{"id":1196,"date":"2020-09-01T00:00:40","date_gmt":"2020-09-01T00:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wiseworkplacetraining.com.au\/?p=1196"},"modified":"2021-08-25T15:20:28","modified_gmt":"2021-08-25T05:20:28","slug":"covid-19-decision-making-who-is-essential","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wiseworkplacetraining.com.au\/2020\/09\/01\/covid-19-decision-making-who-is-essential\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19 decision making: Who is essential?"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1606011871968{margin-top: -30px !important;}”][vc_column][vc_column_text]Author: Eden Elliott – Tuesday, September 01, 2020.<\/strong><\/em>[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

As employers, it can be difficult to classify any of your employees\u2019 work as non-essential when every member of your team brings valuable individual strengths. These decisions can also pose significant risks where employers and employees want different things, sometimes leading to employees submitting appeals or complaints about their employer\u2019s determination.<\/p>\n

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We have all been surprised by COVID-19, and many employers have found a need to quickly develop working from home and pandemic policies to support their decision-making around who stays home and who goes to work. What should these policies include?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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  • Employers should always base their decision making on government directions at the applicable time, and appoint a designated officer to monitor and record new guidelines as they are issued. You don\u2019t want to get caught having relied on old advice, or missed a crucial development. Any policies should be driven by this process of checking and applying guidelines and identifying responsible decision-makers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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    • Review your other policies and make sure they capture the right circumstances. Does your definition of misconduct or bullying include online and remote behaviour? How are you upholding your data privacy obligations for staff working from home? Does your sick leave policy accommodate staff getting tested and waiting for results?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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      • For larger organisations, it might be appropriate to decide working arrangements based on specific employee roles, which can provide employees with certainty and consistency around their futures. This can also increase practicality by allowing simpler identification of the working from home needs of each role.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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        • Consultation is key to avoiding complaints, which means the policy should provide for employees to have the opportunity to request and make their case for how they prefer to work regardless of their role. These submissions should be kept private and confidential and should invite employees to nominate practical, health & wellbeing, productivity and any other reasons. However, employers must take care to demonstrate that these submissions have been considered in any subsequent decision, and not ignored.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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          • Put measures in place to support your staff while working from home and from the office in pandemic circumstances. Check in with them regularly, acknowledge the difficulties they face, and never forget to recognise their successes. Consider Employee Assistance Programs. Many employers have increased accountability measures for staff working at home, and it is important to minimise feelings of micromanagement by recognising that these can also be a tool for identifying & addressing increased stressors and other difficulties that take up your employees\u2019 time.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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            • Put your duty of care first. At the end of the day, the wellbeing and safety of employees must take precedence, regardless of the short term frustration, decreased productivity and cultural changes to which working from home can contribute. The pandemic will not last forever, and an employer\u2019s response to crises can have a significant impact on employee loyalty, retention and recruitment options in the future.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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              • Get expert advice. If you find it difficult to build your processes, or if you receive complaints from staff, WISE can assist in reviewing decisions and policies to help meet employer obligations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>[vc_column_text]Call WISE on 1300 580 685<\/strong> to help you develop your pandemic policy or respond to staff complaints.[\/vc_column_text][vc_separator color=”pink”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                [vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1606011871968{margin-top: -30px !important;}”][vc_column][vc_column_text]Author: Eden Elliott – Tuesday, September 01, 2020.[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text] As employers, it can be difficult to classify any of your employees\u2019 work as non-essential when every member of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1201,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseworkplacetraining.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseworkplacetraining.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseworkplacetraining.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseworkplacetraining.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseworkplacetraining.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseworkplacetraining.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseworkplacetraining.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseworkplacetraining.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseworkplacetraining.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiseworkplacetraining.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}