Can you make the vaccine compulsory? Or penalise employees who refuse?
While there may be some employers in certain sectors who can justify requiring their employees to take the vaccine – for example healthcare where the risk of not taking it can be detrimental to vulnerable people in their care – this will not apply across the board.
Employers need to consider all relevant factors: the nature of their business, employee health and safety, employment law and human rights before imposing such demands on their employees.
In this webinar, Matt McDonald – partner in our employment team – discusses the key employment law considerations and potential pitfalls.
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Webinar transcript
(Please note this is auto-generated and un-edited)
Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for joining us this morning. My name is Matt McDonald.
0:16
I'm a partner in the employment team here at Shakespeare Mar tonight.
0:20
And, as I say, thank you for joining this webinar on ..., vaccinations and what employers need to know.
0:29
Um, these are the topics we're going to cover today. So, first, one, found an employee be required, top of vaccine. This is This is the big Question, the grid. and, certainly the one that we're getting us, the notion of subordinates appearing in the news repeatedly. You might see in a piece he did last week, specifically in relation to NHS workers, but that was around nursing staff were refusing off the back seat. And how that was going to be, tackled, what you can do if an employee refuses.
0:56
What the potential claims are, what are the alternatives to requiring someone to have a vaccine. And then we'll finish off with just a few other quick issues to consider.
1:06
So, first question, can you require an employee to have the vaccine?
1:10
Well, I think, first of all, it's important to clarify what we really mean here by requiring someone to have a vaccine. Obviously, having the vaccine isn't compulsory, and it would be very, very surprising if that did happen. In fact, my uncle said government has no intention of doing so. So when we say, requiring someone's have the vaccine. We don't literally forcing someone to take the vaccine. You can't do it. It will be a criminal offense, if you take.
1:34
And so, I think when people say, compulsory vaccine, what they're really thinking, AS well, requiring them to have the vaccine, but then if they say no, taking quite a sanctions against the most. obvious one being dismissal. So, I think when we talk about compulsory vaccine and when I I will refer throughout this session to a compulsory about two. And that's really what I have in mind. It's where you essentially dismiss, the one who refuses to have it so they still have a choice sort of. But it's not the right choice because if the answers, they say, no, then they could lose their job.
2:06
So, can you do that well, and some guidance published by eight Cups recently made it quite clear that employees should support staff and getting the vaccine, but can't force them to be vaccinated. Now, interestingly, the guidance was updated yesterday to keep me on my toes and it said that because he cannot force them to be vaccinated. Walsh.
2:27
I'll come on to this in a second, because there's another couple of books that were made.
2:31
So the guidance goes on to, say, you know, it may be necessary to make vaccination mandatory where it's necessary for someone to do their job, and, again, that bit, where it's necessary for someone to do the job, has come out.
2:42
So all of a sudden, the garden seems now to say, Well, potentially, you come forth and then potentially, even, where it's not necessary to do your job. Now, I wouldn't read too much into that. I suspect that is a path just being very careful. And what they say Lub Axiom Not wanting to give any absolute one way or the other. But it is it's illustrative is just how controversial and how, frankly difficult the desktop a case, because we're completely uncharted territory there.
3:07
In terms of the possibility of requiring any employees to undergo, it's essentially a medical procedure. Not the most invasive procedure, either, but it is still a medical procedure.
3:16
And vaccinations aren't without their control Z so it illustrates that point, it's a really difficult question. And in fact, the guidance also was amended. It had previously suggested that refusing to vaccinate it could result in a disciplinary procedure now that's gone as well. So, in fact, rather than building on the guidance, it's actually been stripped down for the most part again. So, that suggests the other way, that, maybe you can't even take disciplinary action, but I wouldn't necessarily say that's always the case. And it's, again, I think, a test just wanting to be cautious.
3:48
Now, how many employees are going to require vaccination?
3:51
It's difficult to say, there's been some initial surveys that suggest 23% is the figure that came out from one survey. I saw, but, whether that might actually be more in practice or less, who knows? And obviously, it's going to vary from sector to sector, depending on the type of work people are doing.
