COVID-19 Immediate Local School Actions

Published in the Research School of Physics Event Horizon
Vol45 Issue12 23–27 March 2020

Dear Physics Community,

With the rapidly changing advice on response to COVID-19, the University’s website on the subject should be the first point of information in relation to work and study precautions.

In enacting the next stage of these precautions, the following links are the local actions that we as a School have taken or are taking effective immediately in accordance with our local response plan.

• You must stay at home if you become unwell

• Stop the spread: Social distancing and good hygiene practices is a requirement and responsibility of all: engage in best practice hygiene and hand-washing, maintain appropriate physical distancing. There are many flyers around the School and online information is readily available around this subject. Enhanced cleaning and hygiene measures are being implemented as quickly as possible.

• Group Meetings. Staff and students are asked to cancel all face to face meetings and to look at alternatives such as email/social media/zoom Any meeting that does go ahead will now require Contact tracing information: requirements mean we must track attendees at meetings by keeping a record and adhere to strict social distancing.

• Communal spaces are to be closed to congregation:
• Meeting spaces will have numbers of seats reduced to accommodate current physical distancing requirements (4 Sqm per person). Some smaller spaces will be closed. The room booking website will be updated to reflect any changes.
• RSPhys Main Tea room will be closed to congregation. It will be available for preparation and collection of tea/coffee but staff and students are required to maintain physical distancing whilst in the main tea room and are asked to return to their office/desk after preparation/collection.
• Departmental tea rooms and shared spaces should be closed to congregation with similar restrictions as the main RSPhys team room.

• Labs and workshops should be utilising individual PPE. Where items cannot be individualised (eg Laser Goggles) then a means of sanitising equipment should be adopted (e.g. rubbing with alcohol wipes between use). We are working to stock more of these types of items.

• Visitors and contractors. Any expected visitors to the School who are not considered essential or critical (safety/maintenance etc) should be advised to cancel.

• Work from Home arrangements: In light of recently announced school closures (pupil free from Tuesday 24th) All staff and students, with their supervisors, should consider what their personal work from home strategy would be if the University was to close or have care responsibilities. These should be tested this week (ie. is IT remote access working, VPN).

The University has advised any staff members considered most at risk from COVID-19 are encouraged to work from home. According to the Commonwealth Department of Health, at-risk people include: 

• Staff over 60 years old 
• Staff with diagnosed chronic medical conditions 
• Staff with a compromised immune system  

These staff members will be contacted directly. 

• Contact details: Ensure contact lists of essential people/supervisors in your area/work team are upto date and communicated to those that may require them.

Implementation of these precautions will help our community reduce the risk. This should be considered the responsibility of all.

Working from Home information

Working from home may be the best option if that is suitable to you and your staff in the current climate. Also consider rostering or rotational plans for you and your work team to balance work from home and operational needs. This may be an effective way to manage physical distancing requirements in a shared space. Whilst the University has a procedure for working from home as a useful starting point, there are a few things to consider around working from home:

• Social Contact. Firstly, make sure you keep in touch. This will be an important way to confirm that teams are working well remotely, and also more importantly, that everyone is doing okay personally. Schedule this as a regular daily occurrence.

• Discuss with Supervisor. Please discuss and put in place an agreement with your Supervisor and     the School to work from home.
• Agreements with supervisors should include information around appropriate tasks and expectations of workload.
• Consider operational needs and if a rotational plan may work.
• Advise staff if any ANU devices or other resources should be taken home at the end of each day as a precautionary business continuity measure.
• Is working remotely a suitable option for them considering other family or household members self-isolating or requiring care. Consider how to balance these priorities and make adjustments.
• How will the recently announced School Closures change and effect this balance and ability to work from home.
  
  
• Inform the School of your intention to work from home.
• The School has been asked to collate information for those working from home and will coordinate with other required areas of the ANU.
• Supervisors are required to keep a register of the work locations for team members who may be working remotely/from home whether that is a regular and consistent arrangement, an irregular occurrence or a short term arrangement to support certain circumstances.
• Please email your intent to work from home to your Departmental administrator (or admin.physics@anu.edu.au) and the School sm.physics@anu.edu.au with your work location details, WHS assessments and working arrangements.  
          
• WHS requirements
• Discuss what resources and access you will need to work from home with your supervisor
• You should undertake a WHS assessment of your home workspace. This is a requirement of the ANU work from Home procedure and an updated modified version of the checklist for COVID-19 can be found here. Use this.
  
  
• IT and systems access
• Information on IT work from home setup and access is available from: https://physics.anu.edu.au/intra/scu/documentation/working_from_home.php
• Any other requests should be forwarded to it.physics@anu.edu.au
  
  
• Communicate: Every effort should be made to ensure communication between team members continues as usual. In the absence of talking in person, team members should be encouraged to use Zoom and other collaboration platforms

This week of pause is our opportunity to test and trial these work arrangements and encourage all to have rational and supportive discussions around how to keep the School operational and engaged.