Dominating headlines since the rush of Brexit was swept away and the health crisis began to take a turn during 2020’s Chinese New Year, Coronavirus is on the tip of everyone’s tongue.
With numbers now hitting over 118,000 across the globe 43 in the Republic of Ireland (as of 11th March 2020), this health scare has swept the world’s population. Take a run to your local supermarket and you’ll be hard pressed to find a bottle of anti-bacterial hand wash, soap or hand sanitizer, while people stockpile as the threat begins to loom much closer to home.
Meanwhile, businesses are also feeling the pinch. Flybe has ground to a halt, while businesses within the hospitality & tourism are beginning to feel the domino effect as people decide to stay at home rather than book their summer holidays. Other businesses are awaiting what the impact will be on the wider economy; how many workers will have to take sick leave, either for themselves or a dependent? How will this impact performance? Will businesses simply have to shut up shop?
As the uncertainty rises, it is crucial that you get your HR team ready & waiting for the coronavirus to hit your workforce. Here’s what you can do about it.
 
Health First
Before we delve into the practical steps that you can take to protect your workers, customers & business during this health epidemic, it is important to note one crucial thing: remember to take health first above all else.
The threat to your business is very real, it’s clear for many businesses across the globe. And while it can be easy to fall into the trap of worrying over the books, it is crucial that you ensure workers, at any level, put their health first. While it is hoped that the hype will die down in the coming months, prepare for the worst-case scenario. You need your staff and they will need you – ensure they have all the support that they need to get back to work healthy and fit in the weeks and months after this virus begins to wane.
 
What Can Your Business Do About Covid-19?
No doubt about it, Coronavirus is a major threat to your business, your livelihood and Ireland’s economy. But here are some steps that you can take in the fight against this illness:
 

1. Safety First

Protecting your staff and your customers is paramount. Whether you are a coffee shop, a newsagent, hotel or library, most workplaces will involve the interaction of many groups of people; staff, customers, stakeholders, suppliers, delivery drivers – we could go on.
As people come & go, it is important to put safety first. Display official HSE signage throughout your place of work as well as electronically to all staff and customers. Encourage staff to take regular breaks to wash hands and care for their hygiene. Ensure the necessary hygeine products are available for all staff & visitors nd if needs be, enforce people to care for their hygiene.
Understandably, there is no need to treat your workforce or customers like children. However, kind but firm & consistent reminders will work best in getting the necessary messages across for hygiene purposes.
 

1. Be Clear On Sick Leave

As the media rushes to provide the latest developments on the virus, it can be easy for your staff to feel overwhelmed by this flood of information, which often could be misconstrued or over-hyped by news publications.
To tackle this, ensure you provide clear policies from your own employer perspective. Ensure all staff are clear on the procedures that they should follow if they feel that either they or someone close to them may have caught the virus.
Task management with the role of overseeing all staff, maintaining regular checks on how their staff are feeling and identifying any possible signs of the virus which should lead to testing of an employee.
If an employee is unfortunate to catch the virus, ensure that they are clear on what sick leave rights they are entitled to and ensure that you fulfil these policies. Maintaining consistent communication between all staff will build trust & provide some clarity to ease any worries staff may feel during this period.
This may sound somewhat regimental, but it is a must if you are to ensure that your business and staff battle coronavirus the right way.
 

1. Provide Work From Home Arrangements Where Possible

We get it – it isn’t always going to be possible to let employees work from home. If they run a warehouse of delivery goods, run operations in a hotel or if your business’ systems are simply impossible to access remotely, working from home will not be possible.
However, many businesses in 2020 have the capacity to allow staff to work from home during this epidemic. If your systems are on a cloud and if staff can operate simply from a laptop and/or phone, this will provide the opportunity for staff to self-isolate form the office, better protecting your workspace, colleagues & customers from the virus.
While it could impact some of your operations, this would allow staff to avoid interacting with large groups of people, making infection less likely and the road to a plateauing of the virus much nearer.
 
 

It’s January and no doubt the gyms are packed with New Year heroes, determined to start 2017 on the right foot and stick to their new year’s resolution. Despite their best intentions, research has shown that almost two thirds of people fail to keep the promise they made to themselves, with almost half (43%) of them giving up in the first month.

​As employers, it may be worth supporting your workers’ commitments to getting fitter, losing weight or living a healthier lifestyle. Here are five of the biggest benefits of having healthy workers.

