'Living with COVID-19' strategy: advice for employers

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afternoon everybody i'm going to kick us off um i hope you are all safe and well today
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my name is katie jacobs from cipd and i'm the host for our latest coronavirus
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webinar over the next kind of 45 minutes to an hour we are going to attempt to shed
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some clarity and offer advice to employers on where your responsibility lies now that the english government has
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removed all kovid restrictions as part of its recently announced living with covid strategy
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joining me to discuss this topic and to offer thoughts and advice i'm joined by david de souza membership director of
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the cipd andrew willis who's head of legal advisory at hr inform which is the cipd's employment law resource and
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harvey francis chief people officer at skanska uk thanks everybody for joining
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and before we dive into the topic i just have to go through a few housekeeping notes
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um to let you know the session is being recorded it will be available on demand um it should be available from this
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afternoon or so and you'll also be able to download the slides um you'll be able to find it on the webinar section of the
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cipd website you'll also be able to access all of our previous webinars there as well as find out about any ones
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that are coming up if you want to submit questions to the panel and i'm sure that you do have a
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lot of questions can i ask you to use the q a box please type any questions
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into the q a box do not use the chat box for questions because we won't be monitoring the chat box very closely
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we've also muted all of you because we've got a lot of people on the call today so any questions need to be asked
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via typing into the q a box however if you want to share anything or chat to any fellow attendees then feel
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free to use the chat box for that just remember to set it to everybody so you can share with everyone rather than just
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me or i'm the host of the session do remember that we are updating our faqs and resources all the time and that
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you can find them on the cipd coronavirus hub cipd members can also get individual legal advice via our hr inform helpline
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which is available to you 24 7. we won't be able to get into any highly specific situations here so do remember that you
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can use that helpline if you need any additional advice i also want to flag our wellbeing hub
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and helpline which is available to cipd members in the uk and ireland you can use this to access free help and support
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via telephone or online consultations with qualified therapists that's provided by a health assured
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um i also really just wanted to quickly give some space um to the situation in ukraine i wanted
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to say that our thoughts are with the people of the ukraine at this time we know the news can be overwhelming and
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that many of you will be concerned about family and friends and colleagues affected by the crisis and the helpline
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i mentioned is available should you need somebody to talk to and we will continue to monitor the situation and seek ways to support and
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unite people professionals around the world not just in this current crisis but whenever there's violence or heightened tensions globally
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thank you so moving on to today's session in england the government has lifted all
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coven 19 restrictions including testing and self-isolation requirements as part of its living with covid19 strategy in
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scotland wales and northern ireland varying restrictions remain in place for now but there are plans to ease them in the near future
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this means that businesses face a new set of challenges with responsibility and decision-making ability shifted
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fully onto employers how should you be reacting to the current changes are you asking people to continue to
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self-isolate are you providing testing or keeping social distancing measures in place how can you protect employees especially
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more vulnerable ones and avoid presenteeism what are the legal implications for employers whatever you decide to do
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those are some really big questions we might not be able to answer them all in uh in a lot of depth but our panel are
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going to offer advice opinion and hopefully reassurance as well um we're going to hear from david first
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with the cipd view and then andrew is going to offer some legal advice and then we'll get a case study about what
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skanska is up to um please do get your questions in throughout and we'll take as many as we can they also receive some
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in advance um so we will take those once we've gone through hearing from each of our panelists um so that's it from me to
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now i'm going to hand over to david thanks david thank you casey hello everyone and
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welcome and um it's been a very tricky uh last few
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years and before we start it's probably worth acknowledging that i would i would describe them as roller coaster except roller coasters you tend to want to go
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on again and it's definitely not an experience i imagine most people want to repeat so we've seen work impacted we've seen
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society impacted we've seen um people and loved ones impacted and as
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katie referred to just then we obviously have um some very uh worrying um
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and immediately sad scenes happening around the world at the moment and it has been a very difficult time to
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support people to lead people to make decisions the level of uncertainty has probably never been higher for most of
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you uh in your careers and we're now facing a period where actually we have to
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have some more agency over a situation that is still difficult and requires a series if not
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an infinity or judgment calls to be made and some things we can probably set rules for and some things will be
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absolutely contextual and situational and that will be some of the tension i think that probably comes up in the conversation today
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and but the good thing is out of all of these bad things is that everything's been thrown up in the air and we have
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some agency over how it comes down so we have the possibility and potentially the hope to
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work out a better way of working a better way of being together and a better way of supporting people than may
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have been possible prior without some of these external triggers so out of what has been a very turbulent
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period what comes is the potential to start thinking about how we might want organizations to be
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what i reconcile that with and what i wouldn't want to fail to acknowledge is the increased demands on the profession
