Coronavirus: what contingency plans are you putting in place?

It was hard to try to provide a quick measure for the board on what the additional sick pay could cost. We ended up calculating the cost of everyone taking a 3-week top-up but stressed that most people do have some sick pay, many people can work from home and won't need to be paid for self-isolating and most people won't need the full 3 weeks. I also said that to work out the value of the top-up each person would need would be a fiddly and time consuming calculation at a time when we need to move fast, and we still would have to take a guess at how many people would actually need it. Thankfully, the board accepted that argument and felt able to sign this off on the information provided.

I am aware of one organisation that is attempting to reduce or slow up the risks of virus spreading by half by introducing a temporary shift system as follows - 5 days in the office, followed by 5 days working remotely

This thread is proving a goldmine of information!

We are looking into the practicalities of homeworking for our workforce, but as this isn't something that is usual for us (we're a School) i'm struggling to work out how we should ensure the staff's homes are safe and suitable from a H&S perspective. I understand it's treated as an extension of the workplace but i'm not sure how to go about ensuring a workforce of 170 odd people have a safe place to work! Does anyone have any suggestions of how they plan to do this? It's manageable when it's the odd person self isolating due to being in contact with an infected person (but not themselves ill which would be covered under sick leave) but i'm not sure what we'd do if the School had to close quickly.

Am i overthinking this?

Thanks for any help you can provide!

We support people with disabilities in their own homes, we have plans in place and are looking at how we can share support, when and if we need staff to self isolate.

We are looking to see if we can use a building that has been used for respite in the past if people supported need to self isolate.

Sickness strategies are in place and a clear plan of action, but we are waiting for the updated Social Care action plan.

Good times

Sharon

Given that the school does not own, rent or manage the 170 premises from where your employees could be working remotely, I would have thought that your responsibilities could be limited to facilitating some kind of self certification process. You provide a guideline on the essential features of a safe place of work and employees self certify that they have gone through your checklist and can confirm that their place of work complies with the minimum standard required.
Alternatively, you could ask employees to sign a document saying that they accept that working from home is at their risk as the company is not responsible for controlling the "remote" premises. You raise a good question and I think that my first port of call would be to speak with the broker or underwriter of your Employers Liability Insurance - such a conversation might provide the direction needed to balance the insurance risk with your duty of care.

Hi All,
We are an Agricultural business with a significant number of our employee's who are HGV Drivers, who obviously would not be able to work from home.
Is anyone else in this situation and considering their varying options?
There's of course an immense financial implication if we don't have the haulage side of our business up and running.
Thanks,
Jade

Hi Jade
No advise I'm afraid but have exactly the same question...I work in the leisure industry which is starting to see bookings cancelled etc. We may have to temporarily close venues and if this happens our instructors can't work from home. Where do we stand on not being able to offer them shifts? Can we insist they take unpaid leave (this would be a very last resort)!

Hi Jade, when we talk about working from home its just about minimising unnecessary contact with people. Apologies if I have this wrong (I'm not in the haulage industry!) but I would have thought that an HGV driver has reasonable opportunity to minimise contact whilst continuing to work, and has an opportunity to control the hygiene factors in their main working environment (their cab). I suspect that handshakes are going to be put on hold, and keeping personal distance during deliveries would be acceptable in these circumstances. I'm interested to hear how/if this might work for your team.

Hi All
Does anyone have advice on the scenario whereby a school closes and an employee, as a parent, can't physically be in work because they need to care for their children. Are companies going down the paid or unpaid dependant leave route? Interested in people's views. Thanks

we have put lots of guidance in place, as part of the Business Continuity we have established a small team to deal specifically with the Corvid-19 questions, but I have been stumped with answering some of our employee questions. we have office and site workers and those who work outside often work away from home we provide the transport and accommodation, I cant find any guidance from government, NHS or Public Health England of what to do in the event one of our employees contracts or presents symptoms whilst away, do they have to self isolate in the B&B/Hotel/SC accommodation (guidance does exist for shared accommodation but it doesn't really cover these situations as the individuals don't live there), should we try and get them home, we are aware there is a risk in this action. Should they stay put (for the purpose of contract tracing and containment or can they move back to a more familiar area. Are hotels etc prepared to accommodate the person possibly for 14 days? ..any helpful advice gratefully appreciated