| HR & EMPLOYMENT LAW
Jackie Le Poidevin, Editor-in-Chief, HR Adviser |
How to Support Team Members Returning from Furlough
The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) closed on 30 September. Any employees who were on furlough right until the end of the scheme and who you have not made redundant are likely to be resuming work. If they have been fully furloughed for a long time – and especially if this was because they or a family member are extremely vulnerable – they may be nervous about returning to the workplace. They may be worried about safety, about whether they can still do the job and about readjusting to working life. These are some steps you can take to help ensure the transition back to work is as smooth as possible.
Step 1: Communicate Clearly with Returners
It’s likely that lots will have changed, so you should make returning employees aware of:
- The Covid precautions they need to comply with, any physical changes such as a new one-way system and any testing regime or expectations around vaccination.
- Any changes to your working practices, policies or procedures, or to personnel or clients.
It would also be sensible to remind them about your normal procedures, such as what to do in the event of a fire.
You may have already issued employees with written information in the lead up to their return or held a voice or video call with them. However, it may also be helpful to hold a meeting or reinduction on the first day back to reinforce key points and deal with questions.
Step 2: Respond to Any Concerns
Returning employees may be anxious about issues such as the journey to and from work or colleagues not being vaccinated. Give them an opportunity to raise any concerns and offer reassurance and clarification. If someone is extremely clinically vulnerable, it’s likely they qualify as disabled under the Equality Act 2010, so you may need to make reasonable adjustments.
Step 3: Consider a Phased Return
When an employee has been on long-term sick leave or maternity leave, it’s common to reintroduce them gradually to the workplace. You may wish to consider a similar approach for your furloughed staff, especially if they’re anxious about returning or their skills are likely to be rusty. This doesn’t have to be a drawn-out process but you might suggest they return part-time for a couple of days until they find their feet. Or you might set some time aside for retraining and socialising (see next points) rather than throwing them straight back in at the deep end.
Step 4: Rebuild Relationships
The CIPD has produced a useful guide: Supporting Returning Furloughed Workers, in which it suggests there may well be conflict between staff who have worked throughout the pandemic and those who are returning from furlough. There may be a perception that furloughed staff have had a long ‘holiday’ while those who have been working have kept the business afloat. Returning staff may also experience social anxiety at the prospect of interacting with colleagues and customers again.
Taking time to make employees who have been furloughed welcome, letting them spend some time chatting to colleagues informally and arranging safe social events will help to rebuild relationships and confidence and bridge workplace divides. Assigning a ‘buddy’ is another way to help employees reintegrate.
Step 5: Respond the Employees’ Mental Health Needs
Returning employees may not only be anxious about resuming work but their mental health may also have suffered during furlough. They may have felt bored, lonely, concerned about the future and worried about their finances. Make clear to line managers that furlough has not been a ‘holiday’ and make sure they know where to refer staff who are struggling. Highlight any employee assistance programme or mental health first aiders and, if necessary, research local counsellors, charities and support groups who can help with issues such as anxiety, debt and alcohol addiction.
Step 6: Retrain
Employees were permitted to take part in training during furlough. However, you may need to carry out practical retraining in the workplace, especially if working methods or equipment have changed.
| HEALTH & SAFETY
Carolyn Dukes, Editorial Board Member, Risk Assessment & Compliance |
New Guidance: Employer Responsibilities for Home Workstations
As life starts to get back to normal, many businesses are taking the opportunity to offer their workers flexible working arrangements as they return to offices. We have learnt of arrangements which are voluntary, non-contractual and involve regular homeworking days, typically around 2 days a week. We examine what this means for employers in terms of their legal responsibilities for home workstations under the Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992 (DSE Regulations), and the key actions required to comply with the law and ensure the health of your employees is protected.
Employers have the same health and safety responsibilities for employees working from home as for any other employees, including the duty not to charge for things done or provided pursuant to their specific requirements. If you have staff working at home, you must still manage the risks to their health from display screen equipment (DSE).
The Difference Between Temporary and Permanent Homeworking Arrangements
During the pandemic and in response to the need to adjust rapidly to homeworking, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) published guidance on DSE requirements and stated there is no increased risk from DSE work for those working at home temporarily. This was a pragmatic approach to enable businesses to continue operating through very challenging times.
