The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) offers this advice to employers for keeping employees healthy and preventing the spread of the virus (updated as of March 30, 2020):

Businesses and employers can prevent and slow the spread of COVID-19. Employers should plan to respond in a flexible way to varying levels of disease transmission in the community and be prepared to refine their business response plans as needed.  for more information about job risk classifications). Businesses are strongly encouraged to coordinate with state and local health officials so timely and accurate information can guide appropriate responses.

Actively encourage sick employees to stay home:

• Employees who have symptoms (i.e., fever, cough, or shortness of breath) should notify their supervisor and stay home.
• Sick employees should follow CDC-recommended steps. Employees should not return to work until the criteria to discontinue home isolation are met, in consultation with healthcare providers and state and local health departments.
• Employees who are well but who have a sick family member at home with COVID-19 should notify their supervisor and follow CDC recommended precautions.

Identify where and how workers might be exposed to COVID-19 at work:

• See OSHA COVID-19 webpage for more information on how to protect workers from potential exposures and guidance for employers, including steps to take for jobs according to exposure risk.
• Be aware that some employees may be at higher risk for serious illness, such as older adults and those with chronic medical conditions. Consider minimizing face-to-face contact between these employees or assign work tasks that allow them to maintain a distance of six feet from other workers, customers and visitors, or to telework if possible.

Separate sick employees:

• Employees who appear to have symptoms (i.e., fever, cough, or shortness of breath) upon arrival at work or who become sick during the day should immediately be separated from other employees, customers, and visitors and sent home.
• If an employee is confirmed to have COVID-19 infection, employers should inform fellow employees of their possible exposure to COVID-19 in the workplace but maintain confidentiality as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The fellow employees should then self-monitor for symptoms (i.e., fever, cough, or shortness of breath).

Educate employees about how they can reduce the spread of COVID-19:

• Employees can take steps to protect themselves at work and at home. Older people and people with serious chronic medical conditions are at higher risk for complications.
• Follow the policies and procedures of your employer related to illness, cleaning and disinfecting, and work meetings and travel.
• Stay home if you are sick, except to get medical care. Learn what to do if you are sick.
• Inform your supervisor if you have a sick family member at home with COVID-19. Learn what to do if someone in your house is sick.
• Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. Use hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol if soap and water are not available.
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands.
• Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze or use the inside of your elbow. Throw used tissues in the trash and immediately wash hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. If soap and water are not available, use hand sanitizer containing at least 60% alcohol. Learn more about coughing and sneezing etiquette on the CDC website.
• Clean AND disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces such as workstations, keyboards, telephones, handrails, and doorknobs. Dirty surfaces can be cleaned with soap and water prior to disinfection. To disinfect, use products that meet EPA’s criteria for use against SARS-CoV-2, the cause of COVID-19, and are appropriate for the surface.
• Avoid using other employees’ phones, desks, offices, or other work tools and equipment, when possible. If necessary, clean and disinfect them before and after use.
• Practice social distancing by avoiding large gatherings and maintaining distance (approximately 6 feet or 2 meters) from others when possible.

Identify a workplace coordinator who will be responsible for COVID-19 issues and their impact at the workplace.

Implement flexible sick leave and supportive policies and practices.

• Ensure that sick leave policies are flexible and consistent with public health guidance and that employees are aware of and understand these policies.

• Maintain flexible policies that permit employees to stay home to care for a sick family member or take care of children due to school and childcare closures. Additional flexibilities might include giving advances on future sick leave and allowing employees to donate sick leave to each other.
• Employers that do not currently offer sick leave to some or all of their employees may want to draft non-punitive “emergency sick leave” policies.
• Employers should not require a positive COVID-19 test result or a healthcare provider’s note for employees who are sick to validate their illness, qualify for sick leave, or to return to work. Healthcare provider offices and medical facilities may be extremely busy and not able to provide such documentation in a timely manner.
• Review HR policies to make sure that policies and practices are consistent with public health recommendations and are consistent with existing state and federal workplace laws (for more information on employer responsibilities, visit the Department of Labor’sexternal icon and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission websites).
• Connect employees to employee assistance program (EAP) resources (if available) and community resources as needed. Employees may need additional social, behavioral, and other services, for example, to cope with the death of a loved one.

