As restrictions have lifted, many of you will be considering if or how or when to bring your employees back into the workplace. This is by no means a straightforward process and there is a myriad of practical, logistical implications. You must also take into account the situations of your staff and their ability or desire to return and whether this has any legal, compliance or financial ramifications for your business.
With this in mind, we thought it would be useful to give you some guidance on how to do this well and to highlight some areas that you may want to concentrate on. We are also giving you the opportunity to join a Zoom call to ask one of our Employment Law experts, Kate Palka, any particular questions you may have. This will take place at 11am on Thursday 5th August. Simply email us on info@thelegaldirector.co.uk with your name and company name and we will send you the Zoom invitation.
Communicate
This is the singularly most important piece of advice we can offer. Though many people are desperate to get out of the house, many others will be concerned and anxious about a return to the office and you need to be mindful of that. What a “safe return” looks like will be different to each employee. Give details of your plan, being specific about practical aspects and the safety measures you are adopting. It is vital that communication be two-way so provide your employees with an opportunity to address their concerns with management and deal with each case individually.
For many employees, some reassurance about the change will be sufficient. For others, with specific physical or mental health needs, you will need to proceed on a case-by-case basis. We would advocate that you act with caution at this stage. Acknowledge the impact that the last 18 months has had and be slow to initiate any disciplinary procedures if an employee is refusing to return to the office. Our previous blog, “Time To Think Differently About Mental Health In The Workplace: Support And Resources For SMEs” lays out some good advice for supporting mental wellness at work and points to other resources from Mind that you may find useful at this stage.
Assess the Risk
You have a legal duty of care to provide a safe working environment for your employees and the pandemic has compelled businesses to review existing policies. If you are planning to reopen the office, or your office space or commercial properties have changed during the pandemic, you will need to undertake a thorough risk assessment. We are happy to help you with this process if you would like some tailored guidance. Given the huge impact of mental illness on people and businesses, we would also recommend you undertake a mental health risk assessment and, again, this is something we can help you with.
The potential for hybrid working will also impact your risk assessment and you should be thinking about your employees’ home working conditions. This being a relatively new phenomenon, the guidance is less clear but is something we anticipate being incorporated into Health and Safety at Work requirements at some stage. Here are some questions that you may want to ask. What equipment do your home workers have or need? What IT security is required? Can working hours be more flexible at home? What happens if an employee has an accident at home during working hours? What if an employee sustains an injury whilst undertaking their job because of insufficiently safe equipment? What limitations should be imposed on location if an employee is not in the office – are they allowed to work from a cafe for example? How much interaction do your employees get with their colleagues? Is working from home impacting mental health? How much will it cost the business to support home workers’ working conditions?
There is a lot to consider and, though it is impossible to mitigate all risk, it is worth investing time at this stage to ensure that your employees are appropriately supported whilst working away from the office. Get in touch if you need advice with this. We can help amend your policies and create some guidance for your employees about best practice whilst working from home.
Review Your Policies/ Contracts
Any changes that you instigate are likely to affect your company policies and your employee contracts. They may even impact any B2B contracts you have in place. We would advise that you review all policies and contracts to ensure that they are up-to-date, reflective of new working conditions and compliant with Health & Safety and Data Protection legislation. Our lawyers are well versed in all aspects of company compliance and can manage this process for you. Investment of time and expertise at this stage will minimise the risk of future problems arising from obsolete documentation.
Think About Team Dynamics
Inevitably, your focus will be on practical, logistical matters but it is important to consider how the changes impact your employees’ ability to do their job well. If team members are physically separate and less able to rely on their colleagues in an informal, ad hoc manner, you may want to consider other ways to foster a “team spirit” and to promote other channels of communication. Though team meetings do not always enjoy a good reputation, formalising opportunities to gather and share concerns or even just to socialise may help your employees benefit from the expertise and experience of their colleagues. Regular team communication will also help to create a pleasant working environment where your staff feel supported and connected. Pay particular attention to your junior staff members as their lack of experience makes them especially vulnerable to the negative aspects of isolated working.
Be Flexible About Flexible Working
Given that many of your employees will have been working successfully from home for the last year and a half, it might be construed as unreasonable to demand that they return full-time to the office, and you may have to accept hybrid working as the new normal. It is, however, important to note that there is a difference between a true flexible working application (which is a statutory right and leads to a permanent contractual change) and a request by an employee to work from home from time to time. It is advisable to have a clear policy around this type of semi-permanent or informal request and also, that you mandate certain behaviours around this. Typically, all employees would prefer to work from home on Mondays and Fridays, but this is obviously impracticable and an alternative that suits your staff but is feasible for the business will need to be considered carefully. Staggering the days when employees come into the office may be good for social distancing and satisfy your risk assessment but could impact on team dynamics so bear both in mind when you are making decisions about this.
Start on a Trial Basis
Though you will obviously want to avoid adding to any confusion at this stage, you may want to consider trialling new working conditions for a set period to monitor their success. As long as you communicate to your employees that you intend to do this and you decide beforehand the criteria by which you judge and analyse the success of the trial, this will give you a degree of flexibility to amend some details that are working less well. It will also give your employees an opportunity to feed back their experience of the new measures.
Get in Touch if You Need Support
We appreciate that this is a very complicated area with far-reaching and wide-ranging ramifications. Our lawyers always work from your business perspective so will offer sound, commercial advice to position your company where it needs to be.
Please join Kate Palka on Zoom to discuss any particular concerns you have. She is an Employment Lawyer with vast experience and will be happy to offer her guidance on any issues you have about bringing your employees back to the workplace.
Here’s a reminder of the details:
When
11am on Thursday 5th August.
How to Join
Email info@thelegaldirector.co.uk with your name and company name telling us you’d like to attend the “Returning to Workplaces Q&A” and we will send you the Zoom invitation.
