other important alerts.

Stay on Top of Change

Even though many states have begun to end their Covid-19 mandates, it’s important to understand that OSHA is still working on a more permanent mandate for vaccinations. OSHA has not released new information about these changes, but it’s expected by the end of 2022. This means that the need for proper documentation and compliance monitoring is still necessary for the United States. Do not shelve training and education efforts, regardless of the desire to get “back to normal.” Keep your policies updated and use the technology available to stay flexible. 

Sid Bala is President of Calcium. Visit https://calciumhealth.com/ Connect Sid Bala