Who are all these people that will suddenly back at work this week?....

[Derbygerbil]

.... and why weren’t they at work before?
.... and will there be enough work for them to do?

I thought most employers furloughed their staff if lockdown meant there was very little, if any, business, irrespective of whether they had to close.

This helped those businesses massively by effectively paying their salary bill. If the Government are saying they expect people to be back working at those businesses, it implies the furlough is being phased out, for those businesses at least. However, those businesses won’t magically be able to operate as they did before, or even close to it. Aren’t there going to be a load of firms who could survive over the lockdown, but will now go to the wall now they need to be back in business. I can see it might be necessary, but it’s going to be tough.

My cleaner will be coming back at the end of the month. We can safely social distance in the house whilst she works. Her agency chose to suspend work on government advice (no mixing households), though the reality is that we have always been able to maintain SD measures and I don’t think I’ve been less than 2m from her on more than a couple of occasions as she has a key and just comes in and gets on with it.

There's not enough work for all of us to go back, we're only receiving about 30% of our usual orders so there's just a skeleton staff going back. The rest of us are staying on furlough

There will be pent up demand, once they open again, online orders will start to be placed again, and staff will come back to meet the demand.

If orders don’t pick up then it would lead to redundancies, but if it’s a successful firm that’s unlikely,

Last night’s message was, reading between the lines: “we never intended for all these businesses to shut up shop... they’ve voluntarily exceeded our lockdown laws. No get back to work so we can actually operate the lockdown for businesses as we intended.”

Yes - plus, I guess, a reassurance that if a person/workplace can work safely they can now make the decision to do so, eg as upthread, perhaps cleaners, gardeners, certain trades, etc.

Many many companies shut down that simply didn’t need to.

Absolutely and the knock on effect meant others couldn't trade due to shortages of materials etc.

The government did not expect the majority to close, it threw their budget out of the window. It should have been clearer at the start.

anybody with an office job that can be done from home who expects pressure from work now to return to work? My work was making noises last week in anticipation of the BoJo statement.. I know they will probably want people to return now.

Absolutely and the knock on effect meant others couldn't trade due to shortages of materials etc

Fully agree, I will use my blind company as an example. I went to order more, the guy said they would remain open then emailed half an hour later and said they couldn’t as their supplier had shut their factory.

When the manufacturers shut their doors, everyone who relied on them to make either raw materials or end products had to also close.

My company furloughed just shy of 80% of staff. It worked well for them- they had a dramatically reduced wage bill but we still had the work. I have said this many times on a variety of posts in the past 3-4 weeks but my workload has been crazy. 13-14-15 hour days, and I have worked every weekend (including the past weekend) since lockdown began. Because senior management did not want output to fall.

Fuckers.

A well known carpet retailer has shut their shops but they are still taking online orders but refusing to deliver anything! Even orders that are ready and were ready before lockdown. There has never been any restriction on home delivery of goods therefore they could have done some work and continued delivering fake grass, rugs, laminate, beds, mattress, etc.

Im sure furlough will be phased out as some companies have worked out its cheaper to furlough than continue working

Bluntness I hope so. We are a successful company, we've been trading since the 80s and have grown 10x in size since then. I love my job, can't wait to get back.

I'm hoping it includes the mobile caravan service man that had to cancel our caravan service when lockdown started, will ring him when the clarification document is published

@GreenTeaMug I'd be pissed off at that too. I've been working throughout but on reduced hours.

My friend is in the same situation as you, working her arse off to cover the furloughed, one of her coworkers on furlough sent her a WhatsApp photo of a sun lounger with a bottle of white wine next to it ........ you can imagine how that went down 🙈

But how can people go back to work if schools are not open and they have kids at home. Plus likely no summer holiday clubs either. I have simply no idea what the solution is.

Thanks userxx. I confess the situation has nearly been the end of me.

I had to ring a furloughed colleague to ask her where the key to the safe was (as had to go into the office one day). Naturally we had a catch up chat. She commented that she was pretty pissed off that management had told the furloughed staff that when we all got back to normal those of us still working would 'have priority' when it came to booking holidays. She wanted to contact ACAS about it as it seemed unfair.

It was very difficult to restrain myself.

My work place is supply chain for retail. We were furloughed because orders had started drying up before lockdown. I cant work from home but if I did go in there would be nothing to do.

@GreenTeaMug I understand it's been hard for the furloughed, I really do but a bit of common sense needs to prevail. I personally think all staff who have continued to work should be given an extra weeks holiday just to show goodwill.

But how can people go back to work if schools are not open and they have kids at home. Plus likely no summer holiday clubs either. I have simply no idea what the solution is.

my worry exactly. I think I will be getting the boot eventually esp as one of the DC is disabled, making it even more complicated.

Well I've had issues all ways round. We can't reopen any time soon as most work cannot be done 2 metres apart so I've tried to get some upgrades done to premises but carpenter can't get materials so finally starting today.

Dentists should be open but not allowed to do anything that would make it worthwhile seeing them - can't fill teeth, scale and polish etc.

My staff are unlikely to be back for some considerable time so if furlough ends, they will probably be made redundant as they're the single biggest cost. In any event, even once we're back, the way we'd need to operate is not financially viable - income at less than 20% - and that assuming clients want to come! We'll need to clean between each client and at the end of each day so won't be having our regular cleaners back so that has a knock on impact on another business.

My husband works for a soft drinks company and has worked through out this so he is in work as usual. I am a catering assistant in a school and there is 10 of us on our team so I am hoping we get back soon though if it is just yers 1 and 6 and reception there will not be enough work for all of us ,as we are all furloughed we might I suspect take it in turns maybe? Though my dd is in year 3 so would she go to school as she did at the start due to me being a key worker? oh lord i dont know!! Last nights statement was as clear as mud to me so heres hoping todays parliamentary session explains more clearly how things are to be done.

me too userxx but when I suggested exactly that on another thread a couple of weeks ago I got my arese handed to me

I agree common sense should prevail. I doubt this whole situation has been easy for anyone.

Interesting thought, what about annual leave?
we have been told we wont all be able to be off at the same time, if when things are lifted
i doubt we can carry it over

*arse

@GreenTeaMug oh really 😬. I won't mention it again!!

Does anybody know what campsites fall under, is it hospitality?

The government put in provision for carrying over annual leave as part of the lockdown changes

www.gov.uk/government/news/rules-on-carrying-over-annual-leave-to-be-relaxed-to-support-key-industries-during-covid-19

Next door neighbour is back at work today as his employer has bought 70k of PPE - Porsche garage - and they have spent time on protocols to keep customers and staff safe.

That;s okay userxx i am so pleased to have someone see my point on that!!!!