In order to keep employees, students, customers, and anyone else who may be on-site safe during the coronavirus pandemic, many organizations are putting safety measures in place. These protective measures, as recommended by the CDC, can include:

• Requiring masks
• Social distancing of at least six feet
• Offering hand sanitizer
• Regularly disinfecting commonly-touched surfaces
• Improving building ventilation
• Providing protective glass or plastic barriers where a six-foot distance isn’t possible
• Conducting health checks daily
• Assessing the risks in the workplace
• Encouraging frequent hand-washing
• Contact tracing

Some of these, such as the mask wearing, frequently washing hands or using hand sanitizer, and practicing social distancing, must be done regularly and by individuals rather than by the organization. It may be easy for employees or customers to forget some of these security measures as they go about their normal business. So how can companies remind people to continue to exercise all necessary precautions to stay safe during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Automate Scheduled Reminders

With the MessageNet system, you can schedule messages to launch at any time. These schedules can be either one-time message launches or they can be regular, repeating schedules. Repeating schedules can be set up to launch a reminder message as frequently as you want. You can add as many different timed launches to a message schedule as needed. Each time can also be set to repeat on multiple days. In this way, a message can be set up to launch every hour of the work day on every day of the work week. But which notifications would best help to keep people safe at your organization?

Mask Reminder Notification

Studies done by medical professionals have shown that wearing face masks can help limit the spread of the disease. Although nothing will be 100% effective in protecting against the virus, the more people who wear masks, the lower its chances of spreading. If your staff members cannot safely social distance and still perform their duties, wearing a mask is a good way to help them keep both themselves and others safe.

If employees are removing masks throughout the day for any reason, an automated reminder to put it back on can help them remember. A regular reminder can also help customers or visitors to your organization who may not be familiar with the rules to know before they come in what the expectations are.

Hand-Washing Reminder Notifications

The best way to get COVID-19 particles off of your hands is to wash them with soap and water. Hand sanitizer works well when you don’t have access to soap and water, but washing your hands with soap for twenty seconds will both break down the coronavirus particles and completely wash them away. Employees should be washing their hands any time they’ve come into contact with anyone else or any surfaces that they don’t know for certain are clean. A notification can be sent out reminding employees to wash their hands regularly.

Cleaning Reminders

Another safety measure recommended by the CDC was to regularly clean and sanitize commonly touched surfaces. If a specific person is responsible for cleaning a specific location, a notification can be sent directly to that person. Reminders are especially important for new tasks that weren’t previously a regular part of an employees’ duties.

Health Check Notifications

If your business is conducting regular health checks for employees, you can set up an automated alert to let them know when one is upcoming. If it’s first thing in the morning, schedule the reminder to go out at the end of office hours the day before. It can also be a good reminder for employees who are feeling under the weather to use a sick day so they don’t risk spreading an illness to the rest of the office.