4:09
And indeed, as we'll come on to, that, is going to be a really critical factor, the nature of the work that someone is carrying out.
4:19
Turning to that.
4:21
The obvious example of getting to, Yes, the piece on BBC news last week, if someone is the frontline health care worker, is dealing with.
4:29
Vulnerable patients, particularly those. And this is also covered. People like people, wouldn't Tange, example frontline workers. They are going to be dealing with individuals who are much more vulnerable than a lot of other people would in a normal day-to-day work certainly in more volume.
4:43
So, I would say, as a general rule and the more you can say that and the more recent real respect to people, particularly people in these categories, the better chance you're going to have of justifying taking disciplinary sanctions up to dismissal doesn't necessarily mean it will be justified. But it is going to inevitably, I think, give you a better chance.
5:08
When we look at health and safety obligations here, what I'm looking at is the health and safety duties because it's, it's not just a one-way street.
5:14
You've got, there's a balance going on here between requiring employees to have a vaccine. But then, why are you doing that? Well, it's because you have a health and safety duties to other individuals, not just your other employees, but also the individuals they may come into contact with. So, that poster pattern works and the NHS.
5:31
You want your, arguably, you are obliged to occupy, you are obliged to minimize the risk of exposure to covert 19 and do what you reasonably camp. So there is definitely a balance here. Because if you knowingly let people come in to work that haven't been vaccinated, that is creating a rich Even with those who have had the vaccine, obviously. We know that looks, stats, I found it really good in terms of the reduced risk, but it's not zero, it's never going to be zero. So there is still a risk that. So you're definitely, there's definitely a balancing act here, which I think is at the core of what makes this such a tricky issue to tackle. So what if an employee does your feet?
6:08
Nothing too surprising here. Hopefully, this is all quite clear.
6:14
What you need to do is listen to the voice and says, listen to why it is that they don't want to have the vaccine. Now, you're likely to get a really broad range of, of excuses or explanation as to not want to cut the vaccine.
6:28
People are likely to have that are judgements about them but there will be a spectrum here you're going to get a spectrum from what might be called relatively credible, sensible explanations to some slightly more controversial, if I can put it that way and ....
6:40
So I'm thinking of some of the slightly while the conspiracy theories out that the Bill Gates wanted to put microchips and everyone's body. Being, probably the most high profile on that, I've come across, but there is a lot of misinformation around what can and can't be there. I think even when people do have what might be termed controversial excuses, it's risky to be very risky, if you're dismissive of those excuses. And you know, ultimately what we're looking at here, if we do get to this missing people just wanting to be fair. And I'll come onto the types of claims in just a minute. But as part of that process, you will need to follow a fair process type any real chance of getting a fair dismissal. And that requires you to listen to their concerns and be sympathetic to them. Even if you might put your personal view might be that they're slightly dust, perhaps. Another very important factors to maintain, confidentiality issues people are getting.
7:35
Because, again, if people are giving an excuse for not wanting to vaccine, you consider not to be particularly credible and then you tell other people, that's really, you're getting yourself tired and upset And you're likely to find yourself in a heap of trouble. When it comes to trying to justify the furnace Is that this vessel later down the line?
7:53
In terms of some of the more common, if you'd like a sensible we use the word carefully, but sort of sort of sensible reason might be well pregnancy and interesting. I didn't notice actually until I was doing. But if research for this webinar, the guidance at the moment from the government is that women who are pregnant shouldn't be vaccinated. It's not saying that they update. It's an absolute definite. No. It's just saying that because it hasn't yet been tested in pregnancy.
8:18
It's not specifically recommended, and so you're likely to get quite a few pregnant workers. Are understandably, going to be reluctant? There will be people with health concerns. For example, some people with allergies might be concerned about taking the vaccine, and the reaction, that will have this more general, I think, fairly legitimate concerns about the speed at which the vaccine has been approved. Because it has been Fox Traps and they won't deny that. It hasn't been tested as thoroughly and over a longer period is, most vaccines would be. So, people, even, if they don't have a specific concern, might have a general concern about the risks and side effects might be objections on religious grounds.
