In reply to Alan James - Rockfax:
My advice would be don't underestimate the stupidity of some staff members. When the advice changed about the whole household isolating if there is a suspected case in the house I drew up a document explaining the situation and gave a tool box talk in the yard.
I explained that we would cover full sick pay for the isolation and if needed we would drop off food supplies. That was the carrot, the stick was that anyone coming in with symptoms or who has someone at home with symptoms will face a gross misconduct disciplinary.
One guy rang me at 6am today to say he has started with a dry cough. I told him to stay home for 7 days as advised and to see where it goes from there, he wanted to come in to the workshop but he would stay 2 meters from everyone, he also rang me at 7 tonight asking to come in tomorrow because he is bored at home.
Another one of my guys rang me today whilst I was on site to say it should not apply to him because most days he is in the workshop on his own so he will be fine to come in if one of his family gets it, his words "it will do my head in being at home with the wife and kids for 14 days" in the workshop alone is balls too. The office folk (who can't work from home) have to go through the workshop to get to the toilet and though some days everyone is on site other days there might be 6 or 7 people working in there.
Wtf is wrong with people.
My other bit of advice is depending on the business make hay whilst you can. A significant number of our customers are refusing site access. I suspect within a month the only work we will be doing is emergency breakdowns and the 90% of our revenue that comes from preventative maintenance will vanish for the duration. I need to bank as much as I can before that happens to help pay the wages so that everyone is still employed once we come out of the other side of this.
