For All Businesses
- Maintain clear communication with staff on the government coronavirus advice and the actions your business is taking to reduce risks of exposure at work
- Ensure that you have the most up to date contact numbers and emergency contact details for all your staff
- Please be aware if you have any ‘high risk’ individuals (pregnant, over 70, or with a long-term health condition) in your workforce and take necessary extra precautions
If Your Business is Still Open
- Provide facilities to increase personal hygiene; anti-bacterial gel, tissues, wipes and soaps. Make use of the NHS posters about how to correctly hand wash and spotting coronavirus symptoms
- Restrict and reduce any travelling required for staff – hold meetings virtually
- Allow staff to travel outside of rush hour periods to limit their exposure and risk to the virus
- Make sure staff and managers are clear on how to spot coronavirus symptoms
- Extra precautions will be require for staff who are high risk – it is currently recommended that these individuals self-isolate for the next 12 weeks
If Staff Come Into Work With Symptoms
- Ask staff to notify you straight away if they feel they need to self-isolate
- If someone comes in with symptoms, send them home straight away
- Thoroughly clean the workplace if they have been at work
If You Have Staff in Self-Isolation
- Your staff will be entitled to receive any Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) if they need to self-isolate if they have coronavirus, coronavirus symptoms, someone in their household has symptoms or if they have been told to self-isolate
- The government is providing SSP relief packages for SMEs
If Your Staff Are Able to Work From Home
- Current government advice on social distancing aims to reduce unnecessary contact with others. If possible businesses should allow staff to work from home
- Ensure you have video conferencing, conference calling, and messaging tools in place to enable effective communication with your staff through this time
- Keep clear and consistent communication with your staff whilst they are working remotely
As schools across the UK will be closing by Friday, this could likely impact staffs’ ability to work whether onsite or remotely. Employees can use:
If Your Staff Need Time Off Because of School Closures
- Annual leave entitlement
- Parental leave
- Time off for dependants
- Flexible hours
- Make a flexible working request to change their hours temporarily or permanently
If You Need to Close Your Business
You may want to plan ahead in case there is a need to close your business temporarily. The following options could be considered before making redundancies:
- Asking staff to reduce their contracted hours
- Asking staff to use their annual leave entitlement during the business closure period
- Asking for voluntary redundancies
Social Business Support from the Government
The Chancellor has set out a package of temporary support to businesses affected by coronavirus including:
- A statutory sick pay relief package for SMEs
- A 12-month business rates holiday for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses
- Small business grant funding of £10,000 for all business in receipt of small business rate relief or rural rate relief
- Grant funding of £25,000 for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses with property with a rateable value between £15,000 and £51,000
- The Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme offering loans of up to £5 million for SMEs through the British Business Bank
- A new lending facility from the Bank of England to help support liquidity among larger firms, helping them bridge coronavirus disruption to their cash flows through loans
- The HMRC Time To Pay Scheme