Working in radio has been tough during the lockdown, with many DJs forced to work from makeshift home studios that don’t provide the soundproofing and acoustics that their listeners are used to enjoying.
As the lockdown lifts and employers are encouraged to welcome staff back into offices and workplaces, many radio stations are considering reopening.
However, it’s essential that your station keeps its staff safe so that they can continue to produce the shows and content that listeners love.
To help you create a safe workplace for your team, we’ve put together a list of practical tips that will help reassure them, and your listeners, that you’re doing everything to ensure their safety and reduce the spread of the virus.
Keep Your Workplace Clean
One of the biggest issues with working in a radio station is that there’s a lot of talking, which means that a lot of spit can be spread across surfaces. The Coronavirus can live on surfaces for several days, so you need to make sure that each space is cleaned after every use. This might seem like a lot of hard work, but you could consider working with a specialist commercial cleaning company. Check out idealcleaning.co.uk to find out more about the company’s Coronavirus decontamination and ongoing cleaning services, so that you can get back into the studio swiftly and safely.
Create Social Distancing Policies
In most radio stations, everyone shares everything and people regularly get close to one another, but now that will all be impossible. As such, you’ll have to create social distancing policies that allow staff to work efficiently and stay safe at the same time.
Talk To Your Staff
It’s essential that you communicate with your team and make sure that everyone understands the new policies that you’ve put in place and is ready to implement them. Consider sending out a detailed email bulletin, then hosting virtual meetings to ensure that is everyone is happy and understands what they’re doing. You could also create an instant messaging channel to share quick updates if anything changes after your station reopens.
Provide Hand Washing Stations
Staff need to be able to wash their hands regularly, particularly after eating or using the bathroom. Make sure that your office has lots of hand basins and soap dispensers, as well as hand sanitiser so that staff and other visitors can easily clean their hands whenever they need to do so. You should also replace any hand dryers with paper towels so that users can dry their hands safely without spreading germs and bacteria around in the air.
Buy More Microphone Protectors
Before the virus, you probably only had one or two sets of microphone protectors, which were shared between multiple users. However, now you should consider changing your microphone protectors more regularly, ideally between each use. As such, you’ll need to stock up on the best microphone protectors on the market, so that you always have a spare one ready to use.