Managing the transition from furlough

With the furlough scheme beginning to end, Acas adviser Sue Raftery shares her insights into the main challenges for workplaces and how to navigate them. We look at ideas for minimising the practical and emotional impact of transition from furlough, plus the critical conversations employers, managers and staff need to be having.

Episode resources: Acas advice on furlough: www.acas.org.uk/coronavirus/furlough-scheme-pay Acas webinar on flexible furlough (free): www.acas.org.uk/webinars

Transcript

Robbie Hurley 0:00 Hello and welcome to The Acas Podcast. I'm Robbie Hurley, part of the communications team here at Acas. In this episode we'll be focusing on furlough and returning to work. Today I'm very lucky to be joined by Susan Raftery, one of the senior advisors who has been particularly involved in aiding the Acas response to the Coronavirus emergency. Hi, Susan. Thanks very much for coming on. So we know that you've been speaking to many employers recently about these issues. Could you give us a quick overview of what you've been hearing?

Susan Raftery 0:26 Yeah, I think employers have got quite a difficult time at the moment. It was almost easier in sometimes some ways whilst we were all completely locked down, because they didn't really have any choice. But the managing the return to work is is difficult. It's difficult for employers, it's difficult for employees and it's trying to reach that balance of helping everyone to get back to work in a safer way. It's possible. I think probably the biggest issue that I have been hearing from employers is around getting people back in safely and also for those employees who may be can't get back into work at the moment, particularly around things like shielding and childcare. I've spoken to actually a couple of employers this morning who were saying that they've got employees who are saying, "We can't come back to work because we have no childcare." That is a big concern for employers and understand to be for employees as well.

Robbie Hurley 1:30 Absolutely, I mean, more than 9 million people in the UK were on furlough at the peak of it, and obviously a lot of people are starting to return to work. What do you think, are the are the challenges and what are the conversations that should be being had between the employers and the employees?

Susan Raftery 1:46 Yeah, you're absolutely right. And it's one of those unusual things where every employee has a different set of circumstances. So the employer is having to be extremely flexible in each in each different set of circumstances. I think the most important thing is not making assumptions, whether you're an employer or an employee. So there's a risk that employers will assume that, for example, right, furlough is coming to an end employee can come back to work full time. And of course, that's not always the case. As we've said, if they're carrying responsibilities, they may still have health issues. Similarly, employees, I think, are assuming I can go straight back into work into my old job in exactly the same way. And again, that's not always going to be the case. So it's it's trying to find that balance. There will be some employers that want employees to come back, for example, part time or doing the flexible furloughs, so maybe doing a few hours a week and being furloughed for the rest, some employees who will want to carry on working from home. They've been doing it successfully in their mind for the last three months and "Don't see why I can't continue to do that." And there will be so employees who are actually too scared to go back to work because they're concerned about things like having to travel on public transport. And I think it's remembering that the message is still, if employees can work from home, then they should still be working from home. But obviously, that's not always appropriate or practical for the employers to be able to allow them to do that. There's a myth amongst employees, some employees that