Risk Assessments:

Did you know that if you have more then 5 Employees you are required to carry out a risk assessment in relation to ‘reasonable measures undertaken to minimise exposure. Things to consider:

• Social distancing
• Track and Trace
• Cleaning Stations

Furlough:

• The Furlough scheme has been extended until 30th September 2021
• Employers must contribute 10% towards the Furlough scheme from July 2021
• Employers must contribute 20% towards the Furlough scheme for August and September 2021

Policies:

Home Working Policy

Do you have one in place? We can help implement a Home Working Policy to protect you and your employees.

What will it cover?

• Regular touch points with employees
• Supervisions for junior/less experienced employees
• Boundaries of working hours to enable a work/life balance in the home
• DSE
• Risk Assessments
• Expenses
• Insurance

Absence Policy

Does this require an update to reflect new reporting of absence ways? Can you work from home even though you are not well? Is it that if you were travelling to a place of work that you were unfit to travel rather than not fit to work? What considerations do you need to make to your absence policy to be fit for purpose for ‘working from home’ here at 1850 we can tailor your Absence policy to best support your employees whilst absent from work whilst ensuring that productivity of your business is not affected.

Flexible working

Have you received more than the normal amount of flexible working requests since your employees started working from home and the talk of returning to the office has begun?

Don’t be alarmed, this is to be expected. Remember there is a formal process for handling flexible working requests and three responses can be given to the employee’s requesting flexible working; these are Accept, Trial period or decline based on only 8 specific reasons. If you are seeing interest from your colleagues in flexible working and require assistance in managing these requests, get in touch with us and one of our HR Consultants will be happy to support you through this process and provide the relevant documentation.

Contracts of employment

Since Covid-19 began, working from home has become the ‘new normal’. Will your employees be returning to the office or will they remain working from home? If so, we can ensure that your contracts of employment are updated to reflect this and include:

• Place of work
• Expenses
• Benefits analysis of appropriateness

No Jab, No Job – What are your thoughts?

As it currently stands you cannot enforce that employees have the Covid-19 vaccination in order to continue in employment with your business or dismiss an employee if they do not take up the vaccination.

So what can you do?

Educate your employees on the benefits of the vaccine and how it will help to create a ‘new normal way of life’. You can if you wish to; make conditional offers of employment on the proviso that employees have received the vaccination. However, in doing this you need to ensure that, how you store the information in relation to the vaccination received by an employee is compliant with GDPR as this is classed as medical information which falls under special categories.

If you are considering conditional offers of employment based on vaccination receive then contact us where one of our HR consultants who specialise in GDPR can advise, guide and put in place the relevant security measured to protect your employee data along with relevant contracts of employment/ offer letters.

GDPR

What increased GDPR risks has your business been exposed to during the pandemic?

• Work from home shared work stations with friends/family?
• Physical storage and disposal of data?

Does your GDPR policy extend to coverage of working from home?

We can provide GDPR policies and procedures tailored to working from home to protect your business from a GDPR breach. We can provide training to your employees and Top Tips of how to avoid a data breach.