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WWSTWD?
During lockdown 1.0 all office staff worked from home successfully.
They were told to return to the office BEFORE the government said it was ok to do so.
When the government announced to "work from home if you can" we were told to continue attending the office.
During lockdown 1.0 and up until last week, no social distancing or face mask wearing was enforced in the workplace.
Now, facing lockdown 2.0 we are being told that it will be "business as usual" and we are all expected to attend the office.
I'm not normally one to go against the grain but I am getting fed up of the "profit above all else" mentality of the upper management. We have had two confirmed positive cases amongst office staff in the last two weeks.
Business is manufacturing.
Fairly sure that the government guidance is for manufacturing to stay open.
EDIT....Sorry, just seen that you are refering specifically to office staff. As ever in this whole situation, I'd imagine that it is a grey area open to a number of different interpretations.
In manufacturing I suspect there are people who HAVE to be on site.
Do those people think people working from home are skiving?
Or they are more important that the production staff to make sure they are safe?
These are the challenges your boss will be facing.
The rules (so far) read to me that in manufacturing you can do what the hell you want.
Idiotic short termism though.
all it needs is an infection in the office and they are shut down for a few weeks
Fairly sure that the government guidance is for manufacturing to stay open.
Yes thats right, but not everyone in manufacturing HAS to be onsite and almost all the office staff can work from home.
During lockdown 1.0 the business stayed open throughout, by citing a dubious connection with utlities (we make plumbing products)
all it needs is an infection in the office and they are shut down for a few weeks
We have had two positive tests in the last two weeks, no shutdown. If it was my business i would want to protect my staff, the last thing i would want is them all to be off work after spreading covid to each other.
Ok that's worrying.
that must be some risk assessment to show no risk
During lockdown 1.0 the business stayed open throughout, by citing a dubious connection with utlities (we make plumbing products)
Non essential retail was supposed to close, manufacturing was allowed to remain open.
I'd report the business, doesn't sound like they're prepared to make any concessions to the pandemic. And they should be, clearly.
Are you actually manufacturing (shop floor) or some kind of support function where you can work from home (eg: finance, sales)?
NWS, and from my understanding based on what we are doing at my place, it's the responsibility of your employer to adjust work environment to make it as safe as they can so eg: they should be enforcing face coverings or proper PPE/RPE as necessary, putting appropriate distancing in place (eg: taped off areas, screens for separation and so on)
To not do so is i think a breach and if you were kind I'd ask to see their H&S risk assessment that shows why they don't need to do this / offer to help them build an appropriate control measures procedure. If you wanted to be unkind, a call to the HSE or local authority
https://www.hse.gov.uk/coronavirus/social-distancing/index.htm
It would be interesting if someone caught CV19 as a result of management's failure to implement appropriate control measures and that person became severely ill or worse, what sort of charges could be brought for the failure.
while I was typing and looking up, I see more info has been added.
CV19 is a notifiable incident AFAIK, so if there is a thought these employees have caught it at work the consequences could be severe.
I work for a manufacturing company in the office.
Since the first lockdown, a rough outline of our Covid measures are:
- Auto face detecting thermometers at the entrance. Stand in front of it for two seconds & it tells you if you are safe to continue.
- face masks everywhere, unless sat at your desk or in the socially distanced seating canteen area
- hand sanitisers all over the place
- screens between all desks & massively reduced meeting room capacity
- barely anyone in the office - a real skeleton crew. If you need to come in you must get approval from your line manager who looks at the expected headcount for that day & confirms or denies your request. You have to add the visit to a shared calendar so everyone has visibility.
I have been in 3x since March.
Our production area has strict rules about number of people working on a machine - luckily our kit is quite large, so easy to have a couple of people on the machine at once.
All other Covid precautions in place on the shop floor too.
I would expect that to be the sort of thing that every company was trying to do & if they were blatantly disregarding people's health, I wouldn't have too many qualms about kicking up a fuss.
You can report it but I very much doubt anything would be done about it. The core business is allowed to stay open (manufacturing) so the bosses can argue that the office staff are needed on-site to oversee/manage that operation correctly. You might have an argument to fight about the social distancing issues inside the building but you'll have more luck going through your union on that one, govt officials will be too busy going after the pubs that aren't serving food with the pint and other easy targets.
EDIT: not that I don't fully agree with your concerns, they are 100% valid but be realistic about what enforcement could be done.
*i believe*
local authorities will be after the pubs not serving food, etc., not that anyone can after Thursday anyway.
The HSE will be after companies that aren't following HSE guidance.
I work for a manufacturing company in the office.
Since the first lockdown, a rough outline of our Covid measures are:– Auto face detecting thermometers at the entrance. Stand in front of it for two seconds & it tells you if you are safe to continue.
– face masks everywhere, unless sat at your desk or in the socially distanced seating canteen area
– hand sanitisers all over the place
– screens between all desks & massively reduced meeting room capacity– barely anyone in the office – a real skeleton crew. If you need to come in you must get approval from your line manager who looks at the expected headcount for that day & confirms or denies your request. You have to add the visit to a shared calendar so everyone has visibility.
I have been in 3x since March.
Our production area has strict rules about number of people working on a machine – luckily our kit is quite large, so easy to have a couple of people on the machine at once.
All other Covid precautions in place on the shop floor too.I would expect that to be the sort of thing that every company was trying to do & if they were blatantly disregarding people’s health, I wouldn’t have too many qualms about kicking up a fuss.
This sounds like a top company who are doing everything they can to protect their employees whilst keeping the business running.
Our company seem like they are doing the minimum they can get away with while trying to grab as much profit as possible with little to no regard for employee wellbeing.
What about hypothetically in a small company where there is absolutely no need to be in the office? Obviously the imagined employee for this scenario can't shop them because they will lose their job.
Also hypothetically is there any way for the employee to find out if they were furloughed?