What is your current work policy on Covid?

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I've returned from maternity leave this week to find that there is now no Covid policy at all and people are openly attending work with symptomatic Covid and making no effort to distance with it.

This has made me shocked and a bit uncomfortable, despite not being particularly fearful of Covid generally and having had it in January!

I know there is no longer a legal requirement to isolate but NHS guidelines still advise to isolate for 5 days.

AIBU to feel it's wrong for people to be in work with Covid? Is this standard practice in workplaces now?

How do you know its covid though ?

I've no idea, I imagine it's all just back to a standard sick policy with no special arrangements in place for covid. It's just another illness now.

Ours is to work at home if you have symptoms of covid until you have tested and are negative or for 5 days. If you test positive stay home for 5-10 days. We certainly don’t want people coming in with covid. We do have the luxury of staff working at home though so they don’t have to worry about loss of pay etc. Not that easy for many

we have to work from home if we have any cold symptoms.

@Darbs76 who is paying for the tests ?

Is it a job that can be done from home? Mine is and I wouldn't be impressed if people were coming in knowing they had covid. My colleague had it last week. We met over Teams.

A lot of people have stockpiles of lateral flow test kits, from when they were free.

I work in a school and our policy follows the government guidelines. Known or suspected covid is 5 days absence for children and staff. Staff are expected to test if they suspect they have covid - we have some tests remaining in school for this purpose.

@worriedatthistime staff. If they don’t want to pay for a test I guess we would say work at home for 5 days. We haven’t had that come up in my team. Most people have tests left over or willing to buy some. If they are off sick with it better to get it confirmed as then exempt from sickness warnings

People are asked not to come into the office if they are unwell and wfh instead.

All our covid policies around sickness absence and special leave are gone now, previously it was not counted for trigger points and didn't affect sick pay. Now it's counted as any other absence and there is no special leave for caring etc related to covid.

NHS and no masks for staff or patients unless they want to and staff meetings back to face to face thank fuck teams has gone, no social distancing or screens up
We still have to WFH if we have Covid though

@Moonmelodies and many many don't as we couldn't get them as others were stockpiling
So many people cannot work from home and don't get paid so if mild symptoms which without a test could be hayfever or anything , they will go in

Some people are still testing. Many people still have left over tests at home, as do some work places. I'm eligible for free home tests still so can get a pack of 7 as and when I need them.

Treated like any other illness. If unwell still
come in if you can.

Work from home if you have cold symptoms. Certainly don't go into the office with Covid. We're mostly working at home anyway though.

We're still testing if unwell or seeing vulnerable relatives, so yes we're buying tests now we've run out of the free ones.

Also if someone has say just a slight sore throat or headache do people think everyone is testing for every thing
I get if you are feeling rough or have multiple symptoms
In our house with hayfever etc we would be testing daily if for any sneeze or scratchy throat

I mean the list of synptoms now is huge compared to when we had free tests
People with kids would be testing all the time

Our policy is basically how it was for illnesses prior to Covid: use your common sense. If you’re too poorly to come to work, don’t come to work.

I honestly don’t know what ours is to tell you the truth. I would hazard a guess that it is to work from home if you have Covid and not do any site visits but I haven’t seen any comms about it for ages now

No idea what the official policy is. Pretty much everything is back to normal.

A couple of people have tested positive since restrictions were lifted and they worked from home until they got a negative test. However, I don’t know if that’s official policy or just people making agreements with their line manager.

It's treated as a cold/flu so come in if you feel well enough. We're basically zero hours so no sick pay. We're also customer facing, or at least my colleague who waits tables is; she was covid positive at work last week

I work in a school. There is no covid specific policy now - if you are too unwell to work then you go sick, otherwise you come to work.

Probably the same people who've also got toilet rolls still that they stockpiled in the first lockdown!

Offices globally are attendance on a booking basis only.

To attend offices you need to be fully vaccinated

If you test positive or are symptomatic you must WFH or call in sick if too poorly to work.

We can claim expenses for the costs of tests and paid full sick pay for Covid related absence.

I don't actually know. I presume we aren't supposed to be in when knowingly covid positive, but equally no one is testing, so I guess that's irrelevant.