The HSE has issued the following updated guidance on long-term homeworking: ‘Where employers decide to make working from home arrangements permanent, they should explain how to carry out full workstation assessments and provide workers with appropriate equipment and advice on control measures’.
Our advice is that, if a worker starts to regularly work from home for 1 or more days per week using DSE equipment, then this should be treated as a ‘permanent’ homeworking arrangement for health and safety purposes, whether it is formalised contractually or not. This is because the purpose of the DSE Regulations is to protect and assess the health of workers based on the actual work they are doing and reduce the risk of harm.
5 Key Actions to Apply the DSE Regulations to a Homeworking Workstation
- Meet the minimum requirements for workstation equipment including an adjustable readable screen, an adjustable detachable keyboard, a work surface with sufficient space for flexible arrangement of equipment, a stable and adjustable chair and a footrest if the user needs or wants one.
- Train DSE users in the health and safety risks of DSE use and how to complete a full workstation assessment of their home workstation.
- Ensure that a full DSE workstation assessment is completed and reported to you as the employer. Any problems identified must be actioned and resolved by the employer where this is ‘reasonably practicable’ in the homeworking environment in order to reduce the risks identified in the assessment.
- If a worker has previously had specialist DSE equipment provided for office work, the requirement for this must also be reviewed in the homeworking DSE assessment. If it is not practicable to provide the same specialist equipment, for example, due to cost or space, then other measures to mitigate the risk of harm should be introduced.
- Keep the homeworking DSE arrangement under review and ask workers to report any problems to you, particularly if they are having difficulty in achieving a comfortable working posture. If there are problems, consider a review by a trained DSE Assessor. This can be done remotely (e.g. by Zoom/Skype/Teams), and bear in mind that the employer has no right to insist on a visit to the employee’s home to check their DSE set-up.
| PAYROLL
Sarah Bradford, Editor-in-Chief, Pay & Benefits Adviser |
End of Covid-19 Support Schemes: What You Need to Do Next
Two schemes which provided financial support to employers during the Covid-19 pandemic come to an end on 30 September 2021 – the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) and the Coronavirus Statutory Sick Pay Rebate Scheme. However, there is still time for employers to make their final claims under each scheme.
Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
The final month for which a claim can be made under the CJRS is September 2021. Employees who were furloughed or flexibly furloughed in September 2021 will, as for previous months, receive a grant of 80% of their usual pay for their unworked hours (subject to the monthly cap of £2,500, proportionately reduced where the employee was not furloughed for the full month).
As for August 2021, the employer can claim a grant of 60% of the employee’s usual pay for their unworked hours. This is subject to a cap of £1,875 for the month (or equivalent).
The employer must make up the difference between the amount claimed under the scheme and the amount paid to the employee. For September 2021, the maximum the employer will need to pay is £625 per employee. Payments made to employees are subject to PAYE tax, National Insurance and pension contributions in the usual way.
Employers who wish to make a claim for September 2021 but have yet to do so, have until 14 October 2021 in which to make their claim. Claims after that date will only be permitted where HMRC accept that the employer had a reasonable excuse for missing the deadline. If the employer made a mistake when making the claim, and understated their claim, they have until 28 October 2021 in which to amend it. In the event that the employer claimed too much for September 2021, they will need to contact HMRC to arrange to pay back the excess.
Where employees are still furloughed or flexibly furloughed at the end of September, the employer will need to decide whether:
- To bring them back to work on their agreed terms and conditions
- Terminate their employment, or
- Agree any changes to their terms and conditions.
If an employee’s employment is terminated, normal redundancy rules apply.
Coronavirus Statutory Sick Pay Rebate Scheme
This allowed a qualifying employer to claim back up to 2 weeks’ SSP per employee for coronavirus absences. This included absences where the employee had tested positive for SSP and absences where the employee was required to self-isolate because they had been in contact with someone who had tested positive, they had been asked to self-isolate by Track and Trace or they were required to self-isolate prior to surgery. However, periods of self-isolation after coming into the UK from abroad do not count as a coronavirus absence.
A qualifying employer is one who had fewer than 250 employees on 28 February 2020 across all their PAYE schemes.
An employer can make a claim for qualifying periods of absence between 13 March 2020 and 30 September 2021.
Claims must be made on or before 31 December 2021 or, if earlier, one year from the last day of the qualifying period of incapacity for work to which the claim relates.
For coronavirus absences from 1 October 2021, all employers will be required to meet the cost of any SSP paid.