Following the government’s announcements last week the new instruction to go to the office if you must but work from home if you can comes into force today.
Importantly offices are not required to close and therefore it is accepted that some office workers will be required to attend their workplace in order to keep them open and functioning. Administrative, supervisory and operational duties are likely to be top of the list of reasons for attending the workplace.
For those in the office employers must continue to implement COVID safety measures. These include:
- Minimising visitors
- Improving ventilation
- Using one-way systems
- Additional cleaning.
There is currently no specific requirement to ensure social distancing but this may be one of the measures a business may take as a part of it’s risk assessment process.
Vaccination Status
Under self-isolation rules, anyone who is not vaccinated must self-isolate for 10 days if they are identified as a close contact of someone who has the virus. In contrast anyone who is vaccinated can take regular tests and avoid self-isolating for this period. This poses challenges for employers and for employees in that potentially sensitive medical information which the employee preferred not to share with their employer may become known by default as a result of complying with these requirements.
For some businesses it may be appropriate as a part of the general risk assessment and resilience planning to ask employees to confirm their vaccination status so as to allow employers to manage the risk of having too many staff self-isolating at any one time. It is important therefore that employers give thought to how that data can be stored and ensuring that they do not stigmatise those who have not have the vaccine, particularly those who cannot have the vaccine due to medical or other reasons.
COVID Passes
From 15 December 2021 NHS Covid Passes will be required for entry into:
- Nightclubs
- Indoor unseated venues with more than 500 people
- Outdoor unseated venues with more than 4,000 people
- Any venue with more than 10,000 people.
Lateral flow tests should be taken before entering any such venue.
Note also the potential impact set out above for anyone who is unvaccinated and their requirement to self-isolate. Attendance at any such venue could significantly increase the risk of being ‘pinged’. This again poses challenges for employers as to how far they can intrude into the personal lives of their employees and give directions not to attend any such venue (or indeed any venue) where there is a higher risk of having to self-isolate for 10 days.
MPs are now due to debate these Plan B measures on Tuesday 14 December 2021. The measures are almost certain to pass, notwithstanding a potentially significant rebellion by Tory MPs, although there may still be some concessions or amendments made to the rules to ensure that they pass.
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