It is the responsibility of the Person In Charge (PIC) of the facility to implement and train staff on an effective employee health policy. This means ensuring that staff members not only stay home when sick, but also remain home for at least 24 hours after their last symptom ends without the aid of medication (in the case of vomiting and diarrhea). This is an important task, as many sizeable outbreaks have occurred with staff getting sick before customers.

In order to meet this requirement, it is strongly recommended that facilities keep records of employee absences due to illness, and to regularly review those records. This way, each facility will know what their normal absence levels are and will notice if the number of ill employees is increasing, which could be the sign of the start of an outbreak.

If you suspect that you might be experiencing an outbreak at your property, please reach out to SNHD immediately. The sooner SNHD knows about it, the sooner we can work together to help end it. You can call the Office of Epidemiology at (702) 759-1300 at any time, Environmental Health Foodborne Illness at (702) 759-1504, or your assigned inspector during business hours.

Use the resources on this page to strengthen your employee health policies.