Major health event preparation for transport and logistics businesses

• 

  Make a plan

  Create a business continuity plan to identify your risks and plan what you will do

• 

  Review policies

  Review cleaning, ordering, booking and cancellation policies

• 

  Train staff

  Ensure staff know and understand any new hygiene or safety protocols

• 

  Follow public health directions

  Follow public health directions relevant to your business

• 

  Assess business operations

  Plan for alternative ways to run your business (e.g. remotely from home, online)

• 

  Wellbeing and mental health

  Look after your own, your family and your staff's mental health and wellbeing

• 

  Seek support

  Apply for financial assistance and other business support

• 

  Plan for financial recovery

  Record lessons learned and update policies, plans and staff training

• 

  Communicate

  Communicate the steps you've taken to protect staff and customers

• 

  Promote your business

  Develop marketing strategies to promote positive news or deals

Complete a business continuity plan (includes a risk management, incident response and recovery plan), and a health management plan for specific health events (e.g. COVID-19 pandemic) to help you prepare, respond and recover from a health event.

Steps to include in your plan:

• identify potential health risks (including pandemics) and their likely impact on your business
  • learn about work health and safety laws, regulations and codes of practice
  • find out your work health and safety obligations as a business (including your legal obligations)
  • check and document what you need to do to run your business safely to manage different types of health events
• identify staff roles and responsibilities and share team contact details
• record customer, supplier, insurer and emergency contact details
• plan how to respond to key risks and incidents
  • identify core services and what you need to do to maintain your supply chain
  • plan for flexible staffing arrangements (working from home, online meetings, reorganising work schedules and cross-skilling)
  • back up data and save to either external or cloud storage
  • consider financial factors, like cash flow and insurance if you have a loss of income
  • review ordering, booking and cancellation policies –consider goodwill measures
• plan how to recover from an incident
  • develop a digital strategy (website, social media and advertising)
• conduct training with staff and update your plan.

Prepare a communication plan to cover what is happening, how your business is responding, where customers/suppliers can find out more information and what they need to do.

Contact key industry associations for communication kits and advice.

• Check current COVID-19 information.
• Check with your industry body for specific COVID-19 advice for your sector, or read advice about:
  • taxi and ride share: minimising the risk of exposure to COVID-19 (PDF, 512KB) (Safe Work Australia)
  • maritime industry (Maritime Safety Queensland)
  • aviation industry (Civil Aviation Safety Authority).

• Read about pandemic risk management for business.
• Find flu prevention resources to help prevent influenza spreading.
• Read more about human influenza and influenza pandemics.

• To prevent or reduce the risk of mosquito-borne diseases in your premises or property:
  • regularly check for potential breeding sites (PDF, 1.5MB) and empty outside containers capable of storing water
  • provide insect repellent and long-sleeved clothing for staff and customers
  • advise staff and customers about how to prevent mosquito bites.

• Learn about Legionnaires' disease – caused by the Legionella bacteria and can be found in equipment with water (e.g. air conditioning, pools and spas, misting systems).
• Read the Legionella guidelines and resources from Queensland Health to help you minimise the risk.

• Read the guidelines and resources for disease prevention in animal contact areas from Queensland Health.
• Read how to prevent illness in animal contact areas.

• If you handle or sell food, you must comply with food and beverage industry regulations.
• Read Queensland Health's:
  • know your food business booklet (PDF, 1MB) to assess your food safety practices and requirements
  • food safety resources for information about safe food storage, preparation and regulations.
• Visit Safe Food Queensland for mandatory food safety accreditation, advice and notification requirements.

For more information, read the emergency event information.

• Advise workers, guests and customers on how to prepare for a heatwave and signs of heatstroke.
• Visit WorkSafe Queensland for more information on how to protect workers from heat stress and use the heat stress calculator to predict the risk of heat-induced illness and find out how to prevent it.

• Contagious diseases – if a staff member, customer, client, volunteer or visitor contracts a contagious disease and has potentially exposed others at your workplace, notify your local public health unit or phone 13 HEALTH (13 43 25 84).
• Contaminated food products – if you suspect a food product has been intentionally contaminated, report it to 13 HEALTH (13 43 25 84).
• Food poisoning – if a food poisoning incident occurs:
  • advise the customer (or other person) to see a doctor
  • record the customers contact and complaint details, and report using the customer complaint log (scroll down to 'Records' to find the form)
  • remove any suspect food from sale (or consumption), label it 'suspected unsafe food' and refrigerate it for testing
  • report it to your local public health unit or phone 13 HEALTH (13 43 25 84).
  • phone the Poisons Information Centre for advice on 13 11 26 – available 24 hours, 7 days a week
  • learn more about food safety complaints from Queensland Health
  • use the event log template to record decisions and actions
  • see suggested messaging for food poisoning or contamination incidents.
• Serious injury or illness, death or a dangerous event (including serious or dangerous electrical events)
  • always phone Triple Zero (000) for all life-threatening emergencies
  • you must notify Workplace Health and Safety.

Learn more about responding to negative social media or media coverage relating to an incident.

• Monitor and follow Queensland Health alerts and learn about business and COVID-19.
• Implement recommended hygiene and safety measures (e.g. COVID-19 health and safety resources).
• Activate your business continuity plan or specific health management plan.
• Keep staff, customers, clients, volunteers and visitors safe.
• Learn about work health and safety laws, regulations and codes of practice.
• Know your work health and safety obligations as a business.

