Coronavirus and working from home

[JamesT]

I do part-time work at a local (horse) riding school, so obviously the prospect of "working from home" simply isn't possible - for any of us at the yard - as, of course, horses need feeding and their stables need mucking out, daily.

After the lockdown announced earlier today, I don't know whether or not we'll be permitted to continue working there for at least the next couple of weeks; I'm not entirely clued-up about the rules of this lockdown, but wasn't there something about banning "gatherings" of two or more people?

Either way, I'm just waiting to be informed by the yard owner as to what the situation will be. If nobody is allowed back, she'll most likely have to take on the work of (usually) five or six of us, for goodness knows how long! Poor woman!

https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...dance-on-staying-at-home-and-away-from-others has the guidance on when to stay at home.

Travelling to and from work, but only where this absolutely cannot be done from home.
These four reasons are exceptions - even when doing these activities, you should be minimising time spent outside of the home and ensuring you are 2 metres apart from anyone outside of your household.

Mucking out horses clearly can't be done remotely, so I'd say that would cover you.

3. Stopping public gatherings
To make sure people are staying at home and apart from each other, the Government is also stopping all public gatherings of more than two people.

There are only two exceptions to this rule:

where the gathering is of a group of people who live together - this means that a parent can, for example, take their children to the shops if there is no option to leave them at home.
where the gathering is essential for work purposes - but workers should be trying to minimise all meetings and other gatherings in the workplace.

Again, if this is something necessary for your work, it's allowed. I would have thought that it ought to be possible to structure things so you weren't working right alongside your colleagues to minimise the risk.

 

[lxfe_mxtterz]

https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...dance-on-staying-at-home-and-away-from-others has the guidance on when to stay at home.

Mucking out horses clearly can't be done remotely, so I'd say that would cover you.

Again, if this is something necessary for your work, it's allowed. I would have thought that it ought to be possible to structure things so you weren't working right alongside your colleagues to minimise the risk.

Ah, that makes sense. Thank you.

 

[DelayRepay]

In my company (as with many companies, I imagine), we often moan and complain about IT (both the equipment/systems and the department). Never again.

In the last few weeks, they have built and issued hundreds of laptops, massively increased VPN capacity and provided all sorts of solutions and workarounds to give people the ability to work from home. We are fortunate that we've just gone through a laptop replacement programme, and all the old laptops were still on site so have been rebuilt. Every cupboard has been searched for any spare equipment that can be pressed into service.

This is a company where it normally takes weeks for broken equipment to be replaced, and can take over a year to procure new software.

 

[MadCommuter]

My situation has now got worse. Other departments have been sent home but as we have no remote access, I now have no way to contact them! It's ludicrous that no-one has planned for this.

 

[Bletchleyite]

My situation has now got worse. Other departments have been sent home but as we have no remote access, I now have no way to contact them! It's ludicrous that no-one has planned for this.

Well, your management needs to manage and sort that out, don't they?

 

[MadCommuter]

Well, your management needs to manage and sort that out, don't they?

They certainly do. There was so much assumption we'd never come to this, despite the actions in other European countries.