Don’t Ask Employees If They Have Covid-19, and Other HR Tips
When the CDC agreed to talk to HR professionals, 40,000 people got on the call
Can I ask an employee if he or she has Covid-19? Can I send a sick worker home and require a doctor’s note to return? Should I worry about staff getting the virus from the mail or a shipping container from China?
Those were among the top questions from a webcast Tuesday coordinated by the Society for Human Resource Management to discuss how workplaces should handle thorny issues raised by the new coronavirus. The short answers? No. Probably Not. No.
Roughly 40,000 people joined the call, which featured staff experts from the HR group and Jay Butler, deputy director for infectious diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Participants included not only HR professionals, but also CEOs, business owners and random people with questions -- showing the hunger for guidance on how employers should navigate a global outbreak.