8:53
one, and this will be a one-off property, categorize somewhere, in the middle of that spectrum, because there's a lot of misinformation about the potential impact that the vaccine can have on fertility. And in fact, I was speaking to a client last week, where they have individuals who were saying, they didn't want to talk to them, because they're worried about the impact on fertility and also people who are saying they're worried about the effect of the contraceptive pills so that they would get pregnant. So you have people on both sides saying that the vaccine is problematic, because the leaders, those things. But there is a lot of misinformation out there.
9:22
Like us, I think you need to be cautious in being overly dismissive of these because people might have done the research, and I think that there is good research by the stuff when when, in fact, there isn't.
9:35
So what are the potential claims that we're looking at?
9:38
The most straightforward one is unfair dismissal. So that's if you decide to take a hard line approach and say, what if someone says no?
9:45
Perhaps you might have a caveat that unless they give you a very good excuse and you want to dismiss people.
9:52
that is, I would say, likely to lead to an unfair dismissal.
9:59
This, again, I'm not stressed, we are in completely uncharted territory. So, there's a lot of educated guess work going on in sense of how tribunals are going to approach this.
10:09
But if someone is refusing to have a vaccine, I think in most circumstances, not all.
10:16
But in most circumstances, even if, yes, yes is a little bit off the wall. It's going to be difficult to justify dismissal. As I say it's going to be look.
10:26
I know certainly the degree of risk then coming back to where I was just going to be a big factor, but there are lots of reasons why it would be reasonable to dismiss, not least the cause.
10:37
A lot of employers have of course been functioning with people in work throughout the pandemic. Not all workers tend to be working from home but a lot are still having to a person with PPE, social distancing, all that sort of those sort of good measures that are in place.
10:52
It has been able to be controlled. So for example at the moment with with the national lockdown that that's in place at the moment, rates are dropping despite all of these people being in work.
11:02
And so, if you'd like, there are strong alternatives, and I'm going to come on short-term issues in a minute. But I did want to tackle this one head on.
11:10
If you're planning to dismiss people, you're on risky ground.
11:14
And I would definitely recommend seeking, specifically, glad talks before achieving that route and going down that route.
11:22
Another alternative is constructive dismissal, so apologies, they are aware of this, but that's a section where you treat someone so negatively that they are able to resign and effective declared they've been dismissed because they've been treated so badly.
11:35
Now, that could happen if you impose sanctions short of dismissal. And again, we'll come on some of the uptake in a minute. It's obviously lower risk than if you dismiss them on, but it is still there. So you need to be aware that just because you don't dismiss them on if you're doing lots of other stuff in the background. That weren't necessarily mean there's no risk of an unfair dismissal claim at all.
11:55
And the other big risks here is discrimination claim, particularly, indirect discrimination. So, again, just very briefly, indirect discrimination, in simple terms, is where you apply the same approach, policy across your workforce. So you're not discriminating in that sense. That policy affect certain categories of people adversely compared to others. So the policy itself is indirectly discriminate, treat them. They won't face it. You'd say, Well, we're not picking on anyone, but we're finding across the board, and there's all sorts of protected characteristics that could be cool here. I'm not going to run through all of these because of time constraints we have.
12:32
But sometimes, I'll just touch on a couple ***. I've got in mind that particularly women that are pregnant or on maternity leave, again, particularly those pregnant, given the government guidance at the moment, they would potentially be covered under indirect *** discrimination. There isn't right for indirect pregnancy and maternity protection afforded on the title that you basically piggyback on: Indirect *** discrimination in those circumstances. Religion or belief. It's certainly possible that people are going to object to these on religious grounds. Just wanted to touch on the possibility, in terms of belief.
13:08
It has been moved to the sort of strongly held view, and anti vaccination view could amount to protected philosophical, but it is because, when we talk about religion or belief, the belief, it is a separate point that's beliefs strongly held by religious.