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at that same time so it has been a journey of discovery and challenge from if you cast your
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minds back the initial challenge of actually this seems like it might be a proper pandemic and i'll be prepared for
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that do we understand how that might work through to for many organizations fundamentally different ways of working
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or challenges to their business model right the way through a period and it will have varied uh across england
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scotland wales northern ireland in particular of very changeable rules
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where actually it's unclear at any one period what people should or shouldn't be doing simply because of the amount of
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times those expectations have been reset and we now reach a period
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where the onus is more organizations to interpret the situations around them and
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set out how they want to work with uh covert going forward but more
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importantly actually the expectations of the workplace more broadly so it's not easy
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but there is opportunity within that discomfort and that challenge so
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whether it is uh a series of dilemmas that you are facing in the workplace as to how do we deal
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with the one person actually he doesn't feel comfortable coming back into the workplace how do we
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manage people that are coming back in and have different expectations of how that experience may be or how you're
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managing workplaces where actually some people have kept going in a physical location and they're now meeting up with
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people that maybe aren't and all of the different expectations that come with and go
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alongside it from people's reconsideration of their relationship
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with work and their employer it's a hugely challenging time what do you do in terms of support and payment
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for people if they need to isolate are you still encouraging people to test when they might be coming into
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the workplace or come into contact with colleagues is that all colleagues are as much as vulnerable colleagues and these
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are all questions that organizations are wrestling with and as katie said we won't be able to answer them all today
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probably by a long time but actually we could we can talk about some of them the other challenge that we have and it's
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been quite interesting to hear some of the conversations around it is rethinking some of the things that were the norms before
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so when organizations are saying well actually from this point onwards we wouldn't like people to attend work if they have a contagious disease you sort
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of wonder how we ever lived in a period where actually that was expected of people if you have a cold if you're
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potentially infectious you still come into the workplace when there was an option for people to do otherwise so we have a really
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interesting tension between what we may have always habitually expected from people and actually if you go back to
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basics what might be reasonable expectations of people in the workplace and then the final challenge that i
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would touch upon so we can go over to harvey and andrew and some expertise would be around
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how do we ensure that we have sufficient dialogue involvement from people and engagement of people to understand their
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different perspectives around what is very unreasonable as we know that people have gone through a far from homogenous
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experience over the last few years it has been different and unique for almost every person based on their
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characteristics based on their situation based on how well they were equipped to deal with it and based on the support
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around them and that means that people will have had a unique experience that will lead to very different expectations and
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very different beliefs around what might be fair right what might be an acceptable level of risk and what might
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not and that's very much what organizations are facing into and i know there's a question in the chat already
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about cip's level of engagement with government around what happens next we're in active conversations with the
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relevant departments in scotland wales and england and northern ireland about
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what might happen next about the support for business but also you'll have seen possibly recently i'll call around
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improvements in statutory sick pay to take some of the challenge around people's need to attend work when it
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might otherwise be sensible for them not to be in that environment so there are a host of challenges a host of questions
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the good thing uh if you are a crpd member and you're on this is that they're probably things that are best
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solved for as a community we don't have a rule book for how we deal with this we
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will have some legal guidance and things we definitely should you shouldn't do but there will also be contextual pieces
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that we need to play with stay involved keep asking the questions and possibly critical to this is everyone
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understanding and taking some pressure off themselves that we are all having to find a way through
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it organizations are all attempting to work out the best and worst things that they might do and all discovering as
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those they implement those changes what does work in the way they anticipated and what doesn't and that's
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the power of community and communication it speeds up that learning process helps us have a better chance of getting to
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where we want to be and helps us explore and experiment with some of the things that might drive
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a better way of working better standard of work for people but actually that is in the interest of organizations and
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businesses as well the tension that's historically been painted between do we treat people well
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or do we run a successful business we've seen over the last few years that that is a very
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false positioning and that those two things go hand in hand so i'll wrap up there uh for the moment but i think as a
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as a framing we have a number of dilemmas that you will be facing that you will probably come across the best
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way of solving them is as a community but pulling on the expertise and content that i know will make available to you
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as you go thank you thanks very much david and i see we've got some questions um coming in i'm sure
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that andrew will address some of these in his um presentation on some of the legal things that we need consider
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thanks andrew thanks katie thanks david um so yeah let's look at some of the um
