Generic Virus Thread

[Davkaus]

Quote

 

From the perspective of those that did the important work so that people had jobs to come back to, they were the ones taking the risk, working their socks off and making sure life went on while the furloughed people sat in their pants in the garden all day drinking wine.

From the perspective of those that were furloughed, they were the ones separated from life, left in a sort of purgatory and imprisoned at home for the good of society whilst those that worked got to keep a pretty normal life, travel, do stuff and interact with other adults.

 

I've had a fun worst of both worlds. Still working full time, but exclusively from home.

I'm very grateful to be secure in my job, which is a position millions aren't in right now, but I'd happily have taken a 20% paycut to have my hours reduced by 100%, to be honest!

Edited May 21, 2020 by Davkaus

[choffer]

2 minutes ago, Genie said:

Could you rotate the staff on/off furlough?

Completely different functions. One is on-site facilities and the other is systems development. One can be easily done remotely, the other is just not needed if we're not using the offices.

[Villarocker]

6 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I think there will be a social gap in workplaces once everyone is back, between those that were kept on to keep things ticking and those that were furloughed.

From the perspective of those that did the important work so that people had jobs to come back to, they were the ones taking the risk, working their socks off and making sure life went on while the furloughed people sat in their pants in the garden all day drinking wine.

From the perspective of those that were furloughed, they were the ones separated from life, left in a sort of purgatory and imprisoned at home for the good of society whilst those that worked got to keep a pretty normal life, travel, do stuff and interact with other adults.

It'll happen when someone at a workplace jokingly says "Yeah, this is what we were doing while you were sat at home on your arse." and they'll be shocked by how angry the response is.

Totally agree with what you've said there. 

To further your post, if you'll excuse me, I think that a lot of companies will suffer further down the line, due to Brexit, the virus or both. That could lead to redundancies and then the whole can of worms will open up again. 

My place has had all the warehouse based staff in working their full 7.5 hour day. The office staff have all either worked from home - doing only 5.5 hours per day - or been furloughed, which has gone down like a lead balloon with the warehouse folks. Imagine January comes and the business isn't doing so well, citing Brexit and the virus. If redundancies are in the pipeline guess who the warehouse guys will be pointing the fingers at? Could anyone blame them? 

[OutByEaster?]

17 minutes ago, Genie said:

Could you rotate the staff on/off furlough?

I don't think that's possible - furlough comes with minimum timespans prescribed from government, from memory (which is probably wrong) you'd have to rotate them in six week blocks or something similar. I'm not sure if that rule changes when the furlough position changes at the end of July and they're going to allow some  furloughed workers to add a bit of part time work.

 

[OutByEaster?]

4 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

I've had a fun worst of both worlds. Still working full time, but exclusively from home.

I'd happily have taken a 20% paycut to have my hours reduced by 100%, to be honest!

I'm at home and I would love some work to do - right now I'd do it for nothing.

 

[foreveryoung]

I think from July you will be able to do part time and claim Furlough to make up your salary. This will be interesting, will we keep the staff on fulltime who restarted the business, or will the furloughed staff work part time. Be some arguing in that.

[OutByEaster?]

4 minutes ago, Villarocker said:

My place has had all the warehouse based staff in working their full 7.5 hour day. The office staff have all either worked from home - doing only 5.5 hours per day - or been furloughed, which has gone down like a lead balloon with the warehouse folks. Imagine January comes and the business isn't doing so well, citing Brexit and the virus. If redundancies are in the pipeline guess who the warehouse guys will be pointing the fingers at? Could anyone blame them? 

The problem is that your office staff will be thinking, "They don't know anything about the impact the virus had, they just got to carry on as normal, we're the ones whose lives were turned upside down" and both of them will be wrong - it's a divide that I think will be very hard to bridge in lots of places.

 

[OutByEaster?]

Just now, foreveryoung said:

I think from July you will be able to do part time and claim Furlough to make up your salary. This will be interesting, will we keep the staff on fulltime who restarted the business, or will the furloughed staff work part time. Be some arguing in that.