Assess your essential functions and the reliance that others and the community have on your services or products.

• Be prepared to change your business practices if needed to maintain critical operations (e.g., identify alternative suppliers, prioritize existing customers, or temporarily suspend some of your operations if needed).
• Identify alternate supply chains for critical goods and services. Some good and services may be in higher demand or unavailable.
• Talk with companies that provide your business with contract or temporary employees about the importance of sick employees staying home and encourage them to develop non-punitive leave policies.
• Talk with business partners about your response plans. Share best practices with other businesses in your communities (especially those in your supply chain), chambers of commerce, and associations to improve community response efforts.

Determine how you will operate if absenteeism spikes from increases in sick employees, those who stay home to care for sick family members, and those who must stay home to watch their children if dismissed from childcare programs and K-12 schools.

• Plan to monitor and respond to absenteeism at the workplace.
• Implement plans to continue your essential business functions in case you experience higher than usual absenteeism.
• Prepare to institute flexible workplace and leave policies.
• Cross-train employees to perform essential functions so the workplace can operate even if key employees are absent.

Establish policies and practices for social distancing. Social distancing should be implemented if recommended by state and local health authorities. Social distancing means avoiding large gatherings and maintaining distance (approximately 6 feet or 2 meters) from others when possible (e.g., breakrooms and cafeterias). Strategies that business may use include:

• Implementing flexible worksites (e.g., telework)
• Implementing flexible work hours (e.g., staggered shifts)
• Increasing physical space between employees at the worksite
• Increasing physical space between employees and customers (e.g., drive through, partitions)
• Implementing flexible meeting and travel options (e.g., postpone non-essential meetings or events)
• Downsizing operations
• Delivering services remotely (e.g. phone, video, or web)
• Delivering products through curbside pick-up or delivery

Employers with more than one business location are encouraged to provide local managers with the authority to take appropriate actions outlined in their COVID-19 response plan based on local conditions.

Support respiratory etiquette and hand hygiene for employees, customers, and worksite visitors:

• Provide tissues and no-touch disposal receptacles.
• Provide soap and water in the workplace. If soap and water are not readily available, use alcohol-based hand sanitizer that is at least 60% alcohol. If hands are visibly dirty, soap and water should be chosen over hand sanitizer. Ensure that adequate supplies are maintained.
• Place hand sanitizers in multiple locations to encourage hand hygiene.
• Place posters that encourage hand hygiene to help stop the spread at the entrance to your workplace and in other workplace areas where they are likely to be seen.
• Discourage handshaking – encourage the use of other noncontact methods of greeting.
• Direct employees to visit the coughing and sneezing etiquette and clean hands webpage for more information. 

Perform routine environmental cleaning and disinfection:

• Routinely clean and disinfect all frequently touched surfaces in the workplace, such as workstations, keyboards, telephones, handrails, and doorknobs.
  • If surfaces are dirty, they should be cleaned using a detergent or soap and water prior to disinfection.
  • For disinfection, most common EPA-registered household disinfectants should be effective. A list of products that are EPA-approved for use against the virus that causes COVID-19 is available herepdf iconexternal icon. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions for all cleaning and disinfection products (e.g., concentration, application method and contact time, etc.).

• Discourage workers from using other workers’ phones, desks, offices, or other work tools and equipment, when possible. If necessary, clean and disinfect them before and after use.
• Provide disposable wipes so that commonly used surfaces (for example, doorknobs, keyboards, remote controls, desks, other work tools and equipment) can be wiped down by employees before each use.

Perform enhanced cleaning and disinfection after persons suspected/confirmed to have COVID-19 have been in the facility:

• If a sick employee is suspected or confirmed to have COVID-19, follow the CDC cleaning and disinfection recommendations.