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legal issues around what's happening right now um and the first slide um on lookout
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sets out well that sets out some of the changes that have already been introduced a week ago
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now and then there's others that will be due from the 24th of march and as kate has already said
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um this is all really being driven by changes in england um but i have got a slide in a moment that
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explains where we are in the other nations of the uk and really all four nations
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are on a similar journey or be it they're at different stages of that journey so what we'll say in a few moments about the challenges facing
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employers and how they might meet those challenges really applies to you wherever you are
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in the uk but just looking at england for a moment um a week ago now
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the requirement to self-isolate following a positive covid test that's the legal requirement in england to
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self-isolate following a positive kodi kobe test was removed as was the requirement to self-isolate
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for those close contacts of people um with kovid who were not fully vaccinated
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isolation support payments also ended and that includes the 500 pound payment
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for those on low incomes and there was also the end of the legal obligation on individuals
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to tell their employers when they are required to self-isolate now you may have something
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in your contracts of employment that require individuals to keep doing that but certainly their obligation under the
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law to do it um has now gone so how you manage that going forward will some will be
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something you want to think about whether it's through a contractual term
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or whether it's through a reasonable instruction to employees to let you know um when they find themselves in that
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position so you can um plan the best way forward for that individual and for the organization as
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well but they're all of the changes that came in in england um on the 24th of february
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and then coming up uh on the 24th of march which was the original
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intended end date for our code restrictions we've got the removal
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of an entitlement to ssp from day one for curvy related absences
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and we've also got the removal of the entitlement to be paid ssp the periods of self-isolation where the
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employee is not tested positive in other words they're isolating as a close contact
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or where the employee is not unwell so they may will have tested positive but they don't have symptoms
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ssp is no longer payable the 24th of march in either of those scenarios
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in other words we will be back to the old in inverted commas ssp arrangements
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whereby if somebody is ill and too ill to work they'll receive ssp
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after three waiting days but if they're well enough to work they won't be entitled to ssp and you
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would envisage in most cases that any um contractual six power rangers running
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alongside ssp won't envisage people having to isolate unless they've been amended over the
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course of the pandemic and so the same the same result will essentially uh
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[Music] apply um sick pay for sickness query what we do about those people who
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have to isolate for other reasons and we'll look at that in a couple of slides time the other thing to note is that
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um from the 24th of march you can no longer make claims under the coronavirus ssp rebate scheme
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so that scheme allows employees with less than 250 employees to recoup up to two weeks ssp
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for any employee who's off sick for the covert related absence um
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that applies to absences between 21st december 21 and the 17th of march
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22. so the claim period the last claim period you can claim for ends on the
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17th of march the deadline for making a claim is a week later the 24th of march
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and if we move on to the next slide please we'll look then at the changes that are due to come in from the
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first of april um and firstly on that date or around that date you'll
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have the removal of free testing whether that be pcr testing for people with symptoms
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or lfc testing for those who are asymptomatic
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however [Music] there'll still be a continuing
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need to follow government guidance where you can and that is that kirby positive
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individuals shouldn't attend work and should stay at home and avoid other people for at least five full days and
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close contact cases should work from home if possible um
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and i think i've jumped on a couple of slides so apologies i think i've i've mixed my notes up so let me jump back to this slide we've talked about the
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removal of testing um and we've talked about the removal of guidance on voluntary code
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status certification um and and uh at large venues
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um and that applies to me um uh as a football fan i was required to
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get a test before attending a game until very recently it was always something i ended up doing at the last minute for some reason but
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that's gone now no need for that um removal of a health and safety requirement for employers to explicitly
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consider covering their risk assessments but of course there'll be a continuing obligation to observe um general health
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and safety law uh to maintain a safe workplace um finally from the first of april 22
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the working safely guidance will either be updated or replaced
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with new public health guidance so watch out for that as well on the next slide please thank you and
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this is this is the slide i talked about earlier which just touches on the situations in the other nations of the uk
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so in scotland they're taking quite a cautious approach there's no plan in scotland
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to scrap the requirement to self-isolate the people who test positive although interestingly
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that's never been a legal requirement in scotland as it was in england until a week ago
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but there's still very strong guidance for people to self-isolate who test
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positive and that will that will stay in place scotland will keep the length of the quantity in period under review at the
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moment i believe it's still 10 days but they're keeping that under review they
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have had in place throughout the pandemic a recommendation that people work at home where that's
