Can I Still Work During The Lockdown?

25 March 2020

On Monday 23 March 2020, the Government has announced that we should all stay at home at all times except for going to medical appointments, buying supplies, undertaking one form of exercise per day, or those that have to travel to and from work, if absolutely necessary.

It is this last group that we are concerned with here.

It is, of course, confusing for many people – both employers and employees – whether the work and business qualifies within the bracket of employees having to travel to and from work and thankfully, there is some further guidance from the Government in the shape of "Full Guidance on staying at home and away from others

The guidance appears to now be much clearer, after some back and forth. It is now the case that employees and workers who are either key workers, or undertake work that simply cannot be done from home, will be able to travel to work as normal but, understandably, they must adhere to the social distancing rules and stay at least 2 metres away from anyone else. The recommendation is also to avoid travel by public transport as much as possible (so, for example, London is supportive of this because TfL have frozen all congestion charges at the moment to allow people to drive into the city instead of using public transport where possible).

From an employer's perspective, whilst it is recommended that they make a hard consideration as to whether their workforce can work from home and what the possible set up would be, it does mean that if absolutely not possible then the employees will be able to travel to work and attend the workplace. 

Equally, this would be a relief for employees who were concerned and can now rest assured that they will not be in hot water for commuting to work during this lockdown, and so if you must travel to work then you are able to do so – but it is strongly recommended that you take all reasonable precautions in this regard.

We appreciate that this is an incredibly stressful and difficult time for many employers and employees alike, and we are here to support you. We are therefore offering a 30 minutes' free consultation to new and existing clients who wish to get some information and guidance on the current situation and we will endeavour to assist as much as we can.

If you wish to arrange a call with us…

Please do send your details to deana@gepp.co.uk and we will contact you to arrange a suitable time for you to speak to someone from our team.