Reduced Absenteeism
Healthy employees, who have a balanced diet and exercise regularly, are less likely to become ill or suffer an injury. In other words, promoting a healthy lifestyle to your workers can help cut absenteeism. That should mean higher productivity, reduced stress and a happier workplace.

Focus
Healthy eating isn’t just about the long-term goals. The nutritional properties of many fruit and nuts can give your employees a boost to get them through the mid-afternoon slump. That extra energy will help them maintain focus, make less mistakes and get work done.

Engagement
Team sports, like 5-aside football, run clubs not only keep your staff fit but also promote team work, loyalty and enthusiasm. Workplace yoga sessions are becoming increasingly popular. Encouraging your staff to get up from their desks and stretch out offers huge social, cultural and wellbeing benefits.

Mental Wellbeing
Your staff should be healthy in body and mind. Along with back pain, workplace stress, anxiety and depression related illness are the most common reasons for employee absenteeism. As an employer, you have a duty to look after all aspects of your employees’ wellbeing; that means their mental and emotional health as well as their physical.

Employee Recognition
With the talent pool shrinking, employers are looking for new ways to attract workers to their businesses. Gym memberships, healthy snacks and regular campaigns all help to build moral within your existing team are all great perks that will help you stand out from the crowd and demonstrate your appreciation for your staff.

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St. Patrick’s Day, our beloved national holiday, is upon us once again. For some employers it’s a chance to have a little fun and engage with staff. For others it’s an excuse to throw on the garish green cords their wife bought last Christmas. For most it’s a lottery, wondering which employee will be the first to ring-in sick the next day.
Here are some of my top tips on how to embrace the day, what to avoid and measures you can take to limit absenteeism the day after.
The Fun

• Go Green

Encourage everyone in the office to wear something green to work. It’ll also make for a cool team pic.

• Host a Traditional Lunch

And no I don’t mean handing out cans of Guinness to everyone. Why not give your staff a taste of some traditional Irish dishes such:

• Irish stew or Guinness Beef Stew – both are good
• Coddle – a type of sausage and bacon stew from Dublin
• Vegetable soup with a thick slice of brown bread and a knob of real butter
• Boxty – a bread made using potatoes and flour
• Colcannon – mashed spuds with kale and a heap of butter

• Spotifyrish

Compile a playlist of some of the best Irish music. They great thing about Ireland is that we’ve a huge selection to choose from, from The Corrs to U2.

• Freshen Things Up

Why not dress the communal areas in your office with fresh flowers and plants. Tulips come in a wide range of colours – ideal for getting an Irish theme going. Plants have been shown to boost staff morale and productivity too.

• Slainte

Why not make it a staff get-together? Most employees will be joining friends later that evening anyway. Arrange a St. Patrick’s Day tipple at the local so you can toast our snake banishing hero as a team.
 
The Bad

• Curb the Patriotism

Unless you work in Temple Bar, there’s no reason to have the Wolfetones and the Dubliners on full blast. It may be the 1916 Centenary but let’s not get overly patriotic.

• Costumes Are Not Cool

Wearing something green to work can be a bit of fun but you need to toe the line somewhere. Staff dressing up in complete costumes may come across as unprofessional or inappropriate.

• Everything in Moderation

Celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with staff after work is fine but remember, you have a duty of care to them while they’re out with you. When drink is involved any number of things can go wrong, from harassment to assault to personal injury. In short, enjoy the evening but make sure it’s in moderation and have a finishing time for the staff outing.
The Tardy
A survey carried out in 2014 revealed that almost a third of employers in Ireland expected some of their staff to call in sick on 18th March, and almost all Irish employers feared productivity would be down that day thanks to ‘Irish-flu’. I imagine that those figures have changed little in the past two years.
Here are some tips to reduce deter staff from bunking off work:

• Plan the week ahead. Setting strict deadlines for tasks to be completed.
• Remind those working on the 18th that you’ll need them on top form that day as you need to meet the deadlines set.
• Incentivise them by attaching rewards to the completion of certain goals. If they’re working towards something other than ticking another box, then there’s a better chance they’ll not let the St. Patrick’s Day revelry affect them.
• Be flexible – If it is feasible, offer the option of flexi-time to your staff, where they can start and finish an hour later.
• Where a heavier stance needs to be made, refer back to your company’s staff handbook and issue a notice to employees outlining what is deemed acceptable behaviour and what is no, along with information on sick leave entitlements for uncertified illness. The idea of not getting paid might be the motivation they need to drag themselves out of bed on Thursday morning.

