As an employer it’s your responsibility under the Occupational Health and Safety Act to take every precaution reasonable in the circumstances to protect a worker. This guide will help you use current public health and workplace health and safety information to develop a plan and put controls into place to help make the workplace safer for everyone.
All employers are encouraged to develop a COVID-19 workplace safety plan and to review and update it regularly. You can use the COVID-19 workplace safety plan template to help create your plan.
Some businesses, including all those operating during a lockdown or shutdown, must have a written safety plan by law. Check Ontario.ca/COVID-19 regularly for updates. If you are required to have a safety plan you must make it available to anyone who asks to see it, and post it in a place where it will be seen easily.
Employers are not required to send their plan to the Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development and the ministry will not provide comments on safety plans sent in. During an inspection of your workplace, an inspector or compliance officer could ask whether you have developed a safety plan and may ask to see it.
Discuss and share your safety plan with everyone at work, including:
workers
unions
supervisors
health and safety representatives or members of joint health and safety committees (JHSCs)
contractors
suppliers
This guide does not replace the Occupational Health and Safety Act or the Employment Standards Act and their regulations and should not be used as or considered legal advice. Health and safety inspectors and employment standards officers apply the law based on the facts in the workplace.
