The importance of health and safety in the workplace simply cannot be underestimated. As well as being the law, a good employer will make sure your staff are not at risk of any occupational injury or disease as a result of the work they do for you.
It is not just your staff that health and safety is important for, it is there to protect any visitors, customers, sub-contractors and the general public who are in contact with your organisation in any way.
As a company providing services to the built environment sector, we ensure that all our staff, sub-contractors and business partners adhere to the OHS Act 85 of 1993 and applicable Regulations.
In light of the current global COVID-19 pandemic, OHSAfroteq provides a range of services for companies to prepare their workplace for staff returning to work and ensure these companies comply with the various health and safety regulations as they are applied to Level 4 to Level 1 as prescribed by the South African Government.
Read our OHSAfroteq Press Release
Read our press release relating to the OHSAfroteq Reopening of Schools
Afroteq Advisory can offer you services and solutions to help:
Priority 1: Quick workplace readiness assessment
1. Workplace adaption assessments (to take into consideration social distancing)
2. Workplace procedures update (such as building access, lift use, circulation, cleaning schedules)
3. People monitoring (recording of a person’s temperature and symptoms)
4. Home office assessments (to ensure employees working from home have ergonomic work spaces that prevent workplace injury)
5. Office deep cleaning and sanitation services
6. Employee sanitation stations
7. Implementation of basic and practical workplace control measures and signage
8. Half day workshop for staff about COVID-19 and initial measures implemented in the workplace
9. Employee engagement surveys (to ensure mental, emotional and physical wellbeing is managed)
Priority 2: COVID-19 health and safety preparedness and OHS compliance (in line with the OHS Act and the Hazardous Biological Agents Regulations) – you can expect compliance inspections from government
1. Performing a risk assessment of the current environment
2. Assist in developing (or updating) your Infectious Diseases/Pandemic Events Policy so that it is properly addressed mitigating and managing the threat of COVID-19 and other infections in the workplace to protect your business and staff
3. Designing the right set of controls for implementation in your workplace to enact the policy and protect your staff including engineering controls, administrative controls, safe work practices and PPE
4. Managing the implementation of these controls
5. Training of your safety officers
6. Conducting OHS compliance inspections
Priority 3: Office space design and usage in the short term
1. Performing an assessment of office space usage and current layout design against your business' Pandemic Events Policy, the OHS Act and related regulations as well as restrictions and guidelines published by government post lock down
2. Recommending ways of reconfiguring the existing space and and/or recommending changes in the way it is used as well as incorporating remote working (home office) capabilities to maximise productivity and ensure compliance
3. Developing a high level implementation framework for the above, including cost estimates for budgeting purposes
Priority 4: Facility services in the short term
1. Performing an assessment of your existing facility services (both soft and technical services) and their alignment to and support of your Pandemic Events Policy, the OHS Act and related regulations as well as restrictions and guidelines published by the government post lockdown.
2. Identifying gaps and recommending changes to the existing service levels of the facility functionality
3. Compiling service level output specifications for facility services
4. Understanding and adjusting asset lifecycle plans based on the new output specifications
5. Project managing the implementation for the changes to facility services required
Priority 5: Considering new ways of working and best use of office space into the future
1. Understanding your business new plans for its operating/delivery model of the future and workshopping the impact and requirements on your future office space/real estate requirements
2. Modelling the appropriate office space/real estate solutions and concept designing of how your offices could look under new models of work management
3. Implementing the office design/real estate plan
4. Performing the resulting office designs, fit out management and relocation (on a project service or turn-key basis)
There is conflicting information surrounding proper OHS compliance. To assist you with factual information, please view our Frequently Asked Questions section.