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When should employers start to step into the decision-making process if staff are intent on taking holidays abroad?

We now have a traffic light system, red, amber and green (in England) which demands:

  • Travelling from a red list country: quarantine for 10 full days in a managed quarantine hotel (the day you arrive in England counts as day 0), take a coronavirus (COVID-19) test on or before day 2 and on or after day 8 of quarantining and follow the national restrictions
  • Travelling from an amber list country: quarantine at home or in the place you are staying for 10 days, take a COVID-19 test on or before day 2 and on or after day 8. An additional test can be requested at Day 5 to end quarantine early.
  • Travelling from a green list country you must take a COVID-19 test on or before day 2 after you arrive.

The traffic light analogy is pertinent. Traffic light signals change and what if a country is transferred from the green to red list while an unsuspecting staff member is on holiday? Employers will have to wait, potentially for up to ten days, for staff to sit out quarantine in a hotel, and staff will be faced with allocating ten days of holiday entitlement to their enforced extension from work.

Clearly, there are now real risks for business owners and practitioners if staff take an overseas holiday, and risks that should be discussed in a realistic way to mitigate any unfortunate changes from green, through amber to red.

Source: New feed