Ending of Coronavirus restrictions will require balancing act for employers, says Shropshire lawyer

John Merry, head of employment at Lanyon Bowdler Solicitors, said there would be pros and cons for employers if the rules change as expected on July 19.

He said: “There will be commercial benefits to many employers in bringing employees back into the workplace once the guidance ends that all employees who can work from home should do so, as a result of such things as improved team working.

“In addition, the mental health of some employees has been adversely affected by the isolation of homeworking, and allowing such employees to return to work would obviously alleviate that.

“However, there is another side to the coin, with many employees working as, if not more, efficiently from home.

“Therefore, many employees will prefer to work from home all or some of the time – and forcing such employees to return to work may negatively impact on morale and, in turn, on productivity and staff turnover.

“Also, maintaining workspace will result in higher ongoing costs for many employers than continuing to facilitate at least a certain level of homeworking.

“Further, Covid infections are rising, and they are expected to continue to rise as restrictions ease.

“Whilst it appears that vaccination is breaking the link between infections and hospitalisation and death, even the fully vaccinated can be infected, and anybody who is infected will have to continue to self-isolate – whether or not, as might well still be the case, they are actually unfit to work.

“Further, whilst the Health Secretary has just announced that from August 16, those who have had a second jab at least two weeks before will no longer have to self-isolate after close contact with people who have been infected, that will still leave a great many employees who are subject to a requirement to self-isolate if they have such close contact for some weeks to come.

“Another factor for employers to take into account, therefore, when deciding what extent, if at all, to relax current Covid-safe measures – and not just homeworking – is to what extent they wish to attempt to minimise the spread of Covid in workplaces to continue to protect the health of their employees and their families as much as they can, and to minimise absenteeism.

“Note also that the Government advises that people should ‘continue to consider the risks of close contact with others, particularly if you are clinically extremely vulnerable, or not yet fully vaccinated’. “As regards the clinically extremely vulnerable, it will in many cases arguably be a reasonable adjust required of many employers under the equality legislation to continue to facilitate homeworking and/or apply other Covid-safe measures - this would be a matter for legal advice in individual cases.”