After the outbreak of the pandemic caused by Covid-19, we have been forced to change the present and future labor framework. Faced with an unprecedented global public health problem, we have been affected in our routine, our personal and work lives, and it has caused what has never been seen before: the cessation of global economic activity.

The current conditions force us to treat Covid-19 as a present and future occupational risk factor from which numerous questions arise.what measures adopted in the workplace? How do we ensure the protection and safety of our employees?, how do we deal with prevention in a job entry scenario? All these issues have been dealt with by our Director of Master in Occupational Risk Prevention, Rubén Rodríguez Elizalde.

Since the approval of Law 31/1995 on Occupational Risk Prevention the main objective is the care of the most important asset of companies, people. Since then, ORP training has gradually gained relevance in the labor context with the expansion of awareness in companies in this aspect, it has also been accentuated recently due to the crisis caused by the coronavirus, being a scarce professional figure and with a high demand due to the ability to establish a continuous and effective improvement plan, incorporating measures in the management, evaluation and its subsequent implementation in the face of future risks.

This improvement plan is carried out through the specialization of the professional in different occupational risk prevention disciplines, grouped into 5 prevention techniques derived from work:

Safety inspection / Industrial hygiene / Ergonomics / Psychosociology / Occupational medicine / Prevention techniques

The protagonist in this case is Industrial hygiene due to Covid-19, in charge of preventing occupational diseases, acting on physical, chemical or biological risk factors, making measurements and assessments of polluting agents within the environment, trying to reduce or eliminate them. During the presentation, mention is made of the particularity of the moment that is not only limited to the workplace, but also rises to a global health problem, which leads us to one of the first conclusions, which is the relevance of the changes that are going to transform the work environment to which we are accustomed in our usual routine. A routine that is going to be modified due to new guidelines, materials that seek efficiency in the prevention of contagion such as the following:

  • La hygiene as a fundamental measure
  • La behavior transformation common in the work environment.
  • Reciprocal relationship (Businessman-Worker), highlighting the importance of the channel of bidirectional communication to be able to solve any type of situation in the face of existing uncertainty.
  • requirement of the education and solidarity so as not to transmit the virus to others.
  • Choice of necessary and approved protective equipment such as masks and hydroalcoholic gels.

As a final conclusion, Rubén Rodríguez sends the message of positivity to face the virus, although he highlights precaution as the best tool to face the unpredictable development of Covid-19 in our society and in our jobs.