Easie develops daily COVID-19 employee surveying app for 90-person essential business
As the United States faces the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, businesses continue to see uncertainty and new risks in the workplace. Each state has implemented its own set of reopening requirements and industry-specific guidance to reduce risk while the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has issued federal guidance as well.
As an example, California issued the following blanket reopening requirements on a state-level:
Before reopening, all facilities must:
1. Perform a detailed risk assessment and create a site-specific protection plan
2. Train employees on how to limit the spread of COVID-19. This includes how to screen themselves for symptoms and when to stay home.
3. Set up individual control measures and screenings
4. Put disinfection protocols in place
5. Establish physical distancing guidelines
It’s important that employees with COVID-19 know they should stay home.
Specific re-opening requirements vary on the local level (city, county, etc.,) and state-by-state. Despite this, provisions for employees knowing when to stay home based on exposure or symptoms of COVID-19 are generally included in reopening guidance. The CDC has issued the following guidance on employee screening:
Screening employees is an optional strategy that employers may use. Performing screening or health checks will not be completely effective because asymptomatic individuals or individuals with mild non-specific symptoms may not realize they are infected and may pass through screening. Screening and health checks are not a replacement for other protective measures such as social distancing.
Consider encouraging individuals planning to enter the workplace to self-screen prior to coming onsite and not to attempt to enter the workplace if any of the following are present:
1. Fever equal to or higher than 100.4F*
2. Are under evaluation for COVID-19 (for example, waiting for the results of a viral test to confirm infection)
3. Have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and not yet cleared to discontinue isolation
*A lower temperature threshold (e.g., 100.0F) may be used, especially in healthcare settings.
Much more detailed guidance is available on the CDC website on content of screening questions and businesses should consult this and other specific relevant local guidance when creating this screening.
Automated screening helps businesses reopen with less risk
Through simple, automated surveying and analysis, businesses can create simple, digital surveying systems to tell employees if they are authorized to come into the workplace or not. Telling employees not to come into the office based on their responses to the survey is a scalable, simple way for a company to be compliant with reopening guidelines.
Automated screening also provides digital record keeping and querying tools to support implantation of a workplace-specific COVID-19 plan.
Case study: Environmental Standards
Environmental Standards, Inc. is a privately held consulting firm specializing in environmental chemistry, geosciences, environmental data management, emergency response quality assurance oversight, and health and safety support. The firm has established an international reputation for excellence in providing consulting services in these specialized areas and this reputation has resulted in a broad client base of Fortune 500 companies
Environmental Standards contracted Easie in May 2020 for the development of their internal employee screening survey. The concept of the app was simple and spoke to a direct need that businesses were having: screening employees before they come into work and telling them NOT to come into work if they reported possible exposure or symptoms of COVID-19. This system had the following requirements:
Send an automatic, daily email to employees with the date updated dynamically with a link to the survey.
Use conditional logic to make the survey tell the employee they are NOT to come in if they report possible symptoms or exposure.
Tell the employee they are authorized to come in if they do not report possible symptoms or exposure.
Email HR automatically if an employee reports possible symptoms or exposure with a link to a secure system dashboard.
Email HR a submission rate every day with a daily submission rate and submission count programmatically calculated and included in the email.
Easie successfully built and tested this custom system using Survey Monkey and EasieCloud technology from concept to launch in approximately two weeks. Here is an in-app image of the Environmental Standards Employee Survey:
The process of developing this screening app was simple, workflow-based and repeatable/scalable for many different types of businesses and industries. Depending on the functionality required, a business can reasonably develop a screening app in less than two weeks.
After the Environmental Standards screening app was launched, our team revisited the process of rapidly developing the app and compiled a simple strategy to replicate this process.
Create a workspace-specific COVID-19 prevention plan
Develop a workplace-specific plan for your unique business and set up a record keeping system that can be easily tracked, traced and queried by HR or other trusted representatives of the company. Establish internal controls so access to this data is restricted to an as-needed basis.
Understand what your must-have features are and iterate with new versions if needed. The underpinning of an app is that it is solving a problem that exists for your business to reopen.
Here is another example from the state of California with guidance on developing a workplace COVID-19 prevention plan:
- Establish a written, workplace-specific COVID-19 prevention plan at every location, perform a comprehensive risk assessment of all work areas and work tasks, and designate a person at each establishment to implement the plan.
- Incorporate the CDPH Face Covering Guidance into the Workplace Specific Plan and include a policy for handling exemptions.
- Identify contact information for the local health department where the operation is located for communicating information about COVID-19 outbreaks among workers or customers.
- Train and communicate with workers and worker representatives on the plan and make the plan available to workers and their representatives.
- Regularly evaluate the establishment for compliance with the plan and document and correct deficiencies identified.
- Investigate any COVID-19 illness and determine if any work-related factors could have contributed to risk of infection. Update the plan as needed to prevent further cases.
- Implement the necessary processes and protocols when a workplace has an outbreak, in accordance with CDPH guidelines.
- Identify close contacts (within six feet for 15 minutes or more) of an infected worker and take steps to isolate COVID-19 positive worker(s) and close contacts.
We suggest that this plan should include screening criteria and daily record keeping for employees. Tell employees not to come into the workplace before they are physically present using this system. Here is an in-app image of test data of a response an employee would get if they reported possible exposure or symptoms to COVID-19:
Identify requirements of your employee screening app
Here are the key questions to consider when identifying the requirements for your employee screening app:
Who needs to take the survey?
What questions should be on the survey?
What trigger-based actions (e.g. an email to HR) should we put in place if an employee reports possible exposure or symptoms to COVID-19?
How will we monitor submission by employees?
Summarize all the features you can think of; the purpose of this stage is to think as broadly and openly as possible about all the possible features you are looking for while paying close attention to what the key functionality of the COVID-19 employee screening app is and the core things it is supposed to do (e.g. operational communication, employee safety, record keeping, compliance).
Remember, understanding and being clear on development scope as early as possible will help avoid extra costs in the long term.
This is a great time to seek free expert judgement if you can and talk to a developer or technical specialist to help you more thoroughly (Easie can help you develop and implement your business-specific system after a free consultation).
Develop COVID-19 surveying app and test thoroughly before launch
Create a functionality matrix, a written development plan and a breakdown of the specific tasks required to complete the project. Execute the project according to the project schedule using best practices for project management. Update the scope if needed (as mentioned, some systems do add features or make minor adjustments later which can add cost).
Here is what David Blye, President of Environmental Standards, had to say about the process of working with Easie:
“We wanted an automated process that was simple to implement for our daily employee self-screening survey. Easie was great to work with. After an initial discussion and consult, Easie quickly put together a proposed solution that was right on target! Implementation was quick. Testing was thorough and we went live with our survey within 2 ½ weeks of our initial discussion. Easie made it easy!”
Conduct quality assurance on your system development process and ensure you rigorously test the functionality for every possible use case you can think of. Launch a functional version one and iterate with new versions if needed. Ideally, have a developer or technical specialist on call that can help.
Most apps will require subsequent monthly operating fees for software subscriptions, storage, etc. and these should be considered as much as possible during the budgeting process. Developing your COVID-19 system through this simple methodology should help you achieve your vision and optimize business risk.
Easie can help you develop your COVID-19 surveying app quickly
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