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What if an employee cannot work from home but is genuinely afraid of travelling / going into work – what options do I have?

There is less guidance in respect of whether an employee can refuse to go into the workplace as a result of health and safety concerns about their commute. An employer’s duties to ensure the health, safety and welfare of its employees only extend to the workplace or where an employee is acting in the course of their employment. This does not include the risks of travelling to and from work by public transport.

As there are various ways in which an employee can travel to work, it will be difficult for them to legitimately refuse to come to work due to their commute.  Employers should discuss any concerns with the employee and seek to find an appropriate resolution. The government has published guidance on safer travel for passengers during the Covid-19 pandemic and employers should encourage flexibility as far as possible, such as allowing employees to travel at off-peak times and staggering workers’ hours.

Related FAQs

What other options are there to reduce employment costs?

If you don’t want to make redundancies, or if you can’t reduce employee resource, either in a particular department or across the workforce as a whole, then you need to think about alternatives to redundancy.

Equally, you may want to flex the resource you have available to you – without making drastic changes.  For example you may want to consider:

  • unpaid leave and sabbaticals
  • retraining and redeploying
  • forcing annual leave
  • flexible working
  • capability issues
  • lay off
  • short time working
  • reductions in salary
  • reductions in working hours
  • changing to shift working
Is there a time limit on making an insurance claim?

All policies will impose a stringent obligation, often with time limits, for you to notify insurers of circumstances that may give rise to a potential claim under the policy and non-compliance may well negate your cover. If therefore you have potential cover under your policy you must make a precautionary notification to Insurers as soon as possible.

How will normal salary be calculated for those with no normal working hours, such as zero hours workers?

For those with variable pay, if the employee has been employed for a full 12 months before the period claimed for you, can take the higher of:

  • The same month’s earnings in the previous year; or
  • Average monthly earnings from the 2019/20 tax year.

For those who have been employed for less than one year you can use the average of their monthly earnings since they began their employment until the date they were furloughed.

If they have been employed for less than a month, work out a pro rata for their earnings so far, and claim for 80%.

What is the reaction to the funding?

The reaction from NCVO is that this is an important first step.  However, it will not stop well run charities from closing and others will look very different in a few months’ time.

Have you had any safeguarding issues in relation to staff they see and do you follow your normal safeguarding pathway?

Safeguarding issues are relatively uncommon, however, if they do occur, the normal safeguarding procedure of the organisation should be followed.