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
Related FAQs
A new Permitted Development Right has been introduced providing restaurants and cafes, drinking establishments with expanded food provision to temporarily provide takeaway food. The new right came into force on 24 March 2020 and expires on 23 March 2021. The right is subject to three conditions:
- The developer must notify the local planning authority if the building and any land within its curtilage is being used, or will be used, for the provision of takeaway food at any time during the relevant period
- Change of use to the provision of takeaway food under the Right, does not affect the use class which the building and any land within its curtilage had before the change of use
- If the developer changes use to the provision of takeaway food under the Right, the use of the building and any land within its curtilage reverts to its previous lawful use when the Right expires or, if earlier, when the developer ceases to provide takeaway food.
Alcohol will still be subject to the same licensing requirements. At this stage, it is not clear how the Right will interact with any current planning conditions placed on an establishment. Enforcement however remains discretionary. A link to Statutory Instrument 2020 No.330 is below.
The Government’s guidance says walk, cycle or drive to work and avoid public transport if you can. Businesses will need to support workers in adopting alternative travel methods to reduce exposure to the virus. You could consider staggering start and finish times for shifts to reduce commuting during peak hours, or support cycling with secure storage facilities and a drying room.
Yes. For further guidance, please see our FAQs section on Furlough.
Cancellation insurance usually covers certain expenses and loss of profit, as long as the reason for cancellation is not excluded. These exclusion clauses are often quite wide and exclude avian, swine flu, quarantine, and restrictions of movement as a result of communicable disease. This means that you may not be entitled to compensation under this cover.
Employers who have apprentices on fixed-term contracts due to end during the pandemic should discuss arrangements with the apprentices including whether an extension to the contract can be offered to allow them to complete their apprenticeship.