An Australian company has played a key role in the development of a new toolkit in the United States to help businesses around the world reopen their doors safely after the COVID-19 lockdown.

The free assessment tool has been developed and released by the prestigious Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security in Baltimore, but not before they sought advice and input from leading Australian crisis management and business continuity firm RiskLogic, the only Australian entity to be included in the development process.

The toolkit provides businesses with an easy-to-use assessment calculator to measure the risk of transmitting COVID-19 under their ‘business as usual’ procedures and provides practical mitigation strategies to reduce those risks to a workable level.

Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security is the world leader in research and innovation, providing knowledge and resources to support prevention and response to public health crises. Throughout COVID-19 they have become the ‘source of truth’ for policy makers and the public around the globe.

To ensure relevance of the new tool to current businesses, Johns Hopkins turned to RiskLogic’s Dr Rebecca Hoile in Adelaide who combines current business resilience expertise with previous senior roles at the World Health Organisation and INTERPOL.

“Johns Hopkins are the experts on emerging infectious diseases, however, they wanted to ensure their toolkit aligned to best practice business continuity strategies being implemented across a variety of organisations.

“As Australian businesses and organisations prepare to operate in ‘the new normal’, it was an opportunity to provide relevant and timely input into a resource that enables businesses to remain agile as we deal with the next phase of this pandemic. 

“I was honoured to be one of a select few asked to contribute to this valuable resource which is now available for any business around the world.

“It is understandable that CEOs and boards, who have minimal expertise in pandemics and infection control, are seeking expert guidance with how to best protect their staff, customers and suppliers when they reopen.

“This toolkit can help them assess and minimise potential health risks and get back to business safely, and with confidence,” Dr Hoile said.

RiskLogic runs more than 200 exercises every year around the world to ‘stress test’ the ability of businesses to respond to and recover from disruption, disaster and crisis. They have recently released a COVID-19 Pandemic Roadmap to help businesses navigate the management, recovery and review phases of the pandemic. The Roadmap aligns with the National COVID-19 safe workplace principles and resources developed by Safework Australia.

Click here to download the Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security’s Operational Toolkit for Businesses Considering Reopening or Expanding Operations in COVID-19.

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