It will, I guess there will be company's who take the people that have been working and furlough them to work less, whilst bringing some of the furloughed people in part time - that could actually be quite an effective way of getting things moving. It would mean that all of those people would be at 80% in a lot of cases, which would possibly cause upset with those that are currently working at 100% - furloughed staff would be the new Schrodinger's immigrant.

[chrisp65]

Where I work, it’s two guys that are furloughed that are really suffering.

Their wellbeing is beginning to be a real concern and they’ve stopped contributing to zoom chats and actually both look quite unkempt etc..

It’s becoming apparent now, that having been furloughed for 2 months they are now the least willing to return to any sort of normality of work. They weren’t furloughed for being slackers, far from it, but it’s clearly had a massive impact on them that we need to try and fix.

There are going to be lots of clunking misconceptions about who had the best or the worst of it.

[Seat68]

3 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Where I work, it’s two guys that are furloughed that are really suffering.

Their wellbeing is beginning to be a real concern and they’ve stopped contributing to zoom chats and actually both look quite unkempt etc..

It’s becoming apparent now, that having been furloughed for 2 months they are now the least willing to return to any sort of normality of work. They weren’t furloughed for being slackers, far from it, but it’s clearly had a massive impact on them that we need to try and fix.

There are going to be lots of clunking misconceptions about who had the best or the worst of it.

They aren’t software developers are they?

[foreveryoung]

4 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Where I work, it’s two guys that are furloughed that are really suffering.

Their wellbeing is beginning to be a real concern and they’ve stopped contributing to zoom chats and actually both look quite unkempt etc..

It’s becoming apparent now, that having been furloughed for 2 months they are now the least willing to return to any sort of normality of work. They weren’t furloughed for being slackers, far from it, but it’s clearly had a massive impact on them that we need to try and fix.

There are going to be lots of clunking misconceptions about who had the best or the worst of it.

But but, businesses take mental health very seriously and will do anything to help. Like ignore this may cause a problem.

[chrisp65]

3 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

But but, businesses take mental health very seriously and will do anything to help. Like ignore this may cause a problem.

Well, in fairness to my place, they are taking it seriously, but with minimal experience of how to deal with it.

There aren’t many of us, we all know each other. It’s not some bloke in accounts in a different office, it’s the guy I share the decent coffee with and the guy that drives when we go up the Villa once a season.

 

[foreveryoung]

Cracked me up once. I was in a disaplinery meeting, not for me just as 2nd person. The employee was trying to explain he suffered anxiety which is mental health. Which the HR director demanded to understand why the employee was calling Anxiety metal Heath, an he will get himself in further trouble trying to justify it as some sort of metal health issue.  I just kept quiet until the employee walked out the door, I then told him, his jobs quite safe.

[It's Your Round]

52 minutes ago, Genie said:

Could you rotate the staff on/off furlough?

 

That’s what my place is doing for some people. Around 160 sales reps have been furloughed, (we sell healthcare products to the NHS and obviously can’t access hospitals now). The furlough is for six weeks, and will be reviewed and renewed until it’s feasible to get them back into action. For some of them, they’re able to job share so that each one works for three weeks and is furloughed for three weeks. That’s lessened the impact for a lot of them. We’re very lucky to work for a company that really does look after its people, they will still get 100% of their salary while on furlough. 

That doesn’t mean that they’re all having the time of their lives, I know many that are struggling with the downtime. A lot are extroverted types and really miss the social contact that their role provides. 
 

As for the distribution centre, we too have the same divides that all business’ have. To help reduce that gap we’ve had office staff and sales reps volunteering to work in the warehouse. The really cynical people won’t be impressed by that, but on the whole they’ve appreciated the additional support. It’s meant they can take holidays and they’ve had the chance to get to know each other. It’s much harder to irrationally hate someone when you’ve got to know a bit about them. 

[OutByEaster?]

16 minutes ago, It's Your Round said:

That’s what my place is doing for some people. Around 160 sales reps have been furloughed, (we sell healthcare products to the NHS and obviously can’t access hospitals now). The furlough is for six weeks, and will be reviewed and renewed until it’s feasible to get them back into action. For some of them, they’re able to job share so that each one works for three weeks and is furloughed for three weeks. That’s lessened the impact for a lot of them. We’re very lucky to work for a company that really does look after its people, they will still get 100% of their salary while on furlough. 

