How to handle contagious disease communication to the workplace?

pmschwartz

An employee has come down with a staff infection and I am at a loss for what we are legally responsible to do as far as communicating the information to the rest of the team. I know that we need to keep the impacted employee's privacy but what do we owe the other co-workers?

hr410

There are different kinds of staph, so the answer may vary, depending on the risk/threat posed to coworkers. For example, resistant staph (MRSA) is nasty, infectious, and presents a significant threat (see the CDC site at http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dhqp/ar_mrsa.html for more information). If you have medical confirmation of the type and seriousness of threat from a medical professional, you should make the call on whether to communicate to employees outweighs the individual employee's privacy interest.

IrisD

You need disclose only what areas of the facility were exposed, not necessarily the name of the ill person. Of course, the gender of the ill person may be revealed (i.e., ladies' or mens' rest rooms).

State that you are having these areas of the facility sanitized by the cleaning service and remind employees to wash hands frequently, especially before eating, and to refrain from touching noses and mouths with their hands.  Put out bottles of hand sanitizer in affected areas, near common-use items such as copiers, in the lunchroom, etc.

State in your handbook that you will require employees with communicable diseases to take a medical leave if they pose a threat to others in the workplace, and that you will require the employee to provide a physician's statement that they are not communicable before they will be allowed to return to work.  Or if circumstances allow, let the employee work from home until he or she is cleared.