Coronavirus – our third employer survey

This is the third in our series of employer benchmarking surveys looking at how employers are responding to the Coronavirus pandemic. This survey was carried out between 1 to 3 April 2020 and focusses on the new furlough scheme, the possibility of pay cuts and the ongoing support being offered to those working from home.

This survey follows our  first benchmarking survey (5 to 9 March 2020) and second benchmarking survey (16 to19 March 2020).  As with those surveys, responses to our third survey came from 67 HR leaders and in-house counsel in a cross-section of businesses collectively employing over 200,000 employees.

Key conclusions

Our survey indicates that:

• There is going to be a very significant take-up of the government’s furlough scheme – potentially exceeding some initial expectations.
• Most employers surveyed are currently topping up the government furlough grant either partially or to full normal pay.
• A significant majority of employers are prepared to allow furloughed employees to work elsewhere (e.g. in essential services, health and social care, or supermarkets).
• Employers will soon be turning their attention to what training they should ask furloughed employees to do, with only a small minority having already assigned training and many still to think about this.
• Support for homeworkers continues to be stepped up, with an impressive response from employers on supporting social interaction, mental wellbeing and home workstation set-up for staff currently working from home as a result of the pandemic.

The vast majority of employers are looking to make use of the furlough scheme

• More than 75% of respondents to our survey have furloughed some staff, or plan to furlough some staff, under the government’s new Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. (For more detail on this scheme, see our FAQs on furloughing employees).
• Only 23% of the employers that responded said that they had not furloughed anybody and did not think this would be necessary.
• Only 13% of employers that are making use of the scheme are planning to rotate the staff on furlough at any one time, with some of the challenges being selecting which group of employees to take the first turn on furlough and dealing with the possibility of staff falling sick when they are taking their turn at work (especially given that employees must spend a minimum period of 3 weeks on furlough so recalling them quickly to cover unexpected staff absence does not seem possible).
• In our view, the proportion of employers looking to make use of the furlough scheme is striking, but it also fits with our recent experience of advising clients. Different sectors have been impacted in different ways, but the impact of the pandemic on the workforce is extraordinary.

Most employers are currently topping up the government grant

• Under the scheme, the government will pay a grant covering 80% of an employee’s regular wages, up to a cap of £2,500 per month. Employers can pay top-ups, but are not required to do so.
• According to our survey results, 7 out of 10 employers who are furloughing staff are topping up the grant, with nearly half (48%) topping up to full pay and the remainder (23%) offering a top-up but not to full pay.
• However, some of the additional comments we received suggest that employers are keeping this under review, and some employers gave an immediate top up but made clear this would be reduced re-considered in time.

Some of those who remain at work will be taking pay cuts

• About a third of employers who responded to our survey have agreed or are looking to agree reductions in pay or hours for employees who are still working (and not furloughed).
• It is interest to contrast this against the findings of our second benchmarking survey which revealed that a quarter of employers were expecting to ask some employees to work extra hours (for example to cover for absent colleagues and support business critical teams, or where employees work in IT) and that 5% were already doing so. The overall picture is that, perhaps predictably, the pandemic is having a mixed impact depending on sector and job role.

 Employers are willing to let their furloughed employees work elsewhere

• Under the furlough scheme, an employee cannot do any work for the employer that furloughed them. It was a little unclear, until recently, if furloughed employees could pick up new work elsewhere. However, the latest guidance issued on 4 April has now clarified that employees can undertake other employment whilst furloughed, although of course this is subject to any contractual restrictions the original employer has put in place.
• An overwhelming majority of 80% of employers responding to our survey would be willing to give their permission for furloughed employees to work elsewhere (e.g. in essential services, health and social care, or supermarkets). The comments we received on this question indicate that a few employers may be reluctant to allow extra employment when they are topping up to full pay, but that they recognise why employees who are on less than full pay might want to do this. A few employers pointed out that volunteering was of course to be encouraged, but that this was different from paid work.
• The latest guidance for employees on the furlough scheme helpfully points out that an employee who takes up extra work elsewhere needs to be able to return to work for the original employer if it decides to recall them, and must also be able to undertake any training required of them.

Employers have not yet had time to think about training needs

• Only 9% of employers responding to our survey had already given their furloughed staff some training to do. Those employers were clearly very quick off the mark. 20% said that they were expecting to ask furloughed staff to complete training whilst furloughed but 45% had not thought about this by the time our survey closed.
• The latest guidance for employers on the furlough scheme says that furloughed employees should be encouraged to undertake training, and we expect that training will be the next item on the agenda once employers have resolved the immediate practical arrangements.

Employers are stepping up support for homeworkers

• In our second survey, we asked a question about the support being offered to staff working from home as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic. We repeated the same question in our third survey to see what had changed.
• An impressive 83% of employers who responded to our third survey are proactively encouraging social interaction amongst employees who are working from home (compared to 52% of employers when we asked this question in our second survey).
• The proportion of employers who are providing information on safe workstation set up also looks to have shot up (72% of respondents to our third survey said they had now done this, compared with 41% when we asked this question last time).
• Our earlier second survey showed how employers were signposting their mental health support services but were not, overall, increasing those services. This picture is changing, with 29% of employers now saying that they have laid on extra mental health support services (more than double the proportion who said they had done so in our second survey). A similar picture emerges for risk assessment. 27% of those responding to our survey said they had carried out risk assessments for staff working from home compared to just 10% in our last survey.

We plan to carry out further surveys to help employers benchmark their approach. We will continue to circulate the full results of our surveys to those employers who took part. For more support and advice, visit our dedicated Coronavirus hub.

Click on the image below to view the infographic.