How do you manage redundancy and standing down employees during a pandemic?
For businesses, one of the most difficult factors of the current COVID-19 pandemic is having to stand down employees or make them redundant.
Redundancy
No employer wants to make the choice to make some of their staff redundant. Our friends at HR and business advisory firm Businessary have provided resources for employers who are in this situation.
“If you have exhausted all other options and you do need to consider redundancies, it is essential to ensure that despite these unprecedented times, your employees are given a fair and proper redundancy process. Under Fair Work, Awards and registered agreements have a consultation process which provides the required steps to follow before you end employment on the grounds of redundancy.”
– Businessary COVID-19 Redundancy Advice
Consultation process will require communication with your employees about the potential change in the business and how that might affect people specifically, any steps the business has taken to try to avoid or minimise the negative impact on the employees as well as giving affected employees an opportunity to propose solutions or alterative outcomes.
Businessary recommends methods to help ease the stress and impact on your staff. These include:
- Reducing uncertainty. Have open communication about when decisions are likely to be made; offer financial advice and entitlements; and keep staff informed about future options for re-employment.
- Outplacement or job seeking support. Businessary has a range of outplacement services to support career transition and exit smoothly. This includes career experts and psychologists who can provide support and advice to workers.
- Sympathy for exited staff. Supporting your staff during this time is imperative. Be open to hearing how they are feeling and provide services they can access, such as this Beyond Blue guide.
- Care for the staff that remain. Your remaining staff will have lost co-workers and friends. They may also be feeling the same uncertainty. Keep everyone informed of the ongoing processes and be honest about their own job security. Provide retraining where appropriate and also mental health support.
Standing down staff and forced leave
The Fair Work Act allows employers to ‘stand down’ staff without pay when work has to stop because of a government directive or some other reason where the employer cannot be held responsible. In this situation, employees are still employed but ‘on hold’.
Leave entitlements will continue to accrue during stand down. An employee can also request annual or long service leave, if appropriate.
In addition, an employer can direct staff to take annual leave, as long as employees have accrued enough, during a shutdown period.
However, Businessary recommends that before any employer goes down the path of letting staff go, they consider whether there are other options available to them.
Options may include alternative working arrangement like working from home or temporarily reduced duties, as well as potential eligibility for Government subsidies and financial support such as the Job Keeper payments, that could help avoid potential redundancies.
If you would like to talk to someone about any of the issues above, please get in touch with Businessary for a free 20-minute consultation.
