August 23 Tip of the Week

Don’t forget about health screenings in the chaos of mask and vaccination guidelines!

Ever since the COVID-19 vaccines became widely available and employers’ attention turned to whether to mandate vaccines and which employees could go mask-free, the daily temperature checks and health screening surveys may have fallen by the wayside.  But don’t consider these screenings a pandemic relic yet-at least ten states still have state or local laws requiring employers to conduct some form of screening before allowing employees to enter the worksite.

Twenty states and the federal government strongly recommend COVID-19 screening before entering the workplace.  This could include taking employees’ temperatures, requiring employees to take their own temperatures before coming to work, asking employees as to whether they have or have had symptoms associated with COVID-19, and asking other questions to determine potential exposure or risk of exposure.  Some states and localities have a screening template, some require employers to log the information, some just require employers to make some type of unspecified effort to question employees to determine whether it is likely that an employee has or has been exposed to COVID-19 before allowing them to enter the workplace.

Remember: if you are keeping logs or records of employee temperatures, COVID-19 symptoms, COVID-19 diagnoses, or vaccination status, all of this information is confidential medical information and must be kept in a confidential medical file separate from the personnel file.  It should be accessible only to those with a business need to access it.

Wondering what-if anything-you still need to do to screen employees before they enter the worksite?  Ask the expert attorneys at myHRcounsel for help with this, and all of your other COVID-19 questions.