How will your business react to the lockdown?
Okay..so it's not called a lockdown, but the government have finally announced everyone must stay home. There are some exceptions but on the whole, the public are advised to:
Only go outside for food, health reasons or essential work (as listed here)
Stay 2 metres (6ft) away from other people
Wash your hands as soon as you get home
What does this latest measure mean for your business?
It will be different for all companies, depending on how your business is run. Whatever it looks like, it is best to communicate with all your team as soon as possible to discuss what this looks like for you.
Many companies have unfortunately needed to close their doors to the public for the time being, having a significant impact on their bottom line. See guidance What if you need to take action to cut costs now? further down.
For some companies, employees working remotely is entirely achievable and effective at retaining business continuity - but it is a totally new way of working. Obviously, given current circumstances, it can be tricky to adjust to a new way of working in such a short period of time. Not having your team on-site means that ultimately you will have to trust them to get their job done. If you do have any concerns about performance, you can still raise these and it should still be monitored. However, any serious conversations or action may need to be put on hold.
Encourage your team to adapt some form of routine day to day, this is so vitally important when working remotely. Establishing what your day will look like and what goals everyone has for the week will ensure work is being completed. Working flexibly is all about trust and, by setting clear boundaries and expectations for your team, the transition to working from home will be a lot easier.
Set up regular team video chats (using google hangouts, Zoom, etc.) and ask everyone to switch on their cameras. They might grumble about this of course, but it’s so important during this time to keep your teams connecting.
What about Equipment?
You are required to provide adequate equipment for your team to carry out their job, such as laptops and monitors. Hopefully your team already have sufficient IT equipment to hand. If not, it might be best for your team to purchase their own equipment and expense this to the company. Alternatively you could nominate someone centrally who can arrange delivery to your employee, it’s a business call.
Some of your team may require more flexibility for start and finish times due to caring for dependents, and you should discuss with them any reasonable adjustments that can be made. An example of making reasonable adjustments would be changing the start and finish times for team members with children who now find themselves home-schooling for the foreseeable future.
What about your health and safety obligations?
As an employer, you have a duty of care to make sure your team members are looked after, even when they working from home.
A lot of work carried out at home usually is low-risk, and you are only responsible for the equipment you supply. You’ll need to ensure the equipment you provide is in good condition and safe to use.
It’s also your responsibility to encourage your team members to take regular breaks when working from home and make sure you make the necessary reasonable adjustments. For example, if a team member doesn’t have a monitor and they need one, you would need to provide one for them.
How much do you need to pay your employees if they are sick?
You may have a team member with coronavirus symptoms, or they are caring for someone else in their household who has symptoms, and is therefore unable to work. Providing they follow your usual sickness reporting process, they will be eligible to receive Statutory Sick Pay (SSP). This is now paid from the first day of sickness. The Government announced new measures recently, businesses with less than 250 employees will be refunded the cost of providing up to 14 days of SSP per employee.
You can provide more pay during employee sickness, it’s known as company, contractual or occupational sick pay. An employer cannot pay less than the SSP rate where the employee is eligible for it. If there is nothing in writing, SSP is the minimum amount employers must pay.
What if you need to take action to cut costs now?
If your business is going through financial difficulty and you need to cut costs as soon as possible, you have a few options you can explore:
Asking team members to take unpaid leave (they need to consent to it). You can insist employees take paid holiday as long as you give twice the amount of the holiday as notice (e.g 5 days holiday needs 10 days notice) although this may not help with your immediate cashflow needs
You can implement measures as long as you have your employees consent. Communicate with your team and ask if they would be willing to adjust their hours (and salary) temporarily to keep the business surviving
If you have a provision in your contract for short term working or lay off you have options to enforce this temporary measure, but before you do anything on this, check out the next point below and check out your contracts before taking any steps.
The Government are keen for businesses to retain their teams during this pandemic. They announced a new job retention scheme on Friday 20th March. We still await a lot of detail but it looks as though all employers are eligible to register for the scheme and will be able to reclaim 80% of salary costs (up to a cap of £2.5k per person per month) for any employee ‘furloughed’ (i.e. would otherwise have been laid off or made redundant). You may choose to top the pay up to 100% but it isn’t mandatory. HMRC are working on a portal before the end of April for employers to claim for furloughed workers.
You may find you have no choice but to consider redundancies, ensure you adhere to consultation requirements and do not make any decisions on the employment of your team members without discussing it with them first.
The government has also announced that it will be offering additional loans to support small businesses during this time. For further information have a look at the government plans.
If you’re thinking of implementing any of the above, please speak to us and we’ll be more than happy to advise you on next steps. Wendy@hrconnected.co.uk
This article was written and released on 24/3, please be aware of any subsequent government updates
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