A possibly stupid question about furlough.

[Nateismine]

Why were those furloughed not allowed to work? I'm sorry if I am missing the obvious.
I run a business that has needed to keep going over the lockdown but due to a massive reduction in demand/takings I had to furlough about half the team ( 8 in total). So they have been at home on 80% pay. Why couldn't I have asked them to do some work at home to earn their 80%? They could have helped take the pressure off the staff that kept working for 100% pay.

I was furloughed because due to the layout and placement of machinery we couldn't, and still cant' adhere to the 2 metre rule.

OP you’re not paying those 8 staff (the government is), so it is entirely fair that they are not contributing to the running of your business at the moment. If there’s too much work then unfurlough some of them and pay them yourself!

Does anyone think that companies who have taken advantage of the furlough system, and defrauded the government as said by a pp, will get caught out? Or will they get away with it?

I work for a construction firm. The first week of lockdown we gradually lost between 60-80% of our work. But we didn’t know how long for.

It would have been better for us to have been able to furlough people Part time. For example, one week an emergency job cane in at the hospital. It took the worker one day but there was no work for the rest of the week.

The person who does the tenders usually works 40 hours per week over 5 days but there was only about 1-2 days work a week for him.

I think some people on this thread are being deliberately dense OP. I totally get where you are coming from - we run a small travel business and we had to furlough most of the staff. There was plenty of work to be done but it was all refunds. We literally haven’t had a penny in income since the middle of March yet we have obligations to customers but no money to pay staff to fulfil these obligations. I think the government did the best they could in a very short period of time though and it was absolutely better than nothing. I don’t think your question is at all stupid though. I do think some of the responses where posters can only see in absolute black and white are.

I get where you are coming from too OP - especially with the example about the restaurant and doing menus etc. I think the issue arises from the fact that people haven't been allowed to use furlough part-time which would have been lot more flexible especially when they started easing lockdown in May. For example, I was talking to an estate agent who started to have viewings but didn't have enough work for someone to come back FT, but could have had someone back PT so she was a bit frustrated - not sure what she did in the end, probably did the viewings herself and worked 7 days a week.

But pp's are right - you're not paying the furloughed their 80%, the taxpayer is.

Er the the government is paying the 80% not you.

Taxpayer money is not designed to help you bring in revenue

Taxpayer money is not designed to help you bring in revenue

But isn't it beneficial to everyone if my business survives and I get to keep jobs for 16 staff. We are absolutely on the brink of collapse. As a pp mentioned we have lots of work to do, but it is not money generating work.

I understand OP, and agree that saving businesses was the main aim to ensure long term employment.

I have a business that has remained open, but we are only taking 50% of our normal revenue. The work level is probably about 70% of our normal amount as although we have adapted our business to the reduced demand, the work is necessarily more labour intensive.

We have had to furlough about 40% of our staff in order to keep afloat, but the remaining 60% are all working much harder than normal. It is also very difficult to let the staff working have holidays as we have very little flexibility to cover them.

I think the furlough has been great, as it has definitely saved our business but it would have been nice if it was more flexible. The changes to allow part time furlough as from next month will be far better for us and I think that should have been implemented sooner.

I think that the reasoning behind the rules were that if the furloughed staff had been allowed to work, then the system would be far more open to abuse.

You're only supposed to have furloughed staff you didn't need not an arbitrary number. Take a business which employs 20 people which business levels support. In normal times the numbers probably go up and down a bit as the business does better/worse. In lockdown if the business dropped X% then without furlough it would probably have had to make some staff redundant. Furlough is supposed to put a pause on that in the hope things are ok the other side.

If you've furloughed 5 people but need 2 of them, bring them back. If the business isn't profitable when you have to pay salaries then that's not what the scheme is supposed to support. Many high street businesses (and other things) would still be operating if they were subsidised!!!