During previous lockdowns, I have talked them through furlough for their staff. But they have financially been hit hard by the pandemic, and without any government assistance to help them they’re worried they might not make it through this period of working from home. What can I say to help and reassure them?
Unfortunately, your client is one of the many businesses that will be significantly impacted by this most recent announcement, especially as it does not seem they will be able to pick up business from other sources, such as Christmas shoppers. Without the job retention scheme to fall back on, they are especially going to feel the bite of this restriction, but there are still options available to them.
Before the pandemic and the job retention scheme, there were things available in employment law that can help your client now.
Some of the options to consider include:
- Redeploying staff to an area where custom is less affected, or to cover for sickness/self-isolation/holiday absence in those places
- Agree annual leave with staff
- Enforce annual leave (but only where twice as much notice as the leave to be taken is given, and of course only if there is enough leave remaining)
- Arrange for any time off in lieu to be taken
Alternatively, there is lay off (no work at all) /short time (reduced hours). This requires payment of statutory guarantee pay (a daily rate of £30) for non-worked days (to a maximum of the employees normal working week e.g. 5 days) in every 13 week period. To use this, there will need to be the following:
- A clause allowing lay off/short time in the employment contract.
- Express, clear confirmation in the contract that it means that lay off/hours of no work in a short time situation are unpaid.
If this is not already in place, then your client may try to agree a change of terms now with staff. Whilst they may be reluctant to accept this, if the alternative is redundancy they may be persuaded it is for the best.
Finally, there is the option of privately funded furlough. Agreement would need to be obtained for this, as it is unlikely any existing furlough clauses introduced in light of the job retention scheme will fit these circumstances. This however brings the problem of funding, and it would seem your client does not have any spare at the moment to go towards this.
Whichever route your client chooses, they must ensure they get consent to avoid unlawful deductions of wages. This means, either a pre-agreed clause in a contract or getting agreement now. Otherwise, they could have even more issues to deal with.
Please share this article with your clients
Our team of expert consultants have a wealth of experience and can also provide a written consultancy service to support your practice, like having your very own tax and VAT department.
Why not see what My VIP Tax Team can do for your practice, call 0800 231 5199 or vip@cronertaxwise.com to find out more
