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Employees want to travel to Coronavirus affected area on holiday - can I ask them not to?

Lola

Hello

A manager has mentioned that two of their team members have a booked holiday to one of the badly hit areas of coronavirus. We are leisure facility that cater for all ages and abilities. The two employees jobs are such that they can not work remotely. 

some members of staff are aware of the employees holiday and are already apprehensive that they may come back with the virus. Any advice on how to handle this will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks. 

  • in reply to Teresa

    Yes, we're looking at the specific risk areas (Category 1) where there is clear advice against all but essential travel to by the FCO. We're not going to penalise someone for going to somewhere where there is no advice against travel. Most of our employees have taken the approach well and understand the reasoning behind it.

    I agree, that everywhere is potentially risky at the moment, but this is just our initial action which was decided on last week and we're keeping it under review along with other contingency plans. As the situation changes then we will adapt our approach to things. At the moment, it's only the Category 1 areas we're clearly being told to avoid if that list suddenly grows overnight then we will probably have a rethink.

    At the moment we're asking staff to speak to us before travel so that we can monitor the situation in general so that if things develop whilst they are on holiday we can plan for the fact that there may be a risk they will be off for an extended period of time. And again staff understand the reasoning for this.

    For example if an employee goes away and there's suddenly an outbreak where they are, we can be aware that they may need to self isolate or may end up stuck there for longer than planned such as the cases of those stuck on cruise ships or the hotel in Tenerife recently. We're aware that we're not going to be the first people they think of calling if they end up stuck somewhere - this way we can be aware of it and plan before they are able to get in touch with us.

    We have one employee in Thailand at the moment, which currently does not have any advice against travel however we're contacting the employee to ask him to remain home for 14 days as a precautionary measure and he will receive full pay for this. Staff know he is there and are concerned even though there is no advice against travel - so we're seeking to reassure them and also minimize any risk that he may have unknowingly come into contact with the virus.

    We're not going to be telling anyone where they should go, but we will advise if the area has FCO advice to avoid travel to it and encourage them to speak to their travel provider.