News update – 19/3/20
Further to the announcements made yesterday by the UK and devolved governments all schools will be closing from Friday for the foreseeable future, except for vulnerable children and those of key workers (the list of key workers has yet to be announced but is expected later today and will include NHS workers, school staff and delivery drivers).
At the moment private nurseries and childminders in Wales are allowed to remain open but they are expected to follow suit in the coming days in regard to being required to close.
This will obviously impact a large percentage of your workforce as they will be left with little or no childcare, especially as many parents rely on grandparents for childcare, many of which may come under the ‘vulnerable’ category and therefore should be implementing strict social distancing measures.
At the moment the Government have not announced any further support for parents that are forced to take time off due to schools closing and so the current options are:
- Work from home allowing employees to work their hours flexibly throughout the day or week (e.g. evenings, weekends, long hours one day and no hours the next, etc)
- Take annual leave
- Take parental leave (statutory unpaid leave – more information about this in the attached document) – 2020-03-19 – Parental leave guide
- Authorised unpaid leave
It is important when dealing with requests from parents in this situation that we are as senstive as possible and we provide all the support we can, without putting the future viability of the business at risk (e.g. economically and operationally). These are very uncertain times for everyone and in making any decisions consideration must be given to how both employees and employers will be impacted.
There is a lot of concern about how this current situation will impact people’s mental health, so please find below a great resource to share with your employees that may be of use: