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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.

  • in reply to Helen
    My two questions are the same as Helen's - if CIPD are able to advise, that would be appreciated.
  • 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

  • in reply to Steve Bridger
    I think if you make it open again then the CIPD has to put resources and people behind it to answer some of the issues and to provide guidance and support rather than relying on a few members many of whom are snowed under already.
  • Like a number of others on this thread, simple and clear CIPD guidance around managing the furlough process would be urgently appreciated ie. how do we go about this? how does it differ to lay off and short-time working? presumably all benefits and holiday accrual continue? Template documents would also be useful to prevent us all from 'reinventing the wheel' when we're currently up against it time-wise. Thank you
  • in reply to Steve Bridger
    Could a digest of Q&As from here be included in the Coronavirus section in the main site? I appreciate that there would be issues of house style, and it would have to be very clearly labelled that the suggestions came from members responding to other members who cannot speak on behalf of the CIPD.
  • I agree there is very little advice out there on this and CIPD Factsheet would be welcomed as this time.
  • Some members have been posting links to external sources of information, eg the Gov sites where updates around SSP have been published. Is it possible to gather these links into one place? I have seen some that were useful, clicked through and then exited the site without saving the link. Yes, I know that I could save the link but at the moment there are so many sources and so many different sites it would be really useful to have one place to go to get the links rather than having to remember which discussion the link appeared in. I would find that useful.
  • in reply to Carly

    As this seems to be a time for clarity; let's get some of the "political fluff" out of the way.

    According to the OED the word "Furlough" means: "Leave of absence, especially that granted to a member of the services or a missionary." It's origin is the German "Verlaub" = permission e.g "mit verlaub" = with permission.

    So its use is a euphemism for "authorised absence"; "layoff"; "short time working" "voluntary redundancy" or any of the other terms coined during the 1970's, meaning "Sending people home with (or without) pay".

    .....It is, in short, what each business can, or chooses to, make it using a collective term to make it sound more Politically acceptable and (possibly) dynamic, not a new initiative, not a unique state created by the subsidy of some (but we do not yet know what) absences in some (again we do not yet know which) sectors of business.

    Regardless of the vacuity of the term, the reality is that there are going to be subsidies: That is a positive which will, hopefully, permit some of us to advise planning for the worst, while the details of the subsidies emerge, but without acting hastily to put those measures into action until our own business's and peoples' eligibility for support becomes apparent.

    Holding, perhaps, not so much our collective nerve, but at least our precipitate actions before clarity emerges.... Or no alternative remains.

    Don't scatter good people to the wind if you don't have to; we will need them, and their loyalties and trust, to rebuild when this is over. Use information as a lubricant to understanding why we must, if we must, let them go; be that temporarily or permanently, or to a limited income for an indeterminate time; by whatever name.

    P

  • in reply to Steve Bridger
    Hi Steve
    I feel it still needs to be members only, I do feel that the CIPD needs to step forward and be seen publicly as well. I noted when the Chancellor thanked the organisations to whom he had consulted, CIPD was not one of them. Many HR professionals have never lay'd off or Furloughed as it is now being known and it would be great if CIPD employee's could come forward and share what to be aware of. I think COVID 19 as a thread then sub threads may work well. However, as ever with HR one areas hits another area and they get intertwined.

    The fact that you have opened this up to discussion reflects that, (now here we go, using terms a few weeks ago none of us used on a daily basis, unprecedented, unchartered) this issue has opened up a myriad of issues that can only be addressed when they arise. We are all doing what we can to prepare for scenario's so that we can support our organisations people.