From the 1st July, businesses will be able to bring back employees who have been furloughed for at least three weeks on or before 30 June, on a flexible basis. This can be done over any period of time and on any shift pattern, the employee would then be furloughed for the rest of the time if not required.
As we all know the JRS (Job Retention Scheme) entitles businesses to claim for 80% of the wage of a furloughed employee under the flexible furlough (subject to the £2500 monthly cap), employers will have to pay their employees in full for any hours worked.
So how do we work it out?
If nothing is changing in your business and you are not asking staff to return, your calculations won’t change, although your contribution will increase come Aug 1st.
However, if you will be bringing back staff on a part-time basis, you’ll need to work out how many hours each employee usually works and offset this from the number of hours they have been furloughed.
Will I need to change my agreements?
Government guidelines state that you will need a ‘new written agreement’ to confirm the new arrangement.
So if you require those agreements for your employees then please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
To summarise
The main aim of the government’s decision to apply this flexible furlough scheme is to reduce the number of redundancies during this lockdown transitional period amid the global coronavirus pandemic.
On the gov.uk website it states that;
- “for July, the government will pay 80% of wages up to a cap of £2,500 for the hours the employee is on furlough, as well as employer National Insurance Contributions (ER NICS) and pension contributions for the hours the employee is on furlough. Employers will have to pay employees for the hours they work
- for August, the government will pay 80% of wages up to a cap of £2,500 for the hours an employee is on furlough and employers will pay ER NICs and pension contributions for the hours the employee is on furlough”
We will be posting about all the updates due for August so please check them out to make sure you and your business is operating correctly.