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that's possible they're now recommending that employers consider hybrid working arrangements
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but obviously still a very cautious approach in scotland in wales the requirement to self-isolate is a
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legal requirement for those who test positive that remains in place for now
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although it can be brought to an end after six days subject to two consecutive negative lfts
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um that will be reviewed probably around the end of march
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and then the situation in northern ireland is pretty much as it is in scotland in the sense that again it's never been a legal
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requirement for individuals to self-isolate after a positive test but that has and remains the subject of
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very strong guidance to do so um again uh
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the need to self-isolate can be brought to a premature end after six
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days following two consecutive negative lfts
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okay next slide please so this is where i catch up with myself and start talking through those issues i started
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to touch on before why would you want employees to continue
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to self-isolate as an employer if they either test positive or have close contact with
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the individual who is positive well firstly to follow continuing government
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guidance um which states that covered positive individuals shouldn't attend work and
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should stay at home and avoid other people for at least five four days uh subject to uh negative lfts on days
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five and six and also that close contact cases should work from home as well and avoid contact with anyone at high
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risk obviously you may have such people in your workplace so that guidance is in place and will
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remain in place notwithstanding the change legal status of the requirement uh to self-isolate
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what else would you want people to self-isolate well of course as we've already mentioned there's a due to due to care towards
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employees generally certainly in terms of health and safety law and there is a particular duty of care
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towards those at highest risk of serious illness if they catch covid
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and that will tend to be people with other conditions
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or perhaps people who are older because as we know older people as a group have been impacted more
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by covid in a serious way than other groups generally speaking
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so you've got potential there for direct discrimination claims but particularly indirect discrimination claims
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based on age and disability um if you get this wrong so obviously important to have regard to
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those employees and those groups of employers in your workplace what else would you want to
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ask people to self-isolate to try and reduce levels of transmission in the workplace
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as well as protecting your employees from serious impacts you
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also want as many people at work as possible you don't want them off work with even mild cases of covid
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if you can help it so they're all good reasons to continue asking your employees to self-isolate
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where they can where you could where you can accommodate that disincentive to doing that well firstly
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of course there's no longer a legal requirement to do it no possibility of a fine
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for letting someone with kobe come into the workplace and you might fear impacts on
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productivity if too many people self-isolate at once for employees of course
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there might be particular concerns for them around levels of sick pay they might receive
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while self-isolating and as we'll see that might not be any sick pay at all um so they may well feel pressured to come
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into work even though positive so there are disincentives as well
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but i think our advice would be where possible try and keep positive
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people out of the workplace if you can and how you might do that we'll look at on the next and final slide
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so risk first of all we've mentioned that the breach of uh potential health and safety duties to begin with
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um you've got the risk of fellow employees downing tools if they know that somebody is positive in the workplace especially
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those who are vulnerable for whatever reason and don't forget that employers or workers who feel that their health
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and safety is threatened um imminently threatened have the right to
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remove themselves from the workplace and they're protected when they do that from being dismissed or being subjected
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to a detriment and as we've already touched on as well you've got the risk of claims by fellow employees
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be their director in description discrimination claims query would insisting on people
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attending the workplace if symptomless would that be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim well only if you
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absolutely need people in the workplace and you need them in the workplace there and then um i think otherwise trump
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builders would look pretty pretty carefully at any claim that you had to have people in the workplace who were positive and
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potentially presenting a risk to other employees so most importantly one of the solutions
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um where people are positive have conversations with them first and foremost encourage them
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uh to take annual leave if they have any and you leave you if they have toil
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encourage them to use that where possible and as always throughout this pandemic
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encourage flexible working and particularly working from home when that's possible
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consider pay arrangements for purge of self-isolation as we've already seen on the 24th of march
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those who need to self-isolate who um are symptomless
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or are self-isolating because of contact with others will not be entitled to ssp
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and almost certainly depending on what your contracts say almost certainly i won't be entitled to
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the contractual sickbay either so think about how you manage that do
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you pay them in full if you want to insist on people being away from work
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and there's no option of them working from home then really the correct position unless there's anything to the country in the
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contract will be to pay them in full which is obviously a financial burden for employers
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but failing to pay them in full unless you're authorized by the contract to withhold pay
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would certainly give rise to a claiming contract or for unlawful deductions and might also
