Coronavirus: Your workplace questions

Hi Kelly, I've read that you can furlough someone in their notice period so long as they reach the 3 week criteria for claiming furlough.

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Hi Claire, there is the converse to this, in that employees are no longer paying to commute to the office, so I wouldn't say it is necessarily unfair not to pay this amount to cover the other costs. I can see both sides...

It seems very arbitrary and unfair but I can see why some anti-fraud criteria are needed. Imagine if the 'on payroll 28 Feb' rule wasn't there and you were an unprincipled small employer - you could put all your family and friends on payroll the day after the scheme was announced, immediately furlough them and pay them 80% if whatever your notional salary was, in effect acting as a pipeline for money to travel from the treasury to people whom you had no intention of employing in normal times.

When the grants end, the unprincipled employer would terminate them with < 2 years service and no redundancy cost. You might say 'that would never happen' but there would be some. This is emergency payment, employers need it yesterday to stay solvent, so no chance to investigate or audit claims - the only choice is an arbitrary rule.

Unfortunately that rule will disadvantage anyone genuinely moving jobs or starting work after 28 February - more people than you might think. A very rough estimate, employee population say 20 million (working pop is 30 million plus but that will include self employed, 'workers' and the like), labour turnover 6% so 0.5% change jobs every month, so c.100,000 people may have taken up new job offers in March and their employer won't get paid to furlough them. A fairer rule would be 'in work or holding a job offer on 28 February' but backdated job offers are far to easy to create.

I'm afraid I can't offer any useful suggestions much as I would like to. I have no relevant state benefits expertise, sounds like Universal Credit might be the only route for them. Hopefully someone else on this forum can chip in.

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It might be useful to look at HMRC simplified expenses scheme for self employed as a guide. If you work from home self employed, you can claim a portion of home running expenses using complicated rules, or the simplified scheme which allows you to claim £26 per month as an expense if you are working >101 hours a month. (for 51 to 101 its £18, under 50 its £10).

Now, I know your employees are not self employed by definition but it might be useful to have an arbitrary amount "we will pay you what HMRC would let you claim if you were self employed". That gets you out of difficult sums and arguments like "ah my boiler is very old so my gas bill is higher .... I live in my own so wouldn't normally heat the house ... the ch pump broke so I need £150 to get it fixed ....I need to put LED bulbs in everywhere .... my parrot needs extra food because it can't sleep while I'm working"

It's no different from using AMAP rates for mileage - simple, externally referenced, reasonable.

I have a question please regarding the recent changes to furlough rules. We are a specialty chemical producer of key ingredients in cleaning compounds — such as anti-bacterial soaps and hand sanitizers so we are lucky to be really busy at present. I have just had someone who's doctor has informed us that he should be shielded as he has severe asthma. Can I furlough him as I know you can with shielded employees however it says if he would've otherwise have been made redundant. I have been confused by this last part?
Can someone help please? Thanks

Hi, Can anyone help with this query? We have all staff working from home and have asked people to still take annual leave if it has been booked during this period. We have one member of staff who is 'at risk' and has been advised by GP to self isolate for 12 weeks. He had a 2 week holiday booked abroad which is being moved by the holiday company in any event so understandably he wants to cancel his two weeks holiday. We are trying to be fair to everybody and the business (as fair as you can be during this time) so don't want to make exceptions but my question is, as his GP has said he cannot go out for 12 weeks would this make him an exception and should we allow cancellation of holidays as if it was sick leave, even though he is still well and working? Thanks anyone

Caroline Tomlinson common sense to me says this is an exception

from acas www.acas.org.uk/.../using-holiday
Using holiday for a temporary workplace closure
Employers have the right to tell employees and workers when to take holiday if they need to.
Requiring staff to take or cancel holiday
Employers have the right to tell employees and workers when to take holiday.

An employer could, for example, shut for a week and tell everyone to use their holiday entitlement.

If the employer decides to do this, they must tell staff at least twice as many days before as the amount of days they need people to take.

For example, if they want to close for 5 days, they should tell everyone at least 10 days before.

Employers can also cancel pre-booked paid holiday. If they decide to do this, they must give staff at least the same number of days’ notice as the original holiday request.

For example, if an employee has booked 5 days holiday, the employer must tell them at least 5 days before the holiday starts that it’s cancelled.

This could affect holiday staff have already booked or planned. So employers should:

explain clearly why they need to do this
try and resolve anyone's worries about how it will affect their holiday entitlement or plans