 
Wishing you a very happy St. Patrick’s Day!!
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David Bell is Managing Director of The HR Department, outsourced human resources specialists for Irish SMEs.
 
 

All too often, sick leave is one of those grey Human Resources topics that many Irish businesses prefer to ignore. However, having a clear policy and sticking to it, is important. If you don’t already have a policy in place, now is the time to do it.  The possible financial and non-financial losses to your business caused by employee absence can be wide and varied and include:

• Payment of employee while absent, dependent on your policy.
• Payment of staff, perhaps at overtime rate, to cover absent employee.
• Lost income due to cancellation or disruption to appointments.
• Increased workloads on other staff.
• Reduced quality of service to your clients.

Generally, the most effective ways of managing absence are inexpensive and easy to administer. In this article the following questions will be answered:

1.                   Are there any circumstances where an employee has a right to sick pay?

2.                   Should a sick leave policy be written down? 

3.                   What should the policy contain?

1.  Are there any circumstances where an employee has a right to sick pay?

In general there is no statutory right to sick pay in Ireland.  Some employees are covered by registered agreements outlined by a Joint Labour Committee (JLC) that may have a right to sick pay for example the Hairdressing JLC issued in 2002 includes a sick pay scheme. Whilst these JLC’s were found to be unenforceable by the High Court it could be that an employee whose contract was based on the rights set out under the JLC will contractually be entitled to those rights.

2.  Should a sick leave policy be written down?

Some employers do not have a formal sick pay policy but routinely pay employees who are out sick.  This system works well except where one or more employees take advantage of the employer’s generosity, giving rise to difficulties with both the employer and other employees.  If the policy is informal it could in fact become a contractual right of the employee on the basis of ‘custom and practice’ and an employer could find himself or herself bound to paying sick leave without any right to withdraw it unless it is clearly stated in a policy.

It is always preferable, and good human resource practice, for an employer to have the policy, whether they pay sick pay or not, written down and it should be implemented across the board.

3.  What should the policy contain?

It is important that an employee is fully aware of the manner in which the employer deals with absence and the procedures for reporting absence. This may be stated in the employment contract, in the employee handbook or in a separate practice policy document. The absence policy should include the following:

A Statement on the Employer's Approach to Absence

 The policy should state that good attendance is expected; the effect of absenteeism and that absence is measured and tracked by the company or practice. Moreover, the policy should specify that the employer will take any measures it deems appropriate to address unacceptable absenteeism, up to and including amendments to existing benefits.

Employee Notification Requirements

The policy should clearly outline for the employee (1) Who they should contact if they are unable to attend for work and (2) When they should contact, e.g. must they contact in advance of normal working time to allow the employer time to make alternative arrangements or within a number of hours of normal starting time?

The expected frequency of employee contact with the employer during continued periods of absence should also be clearly outlined.

Provision of Medical Certificates

The policy should state when the employee is required to provide a medical certificate, what must be stated on that certificate and the frequency with which those certificates must be submitted. It is important to note that the provision of a medical certificate does not excuse absence; it merely provides an explanation or reason for it.

Payment While Absent

The Terms of Employment Information Act, 1994-2001 places a legal obligation on the employer to advise employees of the terms and conditions (if any) relating to incapacity for work due to sickness or injury. Thus the policy must outline whether or not the employee will be paid during the absence and the conditions relating to payment. For example, payment of sick pay should be conditional on compliance with notification requirements, provision of certificates, submission of state disability cheque or acceptable levels of absence. It is important that the employer clearly specify the grounds on which an employee may be disqualified from payment.

Medical Examinations

The policy should state that the employer reserves the right to refer the employee to an employer-nominated doctor at any time, at the absolute discretion of the employer and that it is a condition of the employee's employment that they attend the doctor and consent to the employer receiving a copy of the doctor's medical report.

In conclusion, whilst most employers are happy to pay an employee for the time they are off sick there may come a time where this is not possible due to frequent or prolonged absences.  Employers should have a clear policy as to how much and for how long sick pay will be paid to avoid   

The contents of this article are necessarily expressed in broad terms and limited to general information rather than detailed analyses or legal advice. Specialist professional advice should always be obtained to address legal and other issues arising in specific contexts.