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give rise to a claim for constructive dismissal in extreme cases so do think about how you manage
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um absences for that reason encourage people to work from home if
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they can or take annual leave but if the last option is to ask them to stay away
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anyway think about paying them because without doing so you're exposing yourself to potential claims
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and i think that covers that for now over we'll look at some questions obviously at the end of the session but um i'll hand back to uk in the
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meantime thanks very much andrew i'm great over you as always um a few people asking will you get the slides yes the slides
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will be available to download um from probably this afternoon or tomorrow um we'll come to your questions in a minute
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i'm just going to ask harvey to kind of give a contextualized example of how this is working in practice at his
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organization thanks javi george thanks casey hi everyone uh so for those who are not familiar with skanska we're a
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global construction company we're headquartered in sweden and we operate around the nordics the u.s central
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europe and in the uk and in the uk we have about three and a half thousand uh workforce across five main areas of
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operation so large infrastructure building and real estate high-speed rail building services
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and piloting ground engineering so the approach that we've taken right from the start of covid has been to base
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our strategy on the government strategy and position and actually what we found is that served us very well because it
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gives us something to tie back to and people can make sense of it and we've had very good feedback from
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our people about the clarity of our position even when the government position of guidance sometimes as you'll
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remember has been less than black and white and by way of that additional context we actually have two distinct type of
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workers so those people based on site because obviously we're a very physical organization and then those based in
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offices and for those people based on site in addition to our own employees
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uh the majority of people on site are employed by supply chain partners because we very much operate on a
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non-directly employed basis sort of construction program management
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and we continued to operate the site successfully right the way through the pandemic because we took a risk-based approach to revising working practices
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and as a result of that we've had very low levels of infection across the workforce and i do put that down very
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much to the way that we've redesigned the working practices and patterns around the risk assessments that we've
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carried out and in the offices and sites we continue to ask people to maintain distancing to
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wear face coverings in the communal areas but as a result of the change that andrew outlined we've obviously
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taken a step back and reviewed the approach to make sure that it that it's still valid and fit the purpose
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and we know that despite the sense you get from the media and also the government i think that somehow this is all behind us and which for clarity i
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absolutely disagree with many of our people are rightly still worried about catching coved and are nervous about the
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workplace and particularly i think that's true for the offices so despite the recent change in the
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government position we've been very clear that you must not come into work if you have any signs of coveid or
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you've had a positive lateral flow test and we're also strongly encouraging people to continue to take lateral flow
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tests twice a week for the period that they're available and we've positioned this very much as being in line with our
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culture and one of our values which is very important to skanska is about care for life so what we're saying to people
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is the reason we want you to stay away from work if you have symptoms or test positive is in addition to looking after
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yourself we also want you to help keep your colleagues safe by not risking them by passing on the virus and
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as it stands at the moment that message has landed i think pretty well so in terms of what andrew was saying
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about payment we're obviously continuing to pay people full sick pay under our absence policy um for those people who
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stay at home because they've got symptoms or tested positive under a lateral flow test
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and this obviously does raise the subject of trust because we know in any case there will always be a small number
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of people that will abuse a situation but frankly us and most organizations have
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policies and processes in place to deal with foul play and we'll deal with that under the
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respective policies the supply chain situation is a bit different in that the sick pay
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arrangements differ across our suppliers but the message that we've given to all of our supply chain partners is the same
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which is that we don't want people coming onto skanska science if they've got symptoms or a tested positive under
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a lateral flow test but during the first wave of the pandemic we introduced an informal
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flexible program working called flex it and it's interesting andrew talking about you know almost a call to
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employers to have these kind of things in place and what flex it does it allows people and teams to determine the amount of
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flexibility they've got over when and where they work now clearly this is more difficult for those working on site because it's a
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very physical and locational requirement but we do believe that every
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role has an opportunity for a degree of flexibility and this is actually being helpful to us in terms of making it easier for people
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who've got symptoms not to come into this site or the office and with regards to the offices i mean
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we have two main offices one in maple cross in hertfordshire and one in moorgate in london and we are now starting to actively
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encourage people to come back into the offices to experience the things that everyone's missed so social interaction
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team effectiveness and sharing learning and since the restrictions were lifted
31:26
um the numbers are really starting to increase and we're now at the region of about 25 percent of pre-pandemic office
31:32
levels and we've been clear with our folks that in line with our
31:37
focus on creating an inclusive workplace that people really should feel free if they want to to continue to wear face
31:42
coverings if that makes them feel safer and actually asking all of our people to respect other people's choices um around
31:49
whether to wear face coverings or not and the reality that we're seeing is once people are back in the office a lot