13:24
Now, there's various requirements you need to take for an individual to succeed with a claim on that.
13:27
And I think what's probably going to struggle with some of them all controversial views about vaccination today is that for it to be, I believe, for these purposes, it needs to have a certain level of cogency that's worthy of respect, in the democratic, democratic society.
13:43
So I think that's where if claims do fall down on this ground, that's where they're likely to be. Because, yes, but finding might be that they genuinely held disbelief, and it's pretty strongly held. But actually, by element of objectivity, I think can give employers a little bit of comfort.
13:58
Because yeah. It just 10, because some of the more extreme views that might be at that age just quickly touch on that, what the point that is, of course, the vaccine being given out in a priority. So, if you stop, for example, letting some people back into the offices that have been vaccinated, let's say that with your policy, you've got to come back in, but but only if vaccinated now.
14:17
But that could be problematic, because young people won't be able to be vaccinated, potentially. for quite some time. Yeah, We're looking probably July, August, and that's if everything goes according to plan.
14:28
So, a seemingly uncontentious approach like that, either not could give rise to discriminatory practices. So, you do just need to be careful and really think through these decisions, because there's all sorts of consequences that could follow.
14:43
It sounds I'll say it. Again, I don't think any of these will be particularly surprising. Obviously, it's fine to encourage vaccination and to provide information about it. You just need to be a little bit careful that you don't cross the line, unless you're planning on taking a hard line on this.
14:57
If you are planning on taking more of a software approach, and more than twice as approach, what you don't want to do a pilot on to, people then feel under pressure to get back to you. And then you get complaints suddenly then, say, Well, I felt like I had to. I felt like I didn't have a choice. So, if you are giving people a choice and you just want to educate, just be clear about that. You don't want any suggestion that you've pressure them into it.
15:19
I've talked about providing information as a site, promoting the benefits. There's no risk about, they still don't. don't feel like you can't say that the good things about the vaccine. Because you can it's absolutely fine. Obviously, be careful not to share this information. So, try to make sure your sources of the information reliable.
15:36
But there's no problem with doing that at all possibilities. And this is obviously looking out. People who might be used to get the vaccine, you could require people to work longer. Obviously, that's not gonna work in every sector. But for those where it does work, that's certainly an option. Again, there might be some employee relations issues that require that, if you're getting some people to come back into work, they might not want to come back into it. Then, I'm like, Working from home. and vice versa from personal experience, I'm slightly sick of work for pay, at least full-time. So, you might get those people, even, if, it seems a soft alternative, saying, well, OK, just continue to work from home, they still might not be happy about it, and they still might be quite insistent about coming into work despite not wanting to get the vaccine. And, another possibility is to refuse access to certain edge of the business, or certain role. Again, this is going to be very fact specific.
16:26
But, theoretically, so, if I use the cat and worked as an example. If people work in a care home can be, depending on the buttons, will depend on the roles they do, they can be kept, in terms of the contact with the residents in that time, if that can be kept minimal. So, for example, something like kitchen staff, if they actually can attend without going within two meters of a resident at any point and that might be OK. But for those nursing staff, you have to do frontline care as much trickier, unless you can get them alternative work, that would mean they would actually lead to to engage and up front lawn care.
16:59
So, plenty of options to think about incentives, the alternatives, and that's by no means an exhaustive list. So just finishing off just on time with a couple of other points to consider. Employment. Contracts, this, LinkedIn, back to the recruitment point later on in the slide.
17:16
You won't, unless you had a crystal ball when you're drafting your employment contract, have anything in there which gives you a contractual right to require someone to get a vaccination.
17:27
You could try amending contracts to require people to have a vaccine but that's tricky. You can't GC Util actually make the amendment. You could X-ray dismissing the engagement process, which I won't go into detail here. It's quite a messy process, But, again, it's always difficult. And again, your justification is, still comes back to the points, as well. Is it fair to require people to do so.