That doesn’t mean that they’re all having the time of their lives, I know many that are struggling with the downtime. A lot are extroverted types and really miss the social contact that their role provides. 

As for the distribution centre, we too have the same divides that all business’ have. To help reduce that gap we’ve had office staff and sales reps volunteering to work in the warehouse. The really cynical people won’t be impressed by that, but on the whole they’ve appreciated the additional support. It’s meant they can take holidays and they’ve had the chance to get to know each other. It’s much harder to irrationally hate someone when you’ve got to know a bit about them. 

I think that's excellent and I'm glad your company are taking what seems to be a very good approach to keeping people mixed and occupied whilst protecting the business.

I didn't think furloughing job share was allowed - one of the conditions of furlough is that you don't work - if the furlough is for six weeks, how are your company getting around the law on bringing them in for three weeks?

In short, I have a feeling your company are one of few that are really getting it right, but I have a feeling that if it's working in the way you describe it, it might be illegal.

 

[It's Your Round]

13 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I think that's excellent and I'm glad your company are taking what seems to be a very good approach to keeping people mixed and occupied whilst protecting the business.

I didn't think furloughing job share was allowed - one of the conditions of furlough is that you don't work - if the furlough is for six weeks, how are your company getting around the law on bringing them in for three weeks?

In short, I have a feeling your company are one of few that are really getting it right, but I have a feeling that if it's working in the way you describe it, it might be illegal.

 

To be fair, it might be that they’re only furloughed for three weeks each, I just assumed it was six weeks as I’ve heard that elsewhere. Probably a gap in my understanding as it doesn’t affect me greatly. I’m confident that our in-house lawyer will ensure no laws are broken, it’s a reputable company with the right ethics.

[OutByEaster?]

7 minutes ago, It's Your Round said:

To be fair, it might be that they’re only furloughed for three weeks each, I just assumed it was six weeks as I’ve heard that elsewhere. Probably a gap in my understanding as it doesn’t affect me greatly. I’m confident that our in-house lawyer will ensure no laws are broken, it’s a reputable company with the right ethics.

A quick google says you're absolutely right - the minimum furlough period is three weeks - fair play to your company. Us 80%'ers can only applaud.

[Stevo985]

1 hour ago, OutByEaster? said:

I don't think that's possible - furlough comes with minimum timespans prescribed from government, from memory (which is probably wrong) you'd have to rotate them in six week blocks or something similar. I'm not sure if that rule changes when the furlough position changes at the end of July and they're going to allow some  furloughed workers to add a bit of part time work.

 

Yeah minimum is 3 weeks. You can be re-furloughed though. I was told that was a possibility for me, although doesn't look like that will be happening.

So it would be possible to rotate but doing 3 weeks on, 3 weeks off.

[Stevo985]

1 hour ago, foreveryoung said:

Cracked me up once. I was in a disaplinery meeting, not for me just as 2nd person. The employee was trying to explain he suffered anxiety which is mental health. Which the HR director demanded to understand why the employee was calling Anxiety metal Heath, an he will get himself in further trouble trying to justify it as some sort of metal health issue.  I just kept quiet until the employee walked out the door, I then told him, his jobs quite safe.

I've been in a meeting where a senior director has openly said "If somebody has to go off with stress then I don't want them working for me anyway"

[Villarocker]

2 hours ago, Davkaus said:

I've had a fun worst of both worlds. Still working full time, but exclusively from home.

I'm very grateful to be secure in my job, which is a position millions aren't in right now, but I'd happily have taken a 20% paycut to have my hours reduced by 100%, to be honest!

I asked to be furloughed at one stage because the inhaler, and its dosage, that I take entitled me to be shielded. However, a few days before I was due to go back to work after recovering from the virus the government changed the dosage and it removed my shielding.

Anyway, when I thought I needed shielding I asked my director if he could furlough me for 12 weeks. He said he couldn't and could only do that if the government instructed the business to close. He said I would be on unpaid leave for 12 weeks. The rules changed and I went back to work, reluctantly and nervous because I have to take 4 buses per day to and from work. Last week, I found out that a bunch of office staff have been furloughed. Nice gaffer to have hey.