31:55
of those initial fears do quickly dissipate and life starts to feel quite normal again quite quickly
32:02
so i guess uh to kind of wrap up personally speaking i have to say i'm very concerned about about the living
32:08
with kovid plan which to me fall short of what i would have expected in terms of a kind of a
32:13
mid to long term approach in particular the things that i really worry about is that employees no longer have to tell their employers if they are
32:20
self-isolating or self-isolate or take daily tests if they've been in close contact with someone who's tested positive regardless
32:26
of whether they've been vaccinated or not and the worries i've got unfortunately do get worse when the availability of
32:32
free natural flow test ends because i worry that it'll be almost impossible to know who has coveted and who hasn't
32:38
because given for the majority of people it just presents us a cold a heavy cold and that was certainly my experience i
32:44
had the tail and the delta bearing um towards the end of last year and if i hadn't lost my sense of smell
32:50
and taste and tested positive under a pcr not actually sure i'd known i'd have had and therefore could have gone into
32:56
the workplace and passed it on to other people now one of the questions that's been asked of us is will we provide test kits
33:02
for employees when the government free issue ends and we're still thinking about what we need to do in regards to
33:08
this and i also think that the other reflection i have is that based on what we know about how viruses mutate and
33:14
also the warnings from people like chris whitty i'm quite sure that omicron is not the end of the road as i think it's
33:20
been painted to be and that the next bearing i'm guessing could be even more transmissible and possibly more deadly
33:26
than omicron worries me that would kind of lower ourselves into a full sense of security that somehow uh the efficacy of
33:32
the virus has been reduced in some way so i suppose my my closing comment is
33:37
that what we have in place now i firmly believe is only for now and the employers will need to be ready
33:43
to act really quickly and be ready to consider putting back in place stricter measures because i really don't think
33:49
that we're into the road i think we're at a junction now but i think things could change very very quickly and the problem is i think
33:56
the testing regime that we had before particularly pcr is it enabled enabled society and
34:02
government to be very quickly identified these new strains and of course that's going to be taken away from us so we may
34:08
actually start to see in the workplace things quicker um than actually um
34:13
the way that governments pick those things up so i think there needs to be quite a lot of thought given about how we feedback what we're seeing uh to
34:19
government to enable any change of policies to take place so katie back to you thanks thanks
34:25
thanks very much harvey i'm going to go to questions um got um quite a few first one i'm going
34:31
to ask um david i'll put this you first carver you kind of covered it a bit but maybe we'll come back and we'll go to andrew for a legal viewpoint lots of
34:36
questions about testing if tests are no longer free should employers be providing them is it fair and reasonable
34:43
to expect people to pay for them themselves if as harvey intimated people don't know that they have have covid and
34:50
are coming in asymptomatic david what's your view on kind of how employers deal with this kind of changing testing
34:56
landscape uh i think it's going back to the overarching duty of
35:01
care and so if there's less flexibility you're expecting people to be in pro
35:06
close proximity and you think there's higher risk than an organization needs to think about
35:12
actually it's long term versus short-term costs in that scenario because as andrew pointed out rightfully
35:18
there's a risk of disruption there's a risk of severely impacting people's health one
35:24
of the things that we haven't really spoken about is actually caring implications as well but some people will be anxious and nervous not because
35:30
of the risk of their immediate health but because if they catch an infectious disease it will have a consequent risk
35:36
for people that they care about or close to so organizations are not under an awful lot
35:42
of cost pressure at the moment but depending on the environment it should certainly be risk assessed and the
35:49
organization should be thinking really seriously about how does it minimize the risk to its people minimize the risk to
35:55
its operations and minimize the risk to the people that might be in contact with them
36:00
thank you um harvey can you share any more on kind of what you're doing around asymptomatic
36:06
or for thinking around how you would approach that yeah i think as i said casey we're still
36:11
we're still considering what the approach should be um you know we've looked into the cost of providing um
36:17
natural flow tests but as david said it's balancing the short and long term because i think there is a very real
36:22
there is a very real danger people don't know they got it because i think still a third of people presenting and i said well don't present because they're
36:28
asymptomatic um but also people might be confused whether they have it or not or just coming to work as david was saying
36:34
you know historically people have come into work with the cold and that was kind of socially acceptable i think it's less so now so we're trying to weigh up
36:41
the productivity perspective um whether there's greater risk in terms of not testing um and potentially having a kind
36:48
of you know because all of our sites you know or majority of our sites particularly the building ones
36:53
they're indoors and and you get large numbers of people together so unfortunately they would be breeding
36:59
grounds i think for transmission and i think the risk asses you know the mixture of the vaccinations the testing
37:04
and the risk assessments that we've put in place we've done a good job across those three strategies of kind of keeping the
37:10
workplaces safe but if you don't know what you've got coming through the gates it's um it's much more difficult so it's
37:16
we haven't we haven't concluded a position yet um it's much more discussion i think still
37:21
to be had on that thanks um andrew can i come to you um same same question but um some people
37:27
are asking kind of what um advice can you give businesses to require employees to prove provide proof
37:34
of covert positive symptoms or i guess also negative symptoms i think i think it's entirely reasonable
37:40
to ask or or seek ways in which you can confirm the coping status of people coming into
37:46
your premises and working alongside your other employees thorny issue is around cost
37:52
and what you do about that once free testing ends from april onwards and really unless
37:57
you've got something contractual already in place which is all you know unlikely it's one for
38:04
negotiation between employer and employee as to who bears the cost of that
38:09
um i think most employees would see the see the sense in testing but they might be more reluctant to get involved with
38:16
it if it's a cost to them and one particular issue to be aware of is
38:21
minimum wage issues because we've seen cases where employers who employ people right on
38:27
minimum wage have inadvertently ended up paying less than minimum wage by requiring to spend
38:32
money on uniforms or on equipment and requiring them to spend
38:37
money on testing does run the risk of of ending up in exactly the same uh scenario and people and then
38:44
employees inadvertently um breaching minimum wage legislation and
38:49
being named to shame for that reason so that's definitely what to be aware of for those on on on lower incomes
38:56
as regards cost more generally it is one for negotiation because really it's not something i don't think
39:01
that most employers will be able to insist on thank you um we've got a couple of questions about
39:08
um how covid kind of going forward counts towards some of these sickness absence
39:14
records um david any any views on as it becomes as we move into this living with kobit
39:20
strategy how employers kind of report and track it
39:26
uh i think at the moment it would be normal as as weird as harvey says not i wouldn't i don't consider it done
39:32
and there there's a certainly a period of adjustment and there may be a period as harvey right in the outlines where we
39:39
may need to go back in terms of different restrictions and considerations i think um treating covid
39:45
and long covert um as uniquely different things needs to be done sensibly and on
39:51
its merits so there's something about uniqueness of the infectious profile and the impact it
39:56
can have but actually when it gets to things like long covered we need to think about the long-term care of people
40:01
with long-term sick problems more broadly and and it shouldn't be that organizations are
40:08
disadvantaging people who are presenting with medical problems that simply have a different name but may have similar
40:14
manifestations so i i think um treating covert as a unique event
40:20
