What does it mean to have a safe work environment?

Employers are responsible for maintaining a safe and healthy work environment for their employees. These duties include:

• Ensuring the building is well ventilated to provide acceptable indoor air quality.
• Regularly checking air filters to ensure they are within service life and appropriately installed.
• Following the CDC’s Guidance for Building Water Systems.
• Ensuring adequate supplies for employees, customers, and visitors so they may clean their hands and cover their coughs and sneezes (i.e., offering soap and water, hand sanitizer, tissues, and no-touch trash cans).
• Performing routine cleaning by following the CDC’s Guidance on Cleaning and Disinfecting.

Additionally, your employer should encourage safety practices that adhere to state and local guidance and minimize your risks at work. These include:

• Encouraging hand hygiene and using non-contact methods of greeting.
• Hanging informational posters at the entrance of the workplace and in other workplace areas where they are likely to be seen.
• Directing employees to visit CDC’s Coughing and Sneezing Etiquette and Clean Hands webpage for more information.
• Encouraging or requiring the use of face masks or cloth coverings.
• Holding meetings in open, well-ventilated space that maintain social distancing guidelines.
• Adjusting, cancelling, or postponing in-person meetings, or encouraging videoconferencing or teleconferencing.
• Limiting non-essential travel, and advising employees who travel that they must take additional precautions and preparations.

Please visit the OSHA guidelines website for more information.