Business takeovers and covid-19: a label to reassure your contacts

It’s a difficult dilemma to get back to work while applying preventive health measures against covid-19. To help companies inspire confidence and ensure a safe return to business, AFNOR Certification offers a label: “Mesures Sanitaires Covid-19, verified by AFNOR Certification”.

May 11, 2020: managers and HR directors are on deck to reopen the doors of their companies to employees, customers and partners who haven’t visited since the start of the lockdown following the covid-19 pandemic. How can you reassure them by showing that you apply health precautions in every respect? Thanks to the new label: “Mesures sanitaires Covid-19, verified by AFNOR Certification”.
AFNOR Certification offers you on-site verification, based on ISO 45001 (the voluntary standard for health and safety management in the workplace) and the sheets issued by the French General Directorate for Labor, all of which can be adapted to your sector of activity. For the construction sector, which has had to suspend numerous worksites, the service will be provided in partnership with Apave. In practical terms, an assessor comes on site to check that the best practice guidelines drawn up for the occasion are being applied: minimum distances, cleaning and disinfection procedures, etc.

A guarantee of confidence for employees, customers and visitors alike

If the exercise is successful, the label will be awarded, recognizing the safe nature of the working environment. A guarantee of confidence for the employees who work there, the customers, visitors and partners who visit, and the employee representative bodies (IRP). All with the impartiality and robustness of the certification process.
Indeed, the “Mesures sanitaires Covid-19, verified by AFNOR Certification” label was developed on the principles of the recent ISO/IEC 17029:2019 accreditation standard “Conformity assessment – General principles and requirements for validation and verification bodies”, which enables certification bodies to attest to a situation at a given point in time. It allows a certificate to be issued with a “reasonable” or “limited” level of assurance, depending on the results of the verification, and is perfectly compatible with “classic” certifications (ISO 9001, ISO 14001, etc.). Once verification has been successfully completed on the customer’s premises, the logo can be displayed for twelve months.

This is what the Futuroscope park in Vienne has done (video above, France 3 Nouvelle-Aquitaine). This is also what Afric-Phar in Casablanca, Morocco, has done. We wanted to reassure our employees and our customers that we were applying and respecting barrier procedures,” comments Nabila Khalil, QSE Manager for this pharmaceuticals manufacturer, whose line was converted for the occasion to produce hydroalcoholic gel. It’s perfectly in line with our quality-safety-environment policy, and in particular with our ISO 45001 occupational health and safety certification (French only).” Following the visit of the auditor sent by AFNOR Maroc, no discrepancies were noted on the most strategic criteria.

Crèche L’Atelier des Anges: reassuring families

It’s hard to reconcile nursery activity with health precautions. And yet, still in Morocco, L’Atelier des Anges became the first crèche to be awarded the “Vérifié Mesures sanitaires covid-19” label, after six months of closure. As early as March 2020, at the start of the pandemic, Ilham El Yacoubi, director of the crèche, was asking herself: what measures could be put in place to reassure families, avoid upsetting children’s mental equilibrium, and preserve the health of staff? In the absence of government guidelines, she observed practices in other countries… and came across the Group’s label. I then put in place the health and hygiene measures indicated in the specifications,” she explains. The fact that families entrust us with their children is, in itself, a mark of confidence.