absolutely made sense as organizations come to deal with it longer term need to think actually around the sickness
40:25
policy more broadly the way that's treated the way people are supported if they have long term health issues
40:31
thank you we've actually got a few questions about long covered and asked one of my lovely colleagues rachel could
40:36
you put a link to the um the report we've got out on long covered in the chat um but on the topic of long covered
40:42
harvey um do you think um employers should be doing kind of more around it somebody said um we're making
40:48
reasonable adjustments monitoring but should we be doing more there they've got employees presenting with a self-obsessed long-term disability
40:55
sorry self-assessed yeah it's interesting we've we've actually not had many cases of long
41:01
coving but i suspect is probably because we're quite early in the cycle um and i guess we're also fortunate that we our
41:08
absence policy and payment policy is quite generous um so whilst a bit like they were saying
41:15
whilst we have the policy in place and actually we treat kobe now um so it contributes to the normal kind
41:21
of build-up of you know sickness days that are taken in terms of what people are allowed to have
41:26
um there's always an element of judgment and i think you have to have that element of judgment because we are we're
41:32
in uncharted waters you know we're dealing with something that we don't fully understand that's still very new
41:37
and and of course typically in hr and and everywhere else we always try to we always try to kind of button everything
41:43
down and look for hard and fast solutions and of course when you've got something that's new and evolving at such pace i
41:49
kind of think we have to we have to be more flexible and apply more judgment um in terms of what's going on and be
41:56
prepared to to to act quickly but also to change our views and our
42:01
policies and processes as this thing starts to develop and we know more about it
42:07
and andrew any kind of legal thoughts um on kind of long covered as it emerges and we get more and more people
42:13
presenting with it absolutely i mean as our attendees will know disability is very broadly defined
42:19
in the equality act um and so a condition that's likely to last for six months or longer almost
42:25
certainly will be regarded as a disability and therefore the duty to make reasonable adjustments arises
42:31
um you mentioned um a case where somebody had self-diagnosed as having long
42:36
covered i think you would treat an illness like this um in the way you would treat any any
42:42
long-term illness and you you should obtain medical evidence where you can whether from the
42:47
employee's gp or consultant or from an occupational health service
42:53
and make decisions based on the information that comes back from that expert
42:59
expert input i think the issue with long covered will be though that it's still not clearly defined as a condition
43:07
i think we're still learning about what it is what it entails and the various symptoms that people might present with
43:12
so still still treat it with caution and do listen to your employees when they're telling you
43:17
the symptoms they're suffering and how they're personally being affected and as with any
43:24
capability or sickness management process do manage it on an individual basis and take into account
43:30
individual characteristics but certainly obtain medical evidence and treat broadly in the same way as you
43:36
would but bear in mind it's a new condition and we're still not yet absolutely clear as to what it might entail so if there
43:43
is any um uh doubt as to what as to what the employer is
43:49
experiencing exercise um discretion in favor of them rather than
43:55
the employer on this particular one i think yeah um andrew i'm going to stick with
44:00
you i've got a few questions on face masks um where do employers stand on that can they um require
44:06
employees to wear them and somebody said they put a policy in place if someone wants to come in after testing positive they have to wear a mask other people
44:13
asking can they require people to wear masks i think that's a reasonable
44:18
request to make of people it depends to a degree on the um
44:24
circumstances and the particular environment that people are working in but i think that is a reasonable uh
44:29
request to make of people um people will argue back on the basis that
44:35
we're no longer required to wear face masks in public places um and also there'll be some individuals
44:40
who have good reason not to wear a mask so again it's about having individual conversations with
44:46
those people and finding out what those reasons are because again if they're disability related if somebody has asthma
44:52
and finds wearing a mask intolerable for example and insisting on them doing that might well
44:58
uh give rise to an issue with with them and potentially create a claim that they might pursue but i think as a
45:04
general rule following that policy is a real is is a reasonable thing to do
45:09
um harvey david got a few questions about encouraging people back to offices um people struggling to um get
45:18
people back into shared spaces people who are um who are not absolutely vulnerable refusing to come in want to
45:23
carry on working from home um david come to you first what approach do you think employers should be taking around kind
45:30
of reluctant returners to to any space so initially empathetic so the starting
45:36
point has to be i can understand how someone could feel like that so i could understand why
45:42
someone would be anxious i can understand why this might be a change i can understand why it may be difficult
45:47
actually for me to understand that if i'm in a different situation or circumstance then it's about um being really clear on
45:54
the messaging in the organization and the approach the organization will take so it's very clear what is there to make
46:00
people safe or how people would engage and then to the point that andrew has made no no harvey has multiple times
46:06
it's about having some flexibility within that so why why do you require people to be back in is that a general principle or is
46:13
that necessary for their role because they're slightly different things is it um appropriate for that individual
46:20
if they can work flexibly and if they have a genuine need so it might be mental health or well-being issue it
46:25
might be a broader health issue they all need to be factored in so i think there are things you can do to encourage
46:31
people back in you can lean on the importance of the social connections that people may have
46:36
you can lean on actually the fact that you know for many people a change of scenery will be welcome but what you
46:42
don't want to do is probably have people in that environment unnecessarily while there is still an infectious disease in
46:48
circulation you probably don't want to force people who could do their job perfectly well from home
46:54
into a position where they feel fundamentally uncomfortable in the office that said there's stuff that you
47:00
can do and things that you should do to make people feel as comfortable and secure when they do come in as possible
47:06
thanks um harvey can you give some examples of what you're doing in practice yeah i think i think i i very
47:12
much agree with david that it's about empathy and it's about discussion and and it has to be about need and and
47:17
that's why i talked about our flexit program you know first it's very simple the first thing is
47:23
what what are the business needs or the customer needs you know what is it that the job output needs to needs to needs
47:29
to deliver and how can it be done second is then what's the needs of the team in terms of you know connection learning
47:35
sharing all of those things and then it's back and then it's about the preferences for the individual in terms of their working
47:42
pattern so we haven't we haven't issued a three-line whip what we're now starting to do is talk more in our
47:47
communications in our ceo briefings about the benefits of coming back into the office one or two at least you know
47:52
start coming in maybe one or two days a week um and what we're starting what we're
47:58
finding is for the majority of people as i said actually once they're in they realize that that actually
48:04
the environment is okay the atmosphere is okay our kovid levels are very low we
48:09
talk quite a lot about what we're doing to keep the officers safe about the increased ventilation the fact that you
48:14
know you know trying to create give people personal space um and i guess but i
48:21
guess at some point there will be a residual number of people who who just won't want to do it and then i guess
48:26
they'll be the difficult conversations if if we need them to come into the office i suppose you'll end up in a frustration of contract and then and
48:32
then the inevitable discussions that that come on from there i would hope that that would be very very few and far
48:38
between and i think we i would hope again we're quite a long way away from that okay and
48:44
yeah david yeah i i'll just say the story on that and i think you will have the vast
48:50
majority of people will have legitimate reasons for that and we should be designing organizations
