Coronavirus - our second employer survey

Our first benchmarking survey took a snapshot of the position from 5 to 9 March 2020 as employers began to take precautions. Our second benchmarking survey was carried out between 16 and 19 March 2020 as the situation with Coronavirus rapidly evolved. Responses came from 70 HR leaders and in-house counsel in a cross-section of businesses collectively employing over 200,000 employees.

Key conclusions

Our survey indicates that:

• Working normal hours from home looks set to be the initial expectation for parents as schools close. Clearly the typical rules on not trying to work at the same time as looking after children have been set aside, but the big question is how parents will manage this juggling act.
• However, employers do look ready to be flexible. Nearly half of employers are planning on allowing flexing of hours and only a tiny proportion are expecting employees to put in place alternative care arrangements for their children.
• Employers moved quickly to prioritise keeping in touch with employees who are working from home due to Coronavirus. Significant effort is being put into maintaining communications and social contact. Only a small number of employers have carried out risk assessments, though, and we expect this to change.
• Support for employees who are sick or self-isolating remains strong, Employers look to be maintaining or even improving on company sick pay arrangements for employees suffering with Coronavirus and are supporting those in self-isolation.

Parents look set to work full hours from home during school closures

Our survey took place while schools were still open, but we asked employers about their contingency plans if schools closed or care arrangements otherwise broke down. Unsurprisingly, more than 90% of employers who responded were planning to put in place homeworking arrangements, which is in line with the common expectation that parents will now try to carry on working alongside looking after their children at home.

Nearly half of employers (44%) were planning to flex employee hours so that parents could, for example, work after bedtime, but interestingly only 11% were pro-actively planning on a reduction in hours so that parents can combine periods of care with periods of work.

58% of employers said they were planning on staff taking time off, with approaches split between unpaid leave (in line with the statutory right to dependants leave), paid leave in line with the employers’ usual policy on dependants’ leave or paid leave beyond the usual limits in the dependants policy.

Very few employers (4%) were intending to ask employees to put in place alternative care arrangements, suggesting that employers are being pragmatic and are not expecting employees to find someone else to look after their children, at least not for now.

Interestingly, 11% of employers reported not having come up with a plan by the time our survey closed on 19 March, although that is likely to change imminently.

Overall, the picture shows that working normal hours from home looks set to be the initial expectation for many parents, although more than half of employers are planning on employees taking leave. It remains to be seen if the “usual hours” starting point can survive the reality check of home schooling and childcare in the weeks ahead.

Communications and social connections are the priority for homeworkers

We asked employers what measures they were putting in place to protect the health and wellbeing of employees working from home because of the Coronavirus outbreak.

80% of employers who responded to the survey reported that they were already requiring line managers to keep in regular contact with homeworking employees and a similar percentage (81%) said they were encouraging use of Skype/video calls rather than telephone and emails. 52% said they were encouraging social interaction between employees (such as virtual lunch clubs).

68% of employers said they were signposting their existing mental health support but only 13% had already increased mental health provision, suggesting that existing services could soon come under strain.

Significantly, only 10% of employers have carried out risk assessments, even though employers do need to take care to comply with their health and safety obligations. We expect risk assessments to rise up the agenda as employers and employees get to grips with the practicalities of homeworking.

All of this points to employers making significant efforts to ensure staff have regular human contact. The immediate priority for homeworkers was ensuring good communication and social interaction. The next step will be to think about the risks of homeworking and what additional measures could be put in place.

Clamp down on face-to-face meetings

Our first benchmarking survey showed that employers were getting ahead of the government in moving to impose greater restrictions on business travel than it was recommending. This trend is continuing, with 83% of employers responding to our new survey confirming that they are restricting face-to-face external meetings, and more than half (56%) reporting that they are also restricting face-to-face internal meetings. The comments we received from survey participants revealed that some employers are introducing social distancing etiquette into their meetings, such as requiring employees to stay apart from each other in meeting rooms.

Employers generally not interfering in employee travel choices

Only a very small minority (6%) of employers responding to the survey are proactively asking employees to cancel their own travel plans, with the majority leaving this to employees’ judgment and expecting them to adhere to government guidance. Additional comments made by survey participants explained that, while employers are wanting more information about their employees’ travel plans, they are not looking to control them.

Support for those self-isolating or sick remains strong

Employers look to be maintaining or even improving on company sick pay arrangements for employees suffering with Coronavirus, with over 80% paying company sick pay over and above statutory sick pay and 13% reporting special arrangements. Comments suggest that such arrangements tend to be more favourable - for example, full pay (rather than sick pay) and excluding Coronavirus from usual absence triggers.

Employers also look to be supporting employees who are choosing to self-isolate purely as a precaution (when not sick or under government advice to self-isolate), with 34% reporting that they were paying full pay even if the employee could not work from home.

This suggests that employers are keen to do the right and responsible thing, and do not want to risk employees coming to work if they are sick or are so worried that they have put themselves into precautionary isolation. A key question is whether employers will be able to maintain this approach over the coming weeks.

Some employees may need to work extra hours, although most are not expected to need to do so

Despite the expected downturn in business, a quarter of employers responding to our survey were expecting to ask some employees to work extra hours as a result of the Coronavirus outbreak, and 5% are already doing so. This might be, for example, to cover for absent colleagues and support business critical teams, or where employees work in IT.

Homeworking is taking hold

Employers are taking a range of approaches to homeworking. 41% are already asking employees to work from home on an ongoing basis, with 54% advising vulnerable employees to work from home. This reveals the huge increase in the number of temporary homeworkers, yet also suggests there could still be further to go before everyone is meeting the government guidance on social distancing. Not all employees can work from home of course, which is a major concern of clients in the retail, hospitality and retail sectors.

Divergent views on naming employees with suspected or confirmed Coronavirus

A common question from employers who have been struggling to keep their workplaces open is what they can or should tell colleagues if a co-worker reports that they have suspected or confirmed Coronavirus. Employers seem to be split on this issue, with a third notifying colleagues about the situation, a third trying to avoid naming the co-worker and 23% asking the co-worker’s consent before naming them. Of course many employers have not yet encountered this situation in practice.

Employers poised to close offices

Some employers reported that they have already closed their offices, whereas half of employers responding to our survey say they will close the office temporarily if there is a confirmed case of Coronavirus.

Next steps

Our survey indicates that employers should now:

• Keep arrangements for parents under review – can they really juggle usual hours with childcare?
• Keep up efforts to stay in touch with homeworkers – but don’t overlook risk assessments and review take-up of mental health support services

Click on the image below to view our infographic.

There will no doubt be new challenges and questions to come. We will be circulating the full results of our survey to participants who took part. For more support and advice, visit our dedicated Coronavirus hub.