Management of Workplace Safety in Pandemic Scenario: A Matrix Based Approach

Abstract

The unprecedented disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has upended the concepts of workplace safety. As the pandemic threat is not yet over and recurring waves hitting different nations, there is an increased need to normalize the workplace safety to deal with the different levels of threats. A structured approach calls for mechanism to regularly assess the threat level and accordingly devise and apply the control measures. This can significantly reduce the pandemic associated risks to the workers. Each organization and its work environment are unique and its strategy for implementing optimized control measures to prevent COVID exposure will largely depend on these unique factors. Risk matrices provide quick and easily comprehensible risk analyses which can smoothen and append management decision making. A properly constructed and utilized risk matrix may yield several benefits including rapid identification of priority areas for further strengthening the measures for risk reduction and enables safety managers to focus their attention on high-risk areas. The paper also presents uncertainties in the course of pandemic and use of risk matrix as a decision-making tool for the management of workplace in a pandemic like situation.