48:55
around people who are doing the right thing rather than the exceptions to it that said i spoke to an hr director recently
49:02
and they've been attempting to encourage someone back into the office eventually ended up in a position where there was
49:08
clear conflict between them and then they noticed on the uh on the hr system that they'd moved to the other end of
49:14
the country during the pandemic and we're no longer in any way commutable whatsoever so i i think but they're the
49:21
fringe and outlier cases that we shouldn't be designing around we should be designing around what's right for
49:26
people who we assume have the right intent thank you um andrew somebody's asked
49:32
about um vaccinations um where do we stand legally now in not allowing those who are
49:37
unvaccinated to return to work in a workspace on office well i think we were never quite sure
49:43
where was legally on that um one or two employers had taken a fairly robust approach to it and said uh if you're not
49:49
vaccinated he's not coming back to us and but obviously the government's back track from implementing that kind of
49:54
requirement in the care setting um again it comes down to individual
49:59
circumstances really i think requiring people to be vaccinated
50:05
uh before they come back it might be arguable in certain settings like care settings or in settings where
50:12
you might have regular contact with other vulnerable people but it becomes hard to justify in a more
50:19
general setting or in a more general workplace especially when the government's backtracked from making that mandatory
50:26
in in care and health settings as i've said so i think you have to tread with care and
50:32
again it's again about talking to individuals because there'll be some individuals with very good reason not to
50:38
be vaccinated and insisting that they are will be discriminatory in some way but that's
50:45
the risk you running imposing that kind of um requirement i think the way a lot of
50:50
employers have gone about this is actually to be a send a positive message out we've had this many people with the
50:57
first job this many people with a second door booster jab we're now running at 60 78
51:02
sending out that repeated positive message try to try and up vaccination rates in that way rather than impose something as
51:09
a requirement yeah um can we talk a little bit about um
51:15
fairness and people who can work from home versus um people who are just unable to work from home and harvey how
51:22
are you dealing with that um kind of potential division in in a workforce some questions about
51:28
yeah some people are unable to to work from home yeah we've
51:34
we have some of that and it's more prevalent i'm guessing on site um so it was much more of an issue during the
51:40
first phase of the pandemic than it is now i think a lot of those issues have just fallen away um a lot of the side
51:46
people were saying you know it's okay for them being able to you know being able to kind of work work from home and
51:51
actually when you when you go you know we'll actually would you like to do that and people say no i didn't join the industry to work from home well it's
51:57
like you know so there is always sometimes that sense of what somebody else has got um and actually i think
52:03
we're over that now and and people understand i think they're much more informed about why that why
52:09
that might be and to say we haven't have really any any real issues we've managed to work through any of those cases where
52:15
where we've had reluctance or issues i'm sure they will come um but i think we'll
52:21
just deal with them in the usual way through discussion and diplomacy and and try to work out an agreeable solution
52:27
but but the kind of sense of factions has gone now good to hear i can see in the chat
52:34
somebody acting as a dealer for lateral protests
52:39
a link there and then various pricing options um available um if anybody's i'm interested in bulk buying um can we talk
52:46
a little bit um we're running out of time rapidly but a bit about presenteeism in general and people coming into the office sick um a few
52:53
people asking around you know can you ask people to or should you ask people to test if they're presenting any kind
52:59
of cold like symptoms but i guess the um following question on that would be should you should people be coming in at
53:05
all when i'm presenting with any kind of sexual feeling under the weather and david what's your view on how this is
53:11
going to change how we think about coming to work sick i really hope it fundamentally changes
53:16
it it's one of the least useful aspects of our concept of work ethic that we can
53:23
really show commitment by putting other people in danger of catching the nasty bug that we've picked up it doesn't make
53:29
sense from an organizational point of view and whether or not people keep coming in we know that they aren't optimal at
53:35
their time in terms of that performance and we know that they're risking other people being less optimal we know their
53:40
recovery time will go up as well so there is nothing good or laudable about people dragging themselves into work
53:47
it's been glorified in a really unhelpful way i am hoping that this is one of the
53:52
points where we start thinking about not just covet but other any kind of infectious disease and say that if we've
53:59
got an opportunity for people not to be in a working environment with other people when they might make them sick
54:04
we will fundamentally discourage that by the way we think about our policies procedures support mechanics
54:11
okay and harvey do you agree is that something you would like to see i think one thing i would
54:17
absolutely love to see from a personal perspective as well as a corporate perspective
54:23
but i think the reality is i think it's my i think it's much harder
54:28
when when as i said so i think for the site based people where you where you've where the work is less able to be done
54:35
elsewhere um i think it's more difficult but but but there's ways and means around that you know if it's usually the
54:40
most infectious for one or two days in the grand scheme of a year it's it's it
54:45
really shouldn't be a problem but i am a bit like david i am starting i'm starting to sense there is a sea change
54:51
happening and what we've got to do is that i think from a leadership perspective this is the key to it i think leadership and culture
54:57
is that the leaders need to be seen when they're sick to be holding meetings from home by by by teams or zoom
55:04
and actually role modeling the kind of behaviors you want to see if if leaders come in coughing and sniffling and stuff
55:09
that actually that just sets the tone that actually that's what's expected um so you know encouraging the senior teams
55:16
if they're unwell um not to do that yeah and andrew somebody's asked if somebody is presenting with symptoms can
55:22
you insist that they take a lateral flow um
55:27
it comes back to that cost issue again but if you can provide them with a test i see nothing wrong at all with asking them to take a test it's entirely
55:33
consistent with the employer's health and safety obligation to maintain a safe workplace so that's a perfectly
55:39
reasonable request to make and i think asking people to work from home if they can is is a reasonable as well
55:45
there's one little issue around pay of course if they're well enough to work uh but not well enough in your in your
55:50
view to be in the workplace then you should allow them to work at home if that isn't possible
55:56
and they're presenting for work consider paying them in full as we talked about earlier otherwise there's a potential uh
56:03
some kind of legal fallout from that but yeah i think generally speaking taking that line is entirely consistent with
56:10
the employer's obligations as to health and safety i'm going to bring it to a closer i'm
56:15
aware that we haven't answered all the questions some of them are quite um detailed um so apologies i didn't get to
56:21
those um andrew's slides will be available to download you will be able to get those i think quite a lot of the
56:26
um the questions you'll be able to figure out the answers from that but also like to remind you that if you are a cipd member you do have access to the
56:32
employment law helpline and via hr informs so that's available for you 24 7 and you can call and go through um your
56:38
issues over the phone with somebody and you'll get a response there um this session will be available to um watch
56:44
again um should be available on the cipd website from this afternoon um i'd like to thank andrew david and harvey thanks
56:51
so much for giving up your time and insight thanks everybody for attending um i hope that it's answered at least
56:58
some of your questions um we as harvey said use that phrase we are in uncharted
57:03
territory um and i think it is up for up to employers to um
57:09
to think about what is what is reasonable for you and for your and for your workforce and to come from a place
57:14
of empathy as well and compassion um but that's it from us for now um do check on the opi website for more information
57:20
about upcoming webinars but please have a great afternoon thanks very much