Calls on the Government to offer more clarity and insight on when businesses can start migrating their remote workforce back to business, as usual, have started to peak in the last two weeks. We all want an end to the restrictions that have been so heavily placed on our nation, yet some pressing questions are yet to be answered, and without these answers, the reality of the British population returning to work as deemed normal, seems far away.
Today we are publishing an open letter from our CEO Steve Arnold to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Matt Hancock, to highlight an area of concern:
To the Secretary of State for Health & Social Care.
I wanted to raise a very immediate concern that I think the Government will need to address before employees start returning to work – it concerns sickness tracking for employees at work.
As people start going back to work, it is going to become extremely important for companies to log:
– Who’s off sick
– Why are they off sick
– When did they get symptoms
– When did they isolate
By doing this, employers will be able to:
- Identify who has, or may have had Covid-19
- Immediately communicate to colleagues ASAP who have worked in proximity to the sick employee – telling them that someone (privacy ensured) has displayed possible symptoms of Covid-19. This allows the employees to make better health decisions for themselves and their families e.g. if they live with a vulnerable person, they ought to stay clear of them as they may already have the virus from their colleague.
- Employers will know when it is safe for a sick employee to return to work.
Effective logging and alerting processes through employers could significantly reduce future waves of the illness.
Our absence management platform can help with this entire process and I would love to discuss it with you. With the Government backing and a mandate to provide our platform to British businesses, we could massively help reduce Covid-19 spreading.
Ready to speak if you feel this is of interest.
Yours sincerely,
Steve Arnold
Chief Executive Officer
Edays Absence Management
Harry is Head of Customer Success here at edays, helping organisations to get the very best out of their edays system. His experience in SaaS and HR brings valuable insight into how organisations can better manage their people, processes and productivity.