What would you do in my shoes

[Waxonwaxoff0]

So I'm in a quandary. Basically I work for a small business. Not an essential role by any means. Obviously business is slowing down a bit at the moment and there was talk of some staff being laid off soon.

I cannot do my job from home. I'm also a single parent so I need to work or we have no income. DS is 6 so cannot be left alone. As a result I've had to ask family to look after DS next week while I go into work, which is not ideal by any means and it isn't something I will be able to carry on doing long term.

In my shoes would you go and speak to your boss and volunteer to be laid off? Under the new government guidelines I would then receive 80% of my pay from them which I can live on even if my employer can't pay me the other 20%. Then I can isolate myself and DS as much as possible and not have to hand him round to various family members.

Or do I hang fire and wait for businesses to be forced to close, which I expect they will soon as ours is non essential. I don't want my bosses to think I am trying to get out of working but I don't know what the best solution is.

Approach your childs school. They might still allow him to go in if you explain your situation

I'm not a key worker so I don't think they would, plus I don't really want to send him in when they are trying to keep it to a minimum.

I would approach your boss. As a boss I would be grateful that someone volunteered

Businesses would still have to pay employer's NI contribution and employer's statutory pension contribution throughout the 12 weeks I assume? That might be one reason why smaller businesses with no income may have to lay people off, despite the 80% help.
You could discuss it with your employer. As someone said, they may prefer it to paying you 100%or laying you off/redundancy.

Diana I see. I'm clueless about things like this. I'm part time only working 20 hours a week so I only pay about £2 a week NI if that makes any difference. I suspect we will be forced to close very soon but I will speak to my employer tomorrow.