News

There have been quite a few tweaks and changes to the CJRS/ Furlough scheme as it is currently running (up until the end of the July 2020 extension) Here are just a couple of the more important clarifications relating to Directors’ duties and the taking of annual leave during a period of furlough.

The government has now launched its Test and Trace initiative in England as part of the next phase of attempting to reduce the number of Covid-19 cases. So, what does this new arrangement mean for both employees and employers?

We have all seen huge change to the way businesses are organised and their working practices since the Covid-19 lockdown was imposed in March 2020. There was initially a phase of disbelief at the severity of restrictions and the fact that some sectors of business were ordered to shut down completely. But as the weeks have grown into months, businesses have adapted to provide new ways of delivering their services or products to clients – or they have spent the time planning their reopening. So how will this affect the culture of businesses when we emerge from the pandemic?

Many businesses will have either furloughed staff or asked them to work from home since the lockdown was imposed. Some will have had no option but to make employees redundant. But now that the Government has announced that it is time to get back to work some employers are finding it more difficult to do than they envisaged.

Here are some answers to frequent questions asked by employers who want to ensure they are following Government guidelines diligently and want to ensure that their staff feel safe returning to work.

The Covid-19 pandemic has dramatically affected many businesses. This has varied from complete shutdown for those categorised as non-essential; the provision of reduced services for others; to being overwhelmed by demand in the health and care sectors as well as the food supply chain (and HR to make all this happen!)

The change in circumstances when the lockdown was announced by the UK Government in March was so sudden that employers had little time to react initially and emergency measures had to be put in place. This has been stressful for both employers and employees.

Now that things have settled slightly, employers are reviewing their workforces to see what needs to be done to regain control. Many business owners have realised that even with the furlough scheme and range of financial support being offered, they simply do not have enough work to support all their workforce and so the inevitable redundancies are starting to occur. But some sectors need lots more staff to get through the crisis.