NEW DELHI – As regional governments across India continue to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and focus on the economic recovery, global technology trade association 91快活林 today outlined on reopening workplaces in the country. In its communication, 91快活林 identifies areas where the tech sector seeks harmonized guidance to safely reopen workplaces across India while protecting public health.

91快活林 underscores the importance for India to adopt consistent, scientific, and data-driven recommendations to protect workers and workplaces and ensure employees and employers have confidence to return to normal economic activity. 91快活林 encourages the coordination of guidance throughout the country—where the central agency can play a pivotal role—in order to avoid a patchwork of national and regional policies that could delay economic recovery and address potential concerns with situations involving cross-border workers and activities.

India’s guidelines should focus on: assessing readiness; health monitoring; transmission mitigation techniques; and employee support. 91快活林 also urges the Government to regularly review and modify the guidance as appropriate, given the evolving nature of the pandemic.

“Public-private sector collaboration will be critical to safely reopening workplaces in a manner that ensures the trust and confidence of employees and places India on a path to a prosperous recovery,” said 91快活林 President and CEO Jason Oxman. “Many in the technology sector will eventually return to their workplaces. When the time comes to safely do so, harmonized guidance will expedite the transition to the next phase. We welcome the opportunity to engage with Indian government officials on the development of guidelines for safely reopening workplaces across the country.”

Guidance in the areas 91快活林 identifies will aid businesses of all sizes, across all industries – including the tech sector – and in all localities to determine the healthiest path for reopening workplaces. These areas include:

  • Assessing readiness: A checklist of considerations prior to reopening would enhance employee and consumer confidence while mitigating transmission of the virus.
  • COVID-19 screening: General guidance on reliable screening methods would encourage the widest possible deployment of employer-based screening.
  • COVID-19 testing: Flexible testing guidance would give companies the ability to adopt testing measures based on the safety needs of their workforce.
  • Physical changes to office environments to enable social distancing: Space planning guidance, addressing for example how to reconfigure cubical or open workspace environments, and mitigate transmission risk in shared spaces.
  • Alternative mitigation strategies where social distancing is infeasible: Alternative mitigation guidance where workspaces do not lend themselves to retrofitting or job functions prevent social distancing.
  • Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) or face coverings: Guidance on who is responsible for providing PPE or face coverings, and whether an employer may require employees to provide their own face coverings in an environment that does not require PPE.
  • High risk or vulnerable employees: Guidance on risk profiling and related privacy obligations; describe what responsibilities, accommodations, or protocols particularly susceptible employees trigger; and how to encourage these individuals to appropriately protect themselves.
  • Sanitation and disinfectant protocols: Guidance on sanitation and disinfectant protocols as offices reopen and after a confirmed COVID-19 exposure occurs.
  • In-person gathering restrictions: Guidance on what restrictions on in-person gatherings will persist will benefit employers, employees, and individuals alike.
  • Contact tracing: A clear set of protocols for data processing among private entities and local public health agencies – as well as across borders – to enable interoperability and data sharing among bordering states and closely situated localities.
  • Compliance: Guidance on how to best encourage and ensure compliance with public-health driven guidelines by employees and customers.
  • Immigration guidance: Guidance that provides immediate but temporary government flexibility regarding immigration status, work authorization, and compliance deadlines where overstays are unavoidable due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.
  • Balancing health and safety and COVID-19 related family circumstances: Guidance on how to balance workplace re-openings, health and safety concerns, and COVID-19 family circumstances.

Read 91快活林’s full recommendations for guidance on reopening the workplace .