What to do if one of your employees has Covid-19

Workplace Safety and Wellbeing

This downloadable pdf is ideal as a poster which can be used for reference throughout the workplace. Both employers and employees must be educated on the protocols involving symptoms of COVID-19.

Owners and employers should have strict protocols set in place to improve the safety of the workplace in these extraordinary times. The government has laid out advice and rules as to workplace safety, you can find these here.

Within lockdown, it is law that employers make staff stay at home if it is reasonable to do so. Within the tiered alert system, regional rules may vary. Find the rules for your region here.

What is the definition of a close contact?

A close ‘contact’ is a person who has been close to someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 any time from two days before the person was symptomatic up to 10 days from the onset of symptoms (this is when they’re infectious to others).

This could be a person who:

• Spends significant time in the same household or workspace.
• Is a sexual partner.
• Has had face-to-face contact (within one metre), including being coughed on / having skin-to-skin.
• Physical contact/in contact within one metre for one minute.
• Has been within 2 metres of them for more than 15 minutes
• Has travelled in a small vehicle, or in a large vehicle or plane with them.

Tips for HR members

Team members on a lower income who can’t work from home may be eligible for a £500 Test and Trace Support Payment.

Employers with fewer than 250 employees are able to use the Coronavirus Statutory Sick Pay Rebate Scheme to claim back any Coronavirus related Statutory Sick Pay they have paid to their employees.

Feel free to print out this guide and place it in a visible location for all line managers to refer to. The link for the pdf which can be printed is located here.

To view the government’s advice on what an employer should do if an employee shows symptoms of COVID-19 in the workplace, see here.