COVID-19, or coronavirus, is affecting the majority of the world in early 2020. Entire countries are in lockdown or quarantine, which means thousands upon thousands of businesses are temporarily closed. Those businesses that are still operating are doing so under extreme, unprecedented circumstances. As a result, many business practices have had to be altered and adapted to ensure employee and customer safety.
The disease continues to spread rapidly everywhere in the world and at present there is no cure. All we can do to slow the spread of the disease is adopt social distancing and social isolation measures as required until a vaccine can be produced.
Thomas Noel Collister Jackson, a UK-based solicitor has helped establish several small businesses and is himself a member of Smart Law Solicitors LLP, a law firm. Like all businesses, having a solid COVID-19 business plan in place will help keep things afloat during this global medical crisis.
The embedded infographic contains some of the latest coronavirus economic impact statistics for the UK from the time of publishing.
Social Distancing
On WHO recommendations, many countries have introduced social distancing policies in an attempt to flatten the curve and slow down the spread of coronavirus. This naturally has a dramatic impact on businesses everywhere.
Some businesses have been forced to close for the duration of lockdown measures, with those in the hospitality, retail and entertainment sectors being hit particularly hard. Other companies have had to adapt their working practices to enable employees and customers to maintain social distancing in accordance with current guidelines while remaining operational.
For many people, this involves working from home for the foreseeable future. For others, such as key workers, strict health and hygiene guidelines have been introduced to help keep workers and customers as safe as possible. Business owners and management teams have a responsibility to ensure that their workforce is able to practice social distancing.
The short video attachment looks at which types of business are being hardest hit while social distancing measures are in place.
Sick Leave
Even in countries that are not practicing social distancing, general advice requires anyone who experiences symptoms of coronavirus or comes into contact with a known case to isolate themselves for a set period of time.
To help prevent the disease from spreading, it is essential that anyone with symptoms – or anyone who may have the disease but has not yet experienced symptoms – is able to stay at home and not risk infecting others. Some people may be unwilling to do this if they feel that they will lose out financially by doing so.
For this reason, businesses that do not already offer paid sick leave should consider doing so, at least temporarily until the virus is under control. Employees should be strongly encouraged to stay home if they are sick and given the financial means to be able to do so.
Remote Working
Remote working has become a solution for many businesses, with large swathes of employees working from home rather than visiting the office each day. For businesses to facilitate this and ensure systems and operations remain secure, they need to have training and assistance on hand for home-working employees.
This includes access to decent work-at-home systems and remote IT maintenance services where necessary. It may also involve additional training and awareness-building to ensure each employee is able to continue to fulfil their role to the best of their ability and no-one is taken in by any of the scams that are being perpetrated to breach computer security.
The PDF attachment looks at how COVID-19 is affecting the UK economy in terms of the impact on households and businesses.