Advise employees before traveling to take additional preparations:

• Check the CDC’s Traveler’s Health Notices for the latest guidance and recommendations for each country to which you will travel. Specific travel information for travelers going to and returning from countries with travel advisories, and information for aircrew, can be found on the CDC website.
• Advise employees to check themselves for symptoms of COVID-19 (i.e., fever, cough, or shortness of breath) before starting travel and notify their supervisor and stay home if they are sick.
• Ensure employees who become sick while traveling or on temporary assignment understand that they should notify their supervisor and promptly call a healthcare provider for advice if needed.

Take care when attending meetings and gatherings:

• Carefully consider whether travel is necessary.
• Consider using videoconferencing or teleconferencing when possible for work-related meetings and gatherings.
• Consider canceling, adjusting, or postponing large work-related meetings or gatherings that can only occur in-person.
• When videoconferencing or teleconferencing is not possible, hold meetings in open, well-ventilated spaces.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which protects applicants and employees from disability discrimination, is relevant to pandemic issues in at least three major ways.

• First, the ADA regulates employers’ disability-related inquiries and medical examinations for all applicants and employees, including those who do not have ADA disabilities.
• Second, the ADA prohibits covered employers from excluding individuals with disabilities from the workplace for health or safety reasons unless they pose a “direct threat” (i.e. a significant risk of substantial harm even with reasonable accommodation).
• Third, the ADA requires reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities (absent undue hardship) during a pandemic.

Applying these principals to the COVID-19 pandemic, the EEOC offers these answers to common employer questions about what to do after a pandemic has been declared:

• How much information may an employer request from an employee who calls in sick, in order to protect the rest of its workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic? During a pandemic, ADA-covered employers may ask such employees if they are experiencing symptoms of the pandemic virus. For COVID-19, these include symptoms such as fever, chills, cough, shortness of breath, or sore throat. Employers must maintain all information about employee illness as a confidential medical record in compliance with the ADA.
• When may an ADA-covered employer take the body temperature of employees during the COVID-19 pandemic? Generally, measuring an employee's body temperature is a medical examination. Because the CDC and state/local health authorities have acknowledged community spread of COVID-19 and issued attendant precautions, employers may measure employees' body temperature. However, employers should be aware that some people with COVID-19 do not have a fever.
• Does the ADA allow employers to require employees to stay home if they have symptoms of the COVID-19?  Yes. The CDC states that employees who become ill with symptoms of COVID-19 should leave the workplace. The ADA does not interfere with employers following this advice.
• When employees return to work, does the ADA allow employers to require doctors' notes certifying their fitness for duty? Yes. Such inquiries are permitted under the ADA either because they would not be disability-related or, if the pandemic influenza were truly severe, they would be justified under the ADA standards for disability-related inquiries of employees. As a practical matter, however, doctors and other health care professionals may be too busy during and immediately after a pandemic outbreak to provide fitness-for-duty documentation. Therefore, new approaches may be necessary, such as reliance on local clinics to provide a form, a stamp, or an e-mail to certify that an individual does not have the pandemic virus.

• If an employer is hiring, may it screen applicants for symptoms of COVID-19? Yes. An employer may screen job applicants for symptoms of COVID-19 after making a conditional job offer, as long as it does so for all entering employees in the same type of job.  This ADA rule applies whether or not the applicant has a disability.
• May an employer take an applicant's temperature as part of a post-offer, pre-employment medical exam? Yes.  Any medical exams are permitted after an employer has made a conditional offer of employment.  However, employers should be aware that some people with COVID-19 do not have a fever.
• May an employer delay the start date of an applicant who has COVID-19 or symptoms associated with it? Yes.  According to current CDC guidance, an individual who has COVID-19 or symptoms associated with it should not be in the workplace.
• May an employer withdraw a job offer when it needs the applicant to start immediately but the individual has COVID-19 or symptoms of it? Based on current CDC guidance, this individual cannot safely enter the workplace, and therefore the employer may withdraw the job offer.