• Communicate regularly with staff, customers and suppliers:
  • keep customers up to date
  • let customers know if your business is open/closed
  • contact suppliers regarding stock and operations
  • continue to update your website and social media about business operations.

• Activate your specific health management plan as part of your business continuity plan.
• Consider alternative ways to run your business by working remotely from home, moving online, finding a new market or customers, or selling different products or services.

• Check if you can apply for business grants, disaster assistance or use the Queensland Government Grants Finder.
• Check if you're eligible for Australian Government business assistance, grants and support.

• Assess your finances, including how long you can operate with reduced or no revenue.
• Contact your bank, creditors and debtors to discuss options – use our suggested messages.
• Contact the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to learn about their natural disaster support, how to fast-track your refund, delay lodgement obligations or more time to pay debts.
• Learn more about managing cash flow and debtors.
• Get free financial counselling support from small business financial counsellors and rural financial counsellors.

• Communicate with customers and suppliers about steps taken to protect them and any changes to your business operations.
• Provide positive news on your website and social media about your business.
• Keep in contact with other business owners.
• Monitor relevant government agency websites (e.g. Queensland Health's Chief Health Officer public health directions) for the latest information.

• Look after yourself, your staff and your family's wellbeing and mental health. Consider staff morale and how to boost it.
• Share health alerts and information with staff (e.g. vaccination information).
• Stay connected to your local community, industry and neighbouring businesses.

• Consider your business's viability long term, including costs and benefits of continuing to operate.
• Develop relationships with more than 1 supplier to maintain supplies and deliveries, etc.

• Work with your accountant, lawyer or adviser on a financial recovery plan, including credit and repayment plans.
• Access small business support services to get back on track, including the Mentoring for Growth program.
• Watch financial resilience webinars for small businesses from TAFE Queensland:
  • managing cash flow
  • business planning/strategies
  • panel mentoring sessions
  • repositioning your business.

• Keep customers, suppliers and stakeholders updated about your business operations.
• Answer emails promptly, thank people for their support and log customer phone calls.
• Develop a recovery marketing and promotion plan.
• Celebrate and let people know about recovery steps, milestones, or successes.

• Visit Scamwatch for updates on the latest scams and subscribe to email alerts.
• Learn how to protect your online business activity.

• The safety, health and wellbeing of our staff and customers is our first priority.
• In response to (add health event) we are following all directives issued by the Chief Health Officer and doing everything possible to ensure the safety of all staff and customers at our premises.
• We are continuing to monitor our policies in this changing environment and do our part to prevent the spread of (add health event).
• In line with guidance provided by Queensland Health we have updated our cleaning and hygiene measures in line with recommended guidelines. These include (list measures).
• To find out more about (add health event) visit (list appropriate websites and/or organisations).
• Thank you for your patience. We are receiving a high volume of phone calls and queries and will respond to your inquiry as soon as we can. In the meantime, please visit our website (or social media page) for more information.

• We are working closely with authorities to investigate this incident to determine the exact source and cause.
• The safety and security of our (staff, customers or guests) is our first priority.
• Our practices and standards are in line with the strictest health and safety regulations.
• We will continue making every effort to abide by these standards and will update our food handling processes if they are found to be responsible for the incident, to prevent this from happening again.
• If anyone who has eaten (provide specific details of food source and timings) and is experiencing symptoms of (list symptoms), we advise you seek medical assistance.
• We sincerely apologise for any distress this incident has caused and our thoughts are with those who have been affected.

For more information, read emergency workplace accident or death messaging.

Contact your bank

• Ask your bank about financial hardship options, for example:
  • changing loan terms
  • temporarily pausing or reducing repayments
  • deferring repayments and interest payments (all missed payments and interest will need to be repaid)
  • waiving fees and charges
  • consolidating your debt
  • finance to help cover cash flow shortages
  • deferring upcoming credit card payments
  • increasing emergency credit card limits
  • waiving early termination fees to access term deposits.
• Provide loan details (account name and number, payment amounts) and an overview of your financial situation.
• Request a hardship variation by using the sample letter generator from the Financial Rights Legal Centre to send to your bank.
• Your bank must advise you within 21 days about your hardship request. If you can't negotiate a variation, you can:
  • contact the bank's internal dispute resolution team
  • visit the Australian Financial Complaints Authority or phone 1800 931 678 to make a complaint, and get free advice and independent dispute resolution.

Contact utility providers

• Contact your utility providers' hardship team about electricity, gas, phone or water bill payment options.

• Pandemic claims – most insurance policies do not cover businesses for a pandemic, but find out if you can make a claim under your business interruption or income protection insurance.
• Insurers must inform you of their decision within 10 business days of receiving your claim.
• Insurers must fast track your claim if you can demonstrate 'financial need' (read Item 64 of the General Insurance Code of Practice) – if the insurer accepts your claim, an advance payment must be made within 5 days.
• Contact the Australian Financial Complaints Authority on 1800 931 678 if you can't reach an agreement with your insurer.
• Phone Legal Aid Queensland on 1300 651 188 if you need information and advice on how to get your insurance claim paid.