17:49
If you'd like another potential barrier to trying to introduce this to, to introduce compulsory element for your existing employees.
17:57
Touching on I'll skip a stocking pulsing Come back to that. The link to the region that's relevant to recruitment is, of course, for people you're recruiting from this point on you could include that in your policy. Sorry, in your contract employment.
18:09
And on the has been a lot of talk of fatty peculiar features. No job, no job! And there's a number of employees who've come out and open. They said, yes, they are going to apply.
18:18
That will essentially, they're not going to employ anyone unless they have the vaccine, now, no unfair dismissal or so, of course, because they're not your employee it yet. But remember that discrimination law does apply to those who are applying for jobs, not just your existing workforce.
18:34
So, if someone applies for a job, search, they haven't had the vaccine, and that relates to protect characteristic. Plastic cartridge, she says listed on the last slide. And they then lose out in that job because of that policy could give rise to an indoctrination plan. So, if you're planning on having a no job, no job policy, you certainly do still need to be aware of the direct or indirect discrimination. Because, even though it is less risky approach, generally, even, than trying to apply it to all of your existing workforce, vaccine policy is a really important point. You have to have a vaccine policy in place, regardless of the approach you're taking, I would suggest, But, certainly, if you're going to try and have a compulsory vaccine, you've got to have a vaccine policy. If you don't have that, and it's not clearly communicated, you're going to be massively on. the blackfoot incentive justifying any dismissals.
19:19
But even if you're not, even if you're taking a softer approach, I think in the circumstances, all employers should put in place a vaccine policy. It's not, we're not talking 10, 20 pages, a relatively short document. But I think you need to set up your position inside the employees feel. They get the right information. They know what to get the information. They know who to ask difficult queries to understand the business, rationale behind whatever position is taking, all of this sort of information.
19:43
You could communicate it in e-mails and memos, that kind of thing. But I think you should underpin with it with a policy that get shared around. We can certainly help with them, preparing those policies for you.
19:55
I'm final point, if you are collecting information about who has a health policy, has or hasn't had, the vaccine. Sorry, remember, that is sensitive personal data, because it's to do with medical treatment, when someone has had so much data protection obligations around that sensitive, personal data, and make sure you don't kid yourself.
20:16
What outside spoke with this session to go into detail that? But, yeah. It's just a point I wanted to put on the radar.
20:25
OK, that was a very whistle stop tour of the Covert Vaccine for Employers. I can see we had 17 questions in the seven minutes, that, I don't think 18 now, I don't think we're gonna get to all of these, but remain as been keeping an eye on them, so, I mean, if you want to fire away.
20:40
Thanks, Matt. So the first question, just on data protection, was about changing terms and conditions for new starters to make it so that they have to provide evidence of vaccinations. So that's something they can consider.
20:57
Yeah, that's something you consider. It's a pretty sensible step. Again, anything you'll get into the classroom level to do its best have it in the contract of employment.
21:04
And you might have people who refuse even to tell you whether they've had the job or not never mind, whether they're refusing the jacket, they just might not tell you. They're saying, well, I don't think that's any of your business. I think That's difficult. Stands for the individuals to hold in the circumstances we are in at present. You Usually, you'd be absolutely fine. Usually it takes for your business.
21:27
What what my, my most medical information is.
21:31
My own personal data, but I think here, where it does have a direct impact on other employees, on other people, customers, clients, residents, and et cetera, and I think if someone does data science, you can probably take quite a hard line against. But Yeah, absolutely. You want to put it in the contrasts that. Certainly no harm in doing so.
21:49
So, yes, it's a show on style.
21:53
The next question is is it OK to challenge without being dismissing any concerns an employee may have over having a vaccine?
22:04
Yeah. Yeah, and, I appreciate sorry. Some of these questions are going to have come in, and I may have covered them, So, I'll be brief, but, yes, absolutely challenged. Ah, yeah. So much the same way. She shouldn't be afraid to inform people about all the good news about Pepsi.
