There are so many things out there that can affect your company. Even time change can affect your company (tired employees the next day). Do you have what you need to protect your company?
Given the hype over the last month or so, we are talking about viruses, both human and computer. I’ve mentioned before that we ensure our computer systems are highly protected given the information that we store as a law firm. What about you? Do you have a reputable anti-virus for your systems? This is important especially if you get an employee who has contracted a human virus and will need to stay home for a while. Having the capability of working from home is certainly great if the job can accommodate it.
What about human viruses? What can you do as an employer to attempt to keep those germs out of the office? Well, there isn’t much that you can do, except supporting your employees when they are not feeling top notch. Even the simple cold can make you feel run down and not very productive. Employees would be more willing to stay at home and not spread those nasty germs if they knew their employer is understanding. A good way to ensure that employees know the policy is having an Employee Handbook in place. This is where you can set out what it is exactly that you expect from your employees. The Handbook would also set out all Leaves that are available to employees in different circumstances which may arise.
Given what is happening with COVID-19, everyone is on high alert and afraid of even a simple sneeze. Are they overacting? That’s not for me to decide but knowing the policy in our office, I know that “when I am sick, I WFH”, meaning if I’m under the weather, I can work from home, and I’m able to do that because we do have those policies in place.
While you are out there emptying the shelves of hand sanitizer, toilet paper and water, we are busy in the office ensuring companies have their policies in place.
Christine Allan, Law Clerk