Office rules now things are “back to normal”

[Whathefisgoingon]

I have been on leave from work for a week and I have just been told that my seating arrangement has been changed and I have gone from being sat alone to directly next to 2 other staff with no social distancing or screens between us.

I am CEV and the company refused to let me wfh even though the job can he done at home easily.

My blood is boiling at the complete lack of care for my health. Am I being unreasonable?

Copy the links above to your manager and HR, tell them you do not feel the new layout provides you with reasonable protection given that you are CEV and cases are high. You'd like to therefore discuss a new risk assessment being done to work out how to stay safe from covid while working. Go to that meeting with a plan and options that you are comfortable with. Remember there is likely to be another wave in winter, so you might want to agree something like home working if case rates in the region go over X per 100,000 and some additional space near an open window for summer when cases are lower. Good luck. Call ACAS if you need extra help, they are funded to help everyone not just people in a union: 0300 123 1100.

"All that is not true. CEV keyworkers have been shielding"

That's not true. My CEV colleague has been back in school since 2nd April as shielding finished on 1st.

@LAlady I think the point was to the previous poster who said everyone has had to go to work for 18 months
Key workers were shielding (not now, but they weren't forced into work for the full 18 months)

What where the seating arrangements Pre COVID as assume you were CEV then and any illness would cause you issues not just COVID? Think you should be back to desk was at pre COVID as risk of catching something has always been there COVID is just now another thing you can catch (my DD is CEV and has been her whole life and she has been in mainstream school/clubs her whole life and COVID is just another bug now we try to aviod)

[quote Whathefisgoingon]@RuleWithAWoodenFoot Can they force me to take my mask off whilst seated & using the phone?[/quote]
No.

@Howshouldibehave

All that is not true. CEV keyworkers have been shielding

Nope-certainly not in schools, for a very long time. They have been back as normal for ages. Are you double vaccinated?

CEV teachers will have been shielding (this time round) till April 1st.

Regarding whether the Op is double vaccinated, as a CEV person she will still be at much more risk double vaccinated than most people were unvaccinated.

The vaccine reduces your original risk by a percentage, it doesn’t reduce as all to a level playing field. Prof David Spiegelhalter gave the example the other day that a double vaccinated healthy man in his 50s is still at more risk than an unvaccinated 30-year-old. Plus, if the OP is immunocompromised, the vaccine may not have worked very well at all.

We went back to normal last week, no distancing, sitting in pods of 6, large meetings taking place etc. Saturday colleague tested positive, 15 of us identified as close contacts and now having to isolate.

Oh and that's just on SSP

An update. HR point blank refused to discuss with me on the phone, instead emailed a generic response stating they were satisfied with the seat changes for various reasons. They also said their risk assessment includes CEV. No movement at all on any changes to make me safer.

After much back and forth with my line manager it was agreed by senior management I could “stay put for now” providing they are allowed to sit directly next to me occasionally to “coach me” and “monitor performance” even though, once again, this can obviously be done via PC.

No words.

It’s good you can stay sitting alone at least. Hopefully the monitoring/coaching will never happen and is just something they are saying to save face.

Sorry about your situation @cherrydown. I wonder whether your employer will learn from it?

@Egghead68 It already happened. Today they came over and sat directly next to me.

Honestly, it’s pathetic. I’m sure they are treating a fine legal line.

I think you should talk to ACAS, unless you have previous known performance issues it sounds like a ploy to suggest that you have performance issues because you raised your hand to ask for support.

[quote Whathefisgoingon]@Egghead68 It already happened. Today they came over and sat directly next to me.

Honestly, it’s pathetic. I’m sure they are treating a fine legal line.[/quote]
That’s not good. Are you in a union? Could they help?

Yanbu. It's not OK that you're being put at risk.

I just think you’re missing the point. The idea was to prevent the NHS becoming overwhelmed, not to protect individuals from catching Covid.

Yes, you might well catch it, but the (nearly) herd immunity we now have will protect the NHS, even if individuals do catch it.

@GreenWillow Errr... you’re wrong. The idea was very much to stop CEV catching it.

Yes, to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed, as was the fear at the time of the restrictions.

The NHS will now have capacity to treat you if you become ill, so no need for any of the restrictions to be in place anymore.

Covid isn't going to go away. We shielded the vulnerable and generally put lives on hold to be able to develop a vaccine, which is effective, better than the flu one (influenza kills vulnerable people every year). There's no more we can do realistically so it's now business as usual. I've been back in since March, dp since April because being on site is important, your management thinks so too. Interestingly the only person who resisted going back into dp's business (he's the boss) was the least productive at home and has since quit because she liked (not) working from home. You might think you can work just as well at home but might not be the case

@MRex suggests contacting ACAS - just to add that I once phoned them about something completely different and they were very helpful.