22:16
You shouldn't be afraid to taking a similar sentence. And I think the question was quite right, Cengage of cautious about this and understanding in your approach, if someone does come up with like the Bill Gates area, for example, don't don't be shy about trying to persuade them that that's wrong and say, look, that does not actually evidence to back this up.
22:35
And, again, careful with your sources for this, but providing them with information to try and dispel that myth and say, Look, can you go? And I think, probably read what we've we've sent you, and here's a few of the sources you might want to look into. And potentially, some of the people come out and speak to and to try and re-assure them. It's probably not going to work with all that many people, but even if, you know, if you, if you've got 10 people to think that way, and you change the mind of 1 or 2, But still wanted to problem potential problems that have been fixed.
23:03
Thanks, Matt. And we have a question about the adult population, Not having access and often the vaccine, and to the end of July, do we need to wait until then acting?
23:17
You don't. Well, it's the safest bet, would be to wait until the end, but I appreciate that's not going to be workable to some people. And, again, this goes back to the indirect discrimination discrimination point that I made. Because you're right. You're going to be in a situation where, unless you wait until everyone has been offered the vaccine, and you'll say either everyone come back in, which having everyone come back to work. And a lot of people won't be protected, Or you start bringing people back in trenches. And then potentially that raises the risk of indirect age discrimination.
23:48
But, I appreciate that the commercial reality of the situation is that a lot of employers won't be able to wait for those that are lucky enough, that pretty much everyone can work from home and functions, fine, that, yes. I would say, unless there's a good reason to, I wouldn't be accelerating the return surface anytime soon. But, you know that, that's a luxury, that not that, well, quite a lot of employees do, but an awful lot don't. Say, no, you don't have to wait for if you are thinking of bringing people back saying that before everyone have a vaccine. That. yeah, you do need to think carefully about how do you bring back then.
24:20
I mean it's probably going to be the case. Even if you wait until July, the PPE and social distancing will maintain will still be around for awhile yet. But I'll be even more important if you've got people coming back in situations where you notice.
24:35
Thanks, Matt. So what about people refusing to come back to work because they have not yet been vaccinated or because others have not been vaccinated? How do we do those?
24:46
So, the ones refusing to come back because they haven't yet been vaccinated. I take that to mean people who are willing to have a vaccine, but they just haven't had, we haven't been able to access it yet. And, yeah. The health and safety concerns is a similar point. That's that's. Rather than Because the focus of this session has been on those who are refusing. What about those people who say, look, I love talking about to you? But I haven't haven't yet, and I'm concerned about health and safety of myself and my colleagues of coming back to work. This, this goes to that balancing point. I was saying, and it's why, Excuse me. It's such a tricky issue, because that is the health and safety obligations.
25:20
That an employer, how you have an obligation to look after the health and safety of your existing employees.
25:26
So by allowing people to come back to work where, some of which haven't had the job, even though I've got the job, obviously, but but some of which, particularly, where they deliberately chose, not to have the job, you're exposing those employees to an X, An excessive, I'd been excessive degree of risk.
25:42
So it's a tricky balancing point on that front. And that's why the reason that the random easy answers our, I'm not gonna say yes. You should definitely today, so definitely do that. But there's a balancing act to be happy.
25:52
The right approach is going to depend on so many specific facts about the employees, in question, how they work, where they work, all those sorts of things.
25:59
That is tricky for those employees, employees refusing to come back to work, because of that risk, I think, similar sort of approach in that you need to try and re-assure them as much as you can, in terms of what you're doing to protect, to protect them. Particularly if you're asking them to come back before they've been able to have the job.
26:17
And but it's again, if they're refusing to come back, it does raise potential issues because it Employees have a right and this isn't new to vaccines.
26:29
This has been around for awhile, have the right to sort of say, Look, I'm not coming back to work. If you're because coming back to Work Escapes it reach my health and safety shapes, gives you an example.
26:38
Build a Goes to a site. You can see the scaffolding stops fall down and they're told to go with it.
