Author: Spanish Chamber

BLOG POST BY OUR MEMBER BUCKLES SOLICITORS LLP

The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), announced by the UK Government on 20 March 2020, introduces several measures to help mitigate the economic impact on businesses.

The Scheme introduces the concept of furlough leave which allows all UK employers to reclaim 80% of their wage costs, up to a maximum of £2500 per month per employee. They can also reclaim the related employer NI and minimum pension auto-enrolment contributions.

The intention of this scheme is to allow businesses to retain employees through a period of enforced inactivity due the coronavirus situation and reduce the need for redundancies. All employees on the payroll on 28 February and under a PAYE scheme are covered by the CJRS. The Scheme is backdated to 1 March and available for an initial period of three months, which the Government can extend if necessary. It’s anticipated that the HMRC portal will be accessible to employers from the end of April.

Before reclaiming wage costs from HMRC, employers must agree the period of furlough leave with the employees concerned. Employees must be furloughed for a minimum of three weeks and furloughed employees are not permitted to conduct any work during the furlough period. Employers can rotate the allocation of furlough leave among their employees if they wish.

Employees who have been made redundant since 28 February can be furloughed if rehired. Any employees currently on sick pay or self-isolating can only be furloughed when these periods end.

Some employees have already had their working hours and pay reduced temporarily since the crisis began. Employers cannot seek to reclaim wages costs for employees who continue to work in this capacity. Reducing hours and pay may be attractive to employers seeking to continue trading, however, in most cases, this approach is likely to prove more expensive than taking advantage of the furlough leave scheme.

In summary, the process that employers must follow when accessing the CJRS is as follows:

• Determine which employees you wish to place on furlough leave and notify them of your intention. It would be good practice to have sound objective grounds for this selection process to avoid allegations of discrimination arising. This can also involve requesting volunteers to take furlough leave.
• Agree furlough leave with the employees concerned. For most, this will be a formality as furlough leave will be a preferable option compared to redundancy, however, it is possible that an employee may refuse to agree to the change in which case other options such as reduced hours/pay or redundancy may need to be considered.
• Confirm furlough status in writing to employees concerned. This is an eligibility requirement for accessing the CJRS.
• Submit details to HMRC about the furloughed employees and their earnings through the new online portal when this goes live
• Ensure that furloughed employees do not continue to work for you for the applicable period.

We’re helping employers with this approach to help protect their employees’ jobs and the ongoing viability of their businesses. If you require any help, please contact us.

www.buckles-law.co.uk

Giles Betts: https://www.buckles-law.co.uk/about/people/giles-betts/

BLOG POST BY OUR MEMBER CRIPPS PEMBERTON GREENISH

The Government has introduced a Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) to support businesses whose operations have been severely affected by the coronavirus crisis. This scheme reimburses the business for the employment costs of the employees they would otherwise need to make redundant or to lay off temporarily without pay. The scheme is similar to emergency legislation in Spain allowing for the temporary suspension of employment contracts.

The CJRS supports an arrangement of ‘furlough’ during which the employer can claim reimbursement from HMRC of 80% of the employee’s gross salary, up to a cap of £2,500 per month while the employee is not working. Commission and bonuses cannot be included in the claim. The employer can also reclaim employer National Insurance contributions and some employer pension contributions. Unlike in Spain, there is no requirement for the employer to commit to retaining the employee for any length of time after it is able to re-start its business activities.

All UK organisations with employees are eligible to receive support under the scheme, provided they had an operative PAYE payroll on 28^th February. This is understood to include foreign companies provided they operate a UK payroll through PAYE.

The CJRS applies to any employees of the business, and other workers paid through PAYE such as casual staff, so long as they were on the organisation’s payroll at 28^th February. Employees hired since 1^st March are not eligible. It will not cover consultants and contractors who are outside PAYE, who may be eligible for support under the separate Self-Employed Income Support Scheme.

The scheme can also be used where a business chooses to re-hire employees who were dismissed on redundancy grounds from 1^st March. In this situation the employer may require the repayment of any redundancy payments which have already been paid.

Unlike in Spain, the scheme does not directly support employees who are put onto reduced hours and pay (short-time working), and both employer and employee may be better off financially if the employee is instead fully released from their work duties. The scheme also cannot be used for employees who were already on unpaid leave before 28^th February.

In order to access funding from HMRC, the business has to designate affected employees as ‘furloughed workers,’ and communicate this change to the employees in writing. This is likely to require the consent from the employees under their employment contract. It is best practice to set out in writing the furlough arrangements and the employee’s express consent to this temporary variation of their contractual terms. An employee placed on furlough may not carry out any work duties for their employer. The minimum period of furlough is 3 weeks.

