You are contacting
Tania Goodman
Partner - Head of Employment
Employment law for employees & Employment law for employers
With the news that several firms in London are taking precautionary measures against the new COVID-19 by asking staff to work from home, employers should be thinking proactively about best practice in the event of a pandemic and the steps they may need to take now to protect the safety of their staff.
With the news that several firms in London are taking precautionary measures against the new COVID-19 by asking staff to work from home, employers should be thinking proactively about best practice in the event of a pandemic and the steps they may need to take now to protect the safety of their staff.
Duty of health and safety
Although it is important to prevent unauthorised absences, your primary duty in the event of a pandemic is to protect the health and safety of your employees. This means ensuring good hygiene, good communication and that your working practices don’t pose undue risks to your staff.
A good sickness absence policy will allow you to manage any employees showing symptoms of infectious illness. Usual sick leave and pay provisions will apply. The same is true for any workers who have been placed in quarantine or have not been allowed back to the UK.
Right to enforce home-working
Perhaps you have an employee who was recently on holiday in Northern Italy but isn’t showing signs of the illness. Can you nonetheless insist that they stay out of the office?
Some employers may have an express, contractual right to require an employee to stay at home. However, even where this does not exist, it’s unlikely to be a breach of duty to insist an employee stays at home – providing of course that there are legitimate, non-discriminatory grounds for concern.
Nonetheless, you should deal with it sensitively and discretely. Regardless of whether flexible working is possible, if an employee is well but is required to stay away from the office, they should be receiving their usual pay.
Right to enforce office-working
Perhaps your employees are afraid of catching coronavirus, and don’t want to come in. Can you insist that they do?
Primarily, you should listen to the concerns of your staff. There may be easy ways around this issue, for example by allowing them to work from home, or commute outside of rush hour to avoid peak times.
You could also consider arranging for staff to take unpaid leave or holiday.
If your employees unreasonably refuse to attend work, despite negligible risk, and it is not possible to give them leave, consider taking disciplinary action.
Right to close the office
Current ACAS guidance states that if someone with coronavirus comes to work, you do not necessarily have to close the office. Local Public Health will contact you to perform a risk assessment.
However, if you do choose to close the office temporarily for safety reasons, make sure plans are in place so that you can communicate effectively with staff. Unless provided for in employment contracts, you will still need to pay workers during the time the office is closed.
Keep clean
Keep informed
Keep in touch
27 February 2020
You are contacting
Partner - Head of Employment