26:41
They can feed and they potentially protected influenza for a detriment because of of doing that, but obviously exempt occupies. A very obvious one.
26:50
This is less of a Suppose And, again, it's it's not an easy answer. You don't just say I will find it out to come back, but equally it, you wouldn't necessarily take such a simple, straightforward line to say tough come back. You've got to consult with them. You've got to try and re-assure them. Again, This does options, like, continuing to work from home, Continued, use of low. Potentially, there's lots of other alternatives. you can, you can use, but, I think, initially, you would want to be trying to persuade them, that you've done everything. You can to minimize the risk, and, ultimately, people have to understand that even when everyone's been vaccinated driver has been offered, the vaccine is going to be late.
27:25
Don't have the vaccine for various reasons.
27:28
Even when you talked about seeing, the virus is still going to be around for a while, so we're never going to get the risk level to Xavier.
27:34
We've got a bad, I mean, there's never going to be a time, we can take you to come back to work. And you've got zero chance of catching code, but it's not going to happen.
27:40
So you've got to, bear in mind that the, where's, where's the point, that it is, OK, well, he used to say, It's difficult, one paper, that's not opinions. But when you've got to the point where you're comfortable, you put in all of those, actually. It's really explaining about those who tried to persuade individuals to come back.
27:57
Yep. So, if a member of staff refuses the vaccine, can they be asked to complete overseas the form, and would it be reasonable to require regular testing instead?
28:10
I mean, a refusal form isn't necessary, yeah.
28:14
A formal legal document, as such, I mean, you can't require anyone to complete any type work, but on the other hand, you're absolutely welcome as an employer to make a note as to why they have refi. It's subject to confidentiality reasons. Obviously you wouldn't necessarily want to stereotype and those people need to know that should see it.
28:32
And so, the refusal form, I think, I wouldn't get too hung up on, I'll not necessarily. But I would absolutely be recording the reasons why people turned on vaccines, because you're going to need to know.
28:44
And to keep that, keep that confidential, you can, yeah, they, regular testing is another.
28:51
An example of the alternative measures that you can take zones as a social distancing continued GCP, that kind of thing. And again, go to the last question which I will say, well, what do you do about worried about coming up yet? But again, you can say, well, if we're testing every one on a regular basis, again, it's not going to get the risks to zero. But all of this stuff is massively reducing the risk. So yeah. If it's workable directly test people. Particularly if you're bringing people back before the vaccine has been fully disseminated to the population. That seems like a very sensible approach.
29:22
It's, it's another reason why it might be, if we look at the negative side, which is another reason why it might be difficult to justify dismissing. So I wonder if you just because, again, the argument would be, well, a good alternative would be to just test everyone regularly, but validated trait, wouldn't it? And then you could still have these people back, again. It comes back to that difficult balancing exercise between the two. So there's so many tricky issues here. It's not.
29:46
There's very few yes or no? Very few simple answers like that.
29:49
Unfortunately, it's an area that is completely uncharted say, There's a lot of educated guess work. It's fast moving sameness, developments not expecting any significant legislative sentiments. But certainly in terms of guidance and opinions being given by ministers and various entities that are being fired off left, right, and center, particularly around the recruitment side of things at the moment.
30:10
So it's a overall message for employees is get your house in order, as much as you can. get a policy together.
30:19
But be very flexible, and very they're prepared to be flexible with how you operate that policy.
30:26
Making exceptions to certain people, really be prepared to talk to people as much as possible about and communicate with your staff.
30:34
And so if you try and get through, what is an incredibly difficult situation is as best as you can in the circumstances.
30:41
So that brings us to the end of the webinar, And I'd say if there's anything, you want any further information on a specific queries, then do let me know, and I'll be happy to help. There's going to be a recording of the webinar posted on our ... page on our website. And I think that's going to get sent to everyone who signed up, but couldn't join any way.
31:02
So if you've got any colleagues, or anyone else, you don't, you might be interested, they will be able to access this retrospectively, so all that stuff to me is to say thank you very much for joining on the day.
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