The business then has to submit information to HMRC about the furloughed employees and their earnings through a new online portal. It will take some weeks before this system is up and running, and the Government expects the HMRC to start making payments by the end of April 2020. The CJRS will initially operate for the period between 1^st March 2020 to 1^st June 2020.

Businesses will not be obliged to make up the 20% difference (or higher difference for employees whose salary is over £37,500) or any part of this difference, although the expectation is that they will do so if they can.

Cripps Pemberton Greenish is keen support Spanish Chamber of Commerce members with the implementation of furlough arrangements for their employees.  We have put together a bespoke package which combines guidance, documentation and hands-on advice.  It includes:

• Guidance and FAQ’s to explain and support you with the process of implementing the scheme
• A letter to staff explaining the scheme and the plans to put your staff on furlough leave
• A letter to specific staff seeking their agreement to furlough leave and to vary their terms of employment
• A follow up call (of up to 1 hour) or email to discuss any specific questions or concerns once the guidance and letters have been considered.

The fee for the package is £800 plus VAT. For more information, please contact us on 01892 506 329 or email laura.goodhew@crippspg.co.uk.

 

 

 

 

BLOG POST BY OUR MEMBER FASTRACKTOREFOCUS COACHING

 

It is a reality that nowadays most of the people are working from home.

It’s only fair that you manage them now the same way you when you were office based. Specially to help them during these difficult circumstances

Ideally you and your employees should run your business in the same way, but reality is that remotes’ situation is different — and you’ll need a different approach in order to help them thrive. In most cases, you’ll need to work extra hard on your management fundamentals (like be even more proactive about giving feedback), plus make some special, remote-friendly adjustments. Here’s how:

1. Have early and ongoing conversations with remotes around when they should — and shouldn’t — act without you.

Remote team members often face a longer lag time when seeking your input

To avoid these potential snags, proactively be direct about your preferred level of involvement, too (e.g., “Please go ahead and publish blog posts if I haven’t provided feedback by the deadline”). And come to an agreement on the level of autonomy you each think is reasonable.

2. Proactively block off time to be more accessible to remotes.

Most managers are so busy they have a hard-enough time noticing when something’s going on with a team member who sits a few desks away

The solution? Don’t just tell your remotes, “I’m here if you need me.” Block off availability to actually be there for them

3. Specifically allocate a bit of 1-on-1 time for casual chatting with remote team members.

Isn’t chitchat a waste of precious time? Only if you overdo it. On the other hand, if you skip it entirely, you’re missing a great opportunity to build rapport and two-way trust with your remotes and signal to them that you don’t see them as work machines. Plus, small talk can provide a better window into your remotes’ emotional state — for example, whether they’re feeling isolated or burned out during these difficult circumstances

4. Frequently ask input during virtual meetings.

Ask yourself: Are your remote team members actively contributing to the creativity and progress of the team? Or are they just a face on the wall or an invisible voice in the speaker, struggling to jump into the conversation?

Now more than ever, you want your employees to speak up and contribute. To be sure remotes get ample airtime, you could assign them to lead a portion of your meeting agenda or use facilitation techniques to quiet other participants

5. Help your remotes face and overcome professional-development disadvantages

Being remote really can put them at a professional-development challenge. You’ll both need to work harder to make sure they get ample learning opportunities and coaching and ongoing feedback continue happening even if over the phone. Coaching is a crucial tool during times of change.

Hope these 5 tips help you to overcome the challenges of working with remote teams.

We will be talking more about How To Achieve Results In Unpredictable Times during our webinar on April 21^st. SECURE YOUR SPACE HERE

For more information about  Your Member’s Discount for Corporate & Executive Coaching and workshops please contact me at fastracktorefocus@fastracktorefocus.com or BOOK HERE

 

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BLOG POST BY OUR MEMBER TECHNORIZON:

Last Wednesday, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic, a move that will surely boost the number of companies asking employees to work from home. Working from home might be convenient and safer for your employee. However, it is not secure for the business and data they are accessing remotely, especially if its sensitive data, such as private customer information.

Remote workers are at higher risk of being hacked because they are likely to be using less secure computer settings. With that in mind, we have decided to put together a few “cyber hygiene” tips and advices on how to be more secure while working remotely.

• Use a VPN which effectively encrypts data travelling between a remote computer and the work network.

• Multi-factor authentication to grant access to company’s data only after successfully presenting two or more pieces of evidence.

• Check for software and security updates on their devices to ensure they are always fully protected

• Being warier of clicking on suspicious links, especially those related to coronavirus, seeing that attackers are banking that fear will better prompt victims to click without thinking.

• Employees are usually the weakest link in cybersecurity. Make sure you do the required training to keep them aware and on track of the cyber-security measures and guidelines in place.

Stay safe everyone!

Would you like to know more about our member Technorizon, click here.