Challenges for employers & Homeworkers - Working from home, the new normal?

This is the second blog in our series on homeworking, inspired by our director Emma’s interview with STV, where we look at the law on working from home, challenges employers might face as a result, and its future in a post-covid-19 world. In our last blog, we looked at employers’ legal obligations for homeworkers.

In this blog, we focus on potential challenges for employers while staff are working from home and how to overcome these.

Managing data protection and breaches

Every employee has an implied duty not to disclose or use confidential information about the business. This continues to apply to homeworkers. However, without secure data management measures often utilised in office spaces, such as confidential waste disposal, shredding and secure filing, the risk of a data breach is increased. You should therefore remind homeworkers of this duty and may wish to clearly define what information is confidential in their contracts.

The ICO can impose significant fines for serious breaches of GDPR so you should carry out an assessment of the data protection implications of staff working from home – you’ll need to satisfy yourself that the risk is low. The ICO has provided a useful security checklist for employers which highlights the measures employers should be thinking about.

It may also be helpful to introduce an IT policy so that both employer and employee properly understand how data should be managed.

Taking into account childcare responsibilities

Though schools and nurseries have now reopened, many children are still reporting absences because of covid symptoms or being traced as a close contact. In July, the government reported that 14.3% of children were not in class because of coronavirus-related issues, see here. This will create challenges for staff with childcare responsibilities and their employers alike. Employers should consider how they can support staff through this – putting a total ban on looking after children while homeworking is not advisable as it will prevent many from being able to work at all.

It can also be very stressful for staff to juggle childcare responsibilities with work and so it is important to be understanding and sensitive to employees’ individual situations. Again, regular communication will help to ensure employees are getting the right support.

ACAS guidance suggests that employers should be open to flexible working arrangements, which will allow employees to work around their childcare responsibilities. This may include agreeing to different working hours or patterns, reducing targets for an agreed period, etc. – it should be confirmed whether the changes are intended to be temporary, as well as being put in writing.

Employers should also consider whether this policy should be extended to employees who are providing care for elderly relatives or someone who is unwell.

It is also worth noting that furlough is still an available option, though at present it is due to come to an end in September 2021.

Dealing with employee absences and sickness

The current ‘pingdemic’ means that employers will have to consider how to manage employee absences when they are identified as close contact and asked to self-isolate. If an employee’s work can be done from home, you can request this so long as it is in accordance with employee contracts. See our previous blog for varying employee contracts.

If a homeworker becomes unwell with Coronavirus or symptoms which means they are too unwell to work from home, you will first need to check whether their contract entitles them to enhanced sick pay. If there is no contractual right to sick pay, they will be entitled to Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) at a rate of £95.85 per week for up to 28 weeks.

SSP can be claimed from the first day of incapacity unless employees are off sick for any other reason, in which case you will start paying SSP from the fourth qualifying day. If you have fewer than 250 employees, you can reclaim SSP paid in relation to a Covid-19 absence for the first two weeks of sickness.

Next time…

In our next blog, we look at the lifting of all Covid-19 restrictions on 9 August in Scotland and returning to the office.

Want to know more?

If you have any questions about working from home or any of the homeworker topics raised in this blog, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.