While we wait for more available vaccines, lawn and landscaping companies still need to practice mask-wearing, handwashing, and social distancing.
By now, you’ve probably put safety standards into practice to protect your workers from Covid-19. However, if this is your first season hiring crews, you’ll need to employ CDC guidelines to keep your employees and customer safe from Covid-19.
Lawn and Landscaping Businesses Are Still Essential Services
It was March 2020 when shelter-in-place rules started to be enforced. However, the green industry was considered essential, so crews were allowed to go out into the field to mow lawns, clean out landscapes, and serve their customers.
When it snowed, snow and ice removal services continued in retail parking lots even if there were no shoppers allowed to go inside.
Plus, there were essential businesses, such as grocery stores, banks, and health systems. They still needed their sidewalks shoveled and their parking lots free from snow and ice.
Now, we’re almost through the first full year with Covid. How do you intend to keep your employees safe under Covid-19?
How to Keep Your Crews Safe from Covid-19 on the Job
If you want to ensure that your crews stay healthy and keep working, you need to continue enforcing workplace safety standards, which include:
- Provide PPE (Personal Protection Equipment), such as disposable face masks, handwashing stations (handwashing should take 20 seconds), and hand sanitizer in your trucks.
- Remind crews to stay 6’ apart from fellow crew members, customers and the public.
- Remind crews to wear face masks when speaking with the public and when they can’t be 6’ apart on a worksite or in a vehicle.
- Reduce the number of workers per job.
- Allow only two people per truck or encourage everyone to drive separately to the job site. Many companies either allow employees to gas up in the yard at the end of the day or reimburse them for gas mileage.
Read: Secrets to a Successful Lawn Care Business in 2021
- Provide virtual training for your employees, reminding them of safety precautions during Covid-19 and general safety education to complete their jobs.
- Coach your crews to practice respiratory etiquette by sneezing and coughing into their elbows or using a tissue they, then, throw away. Also, remind your employees to wash their hands after sneezing or blowing their noses with tissues.
- Reassure your crews that mask-wearing does work. The CDC explains how two hair stylists prevented the spread of Covid-19 when they work masks.
- Remind your crews to limit their exposure to Covid-19 hotspots and self-monitor for Covid symptoms.
- Set up screening areas where employees check their temperature first thing in the morning. Also, encourage crew members to stay home if they’re not feeling well.
Don’t Forget to Sanitize the Office, Trucks, and Other Equipment
While the focus seems to be on people’s precautions, you also need to make sure that you disinfect
- Equipment, such as spreaders, sprayers, lawn equipment, snow blowers, etc.
- Trucks, including door handles, steering wheel, and gearshifts
- High-touch surfaces, such as machine handles, light switches, doorknobs, tools, safety glasses, safety vests, gloves, and boot soles.
The National Association of Landscape Professionals (NALP) recommends that you only use EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)-approved disinfectants that will kill emerging viruses.
Of course, make sure that you or your employees wear PPE when disinfecting your office, high-touch areas, equipment, and trucks.
Finally, have a plan of action in place for any employee who needs to be off from work because of Covid-19. You can require a doctor’s note for returning to work and make sure that the crew member doesn’t have a fever of 100.4ºF or higher.
Spyker Spreaders Remains Open for All of Your Lawn Equipment Needs
At Spyker, we make sure to practice safety regarding Covid-19 and eliminate its spread in our company.
If you need salt spreaders for your snow and ice removal services, or you’re looking for spreaders for landscaping, we got you covered.
You can find our Spyker spreader products at your local dealer or online at these retailers.
Have a question about your Spyker spreader? Then, call our customer service at (800)-972-6130 or fill out our contact form.
Sources:
OSHA.gov, “Covid-19/Control and Prevention.”
TurfMagazine.com, “Keeping Workers Safe in the Field.”
