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COVID-19: Let us know what you think of the Government's unprecedented support for workers...

Steve Bridger

Good evening Everyone.

In response to the Chancellor’s unprecedented package of financial measures to support workers, Peter Cheese has made the following statement:

CIPD welcomes unprecedented support for workers and urges employers to hold their nerve while funds arrive

As Peter says...

“The challenge now is the speed with which employers can access these funds to avoid redundancies being made, given it could be the end of April before they become available.

“Employers need to hold their nerve in this challenging time and make every effort where they can to retain their staff while waiting for the job retention funding to come through. Concerns over immediate cashflow and payroll challenges should be met by the business loans announced by government, which should be available in a matter of days."


I've lost count of the number of times I've uttered the word "unprecedented" in recent days. My head is spinning.

Please do let us know what you think of the latest Government announcement... and share your thoughts and concerns below.

Finally, I just wanted to say that all of us at CIPD would like you to know we stand with you at this time.

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  • The multitude of schemes , loans and grants this week are sadly essential. They are largely imaginative and in time will go a long way to mitigate in the short term some of the worst impact of the financial part of this crisis - but only in the short term. Sadly as a result of a health crisis we are heading for a 5-10 year economic downturn that at its worst will cost many many jobs and impact far more lives and hopes.

    Personally I don’t think imploring businesses to “hold their nerve” sets the right tone for me. I know many SME and even bigger business Directors who are frantically worrying how to meet payroll this coming week. It’s relatively easy to implore people from a safe secure position ( as I say it’s a tone thing) to hold their nerve harder to be on the front line with them.

    What positive action is CIPD taking to help members in crisis?
  • in reply to Keith
    Keith said:
    What positive action is CIPD taking to help members in crisis?

    Hi Keith,

    As you know, this is a very fast-moving situation.

    We've been building up a resource of support and guidance over the past week or two as this crisis has escalated. That includes the Employment Law helpline. Lots more to come... but I think we'd honestly be guided by members, too. Where are the gaps? How can we help?  

    https://www.cipd.co.uk/news-views/coronavirus

  • in reply to Steve Bridger
    Steve - yes fast moving indeed.

    But for example I haven't seen any of the CIPD experts using these forums to help or advise members in the last two weeks . Or I haven't seen a live LinkedIn or Web Q&A from the CIPD Experts. Or a webinar on crisis management for members. Its all rather reactive

    I think the CIPD experts should be leading - we are all at limit coping and shouldn't be directing CIPD activity as well.

    As an additional though (and far down the list) has thought been given to suspending, delaying or reducing membership fees this year?

    So rather than homilies around holding our nerve I would prefer to see the CIPD on the front foot supporting members many of whom are at their wits end.
  • in reply to Keith
    CIPD and all its members surely constitute a potentially-valuable and strategically helpful resource that IMHO could and should be almost-unreservedly be offered to the Government at this time of national emergency.

    Like former NHS workers coming out of retirement, I for one would be more than willing to help out in any(safe, because I'm very much in vulnerable population group) way possible. It must be total mayhem for working colleagues and I can't help feeling this disparity most acutely.
  • in reply to Steve Bridger
    This is one very simple thing I would appreciate. We now have multiple Coronavirus threads and one monster thread that covers many topics. Could someone at the CIPD please sort it all out into subject areas so we can go straight to a page with everything on supporting WFH or everything on SSP etc. The same questions are coming up repeatedly and often the answers are already out there but you have to scroll through 7 pages to find them.
  • in reply to David
    An enlightened suggestion David.

    I currently still mentor a small number of colleagues in varying sized businesses and all of them are having to deal with the multiple "train smash" of trying to function day-to-day while the rules are re-written by the circumstances and longer-term effects and potentials create new and previously uncharted scenarios. Even if just as a "think tank" for detached review, similar to the existing function of this Community but in a wider scale, there could well be wider and more generalised employment-related considerations that our membership could support, many of which would be susceptible to "WFH" in necessary isolation.
  • in reply to Elizabeth Divver
    That'll be me.

    We were also wondering whether we should make this group open to all? One of the issues there is that I moved threads into this group, which were started in existing member-only groups.

    I could create forums within this group under different topics. Mindful that 'everything' could end up duplicating the forums outside this Coronavirus group.

    Genuinely open to ideas.
  • in reply to Steve Bridger

    My reservation on that is that "open to all" will, almost inevitably, swamp the page with secondary and effectively unrelated issues, in a similar way to the way submissions on the "in confidence" site include a number that do not need to be "in confidence" other than to save face (or pangs of conscience) for those submitting them. For example the issue of whether a disciplinary hearing can be held by video-link, other then with the unconstrained agreement agreement of its subject (accused employee) is not an issue directly or specifically relevant to C'vid 19, but to any circumstance where that would be a seemingly "convenient" option (to any of those involved). Such issues, if numerous and piled into a single page, would need either massive filtration, sorting and cross indexing, or would soon become an useless homogeneous mass where specific concerns would be lost in the "noise" of thread-titles not (apparently) related to them.

    Might it not be better to retain the "members only" status of the page relating to those matters strictly related to how things like H&S measures, Govt' directions, social circumstances (e.g. how an NHS worker doing a 7am-3pm shift might be permitted to access the Supermarkets' new "NHS shopping hour" from 7-8 am) are dealt with, leaving the member to then distribute or utilise the information in their workplace/circumstance, leaving other matters, not directly focused on dealing with the crisis, to sit where they normally would (in public or restricted area) with links from the C'vid site to them under a simple list of page or subject headings?

    Just an initial thought.

    P

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  • in reply to Steve Bridger

    My reservation on that is that "open to all" will, almost inevitably, swamp the page with secondary and effectively unrelated issues, in a similar way to the way submissions on the "in confidence" site include a number that do not need to be "in confidence" other than to save face (or pangs of conscience) for those submitting them. For example the issue of whether a disciplinary hearing can be held by video-link, other then with the unconstrained agreement agreement of its subject (accused employee) is not an issue directly or specifically relevant to C'vid 19, but to any circumstance where that would be a seemingly "convenient" option (to any of those involved). Such issues, if numerous and piled into a single page, would need either massive filtration, sorting and cross indexing, or would soon become an useless homogeneous mass where specific concerns would be lost in the "noise" of thread-titles not (apparently) related to them.

    Might it not be better to retain the "members only" status of the page relating to those matters strictly related to how things like H&S measures, Govt' directions, social circumstances (e.g. how an NHS worker doing a 7am-3pm shift might be permitted to access the Supermarkets' new "NHS shopping hour" from 7-8 am) are dealt with, leaving the member to then distribute or utilise the information in their workplace/circumstance, leaving other matters, not directly focused on dealing with the crisis, to sit where they normally would (in public or restricted area) with links from the C'vid site to them under a simple list of page or subject headings?